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I was born in the Summer of Love. Conceived in the Winter of our Discontent. And I grew up in an amusement park. That's right, an amusement park. Williams Grove Park in South Central Pennsylvania to be exact. My grandfather ran the, somewhat delapidated roller coaster - which still to this day frightens the hell out of people - and my grandmother sold french fries. I spent my childhood days between the arcade and the haunted house. My father was non-existant and my Mother married my pseudo-stepdad when I was three. Okay, enough of all this David Copperfield/Holden Caulfield crap - let's get on with the show.
This - as you have probably already discerned - is my website. I consider myself a Film Historian + Critic, as well as a Film Theorist and undying Cineaste. My first published film article was in a little bi-monthly periodical called Film Speak. It was in 1998, and it was a best of the year round-up, and if I had a scanner I would show you a copy of it. Film Speak - published from Harrisburg Pa - went from physical paper to the wilds of cyberspace in 2001. This coincided with the grand opening of The Midtown Cinema in Harrisburg. The "city's" first art house cinema. I was there on opening night to see the Coen Brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There, and I have been there ever since, even though I spend more time in Philadelphia and New York with press screenings, film festivals and such these days, I still strongly support the little cinema that could. You can see my own version of The History of The Midtown Cinema on this site.
As a quick sidebar, before going back to more of my film writings - in March 2000 (prior to most of my film writing) I wrote an article for MODEweekly - a shitty little free alternative paper that died out sometime in early 2001. You can read this article (somewhat truncated by an overzealous editor) right about HERE.
My next published bits of film critique were on the webzine The Circle. These were not my best work, but it was a few years before The Cinematheque made its debut and I became a lot more serious about my writings. My reviews could also be read in a local alternative paper called Central Alternative in 2004 and 2005. It isn't online, but one can read my Central Alt. reviews on this site, if one were so inclined.
And speaking of serious writings. Did you know that I am also a Poet? Of course you did - who doesn't? But for those few of you who may not know this, I'll explain a bit. In 1999, my wife (reknowned poetess Jeanette Trout) and I began Experimental Forest - the hottest poetry magazine ever envisioned. It ran a mere 9 issues and let out its final sighs in November 2001, but while it was around, it was a surprisingly popular little rag. We published a lot of local poets (Deborah Ryder, Julia Tilley, Rick Kearns, Jack Veasey, Harrisburg Poet Laureate Gene Hosey and Harrisburg Icon Marty Esworthy, among others) and we published some more well-known poets (Kerry Shawn Keys, Virgil Suarez and Richard Kostelanetz). I also found myself organizing and hosting multitudes of poetry gigs around the area, including the world famous Dozen Daze of Poetry Festival. It was during these years that I honed my poetic skills and was eventually published on three different continents and in over eighty publications, including Blindman's Rainbow, The Brobdingnagian Times, Mad Poets Review, The Blue Collar Review, Lost & Found Times, ZYX, Struggle and The Cumberland County 250th Anniversary Anthology.
If you want to read any of my words, there are some online. They can be found at Megaera (Summer 2001), Megaera (Fall 2001),
Megaera (Winter 2002) and Megaera (Spring 2003).
You can also read me at Steel Point Quarterly and Shirazad (including an interview of yrs truly). Well, actually, since these sites have since gone away into some sort of cyberspace purgatory, you can now only imagine what they looked like - but trust me, they rocked.
You can also read a short review of my work here, and if you want to read something not exactly in my favour, check out this bad review of one of my poems from Blue Beat Jacket.
On November 27, 2005, an article in The Harrisburg Patriot-News about yours truly appeared. Although the author of the article - Patriot Film Critic and friend, Mr. Li Wang - aged me from thirty-eight to thirty-nine, I am happy with the outcome.
I also sat upon the jury of the Harrisburg Film Festival in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Well, that is about it for me - for now - but I'm sure there will be more to come, so keep in touch...
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