70s films.

12 year old scotch.

Nev­er by the numbers.

A high school guid­ance coun­selor once told me I couldn’t make a liv­ing as a writer and had to be an engi­neer. For­tu­nate­ly, I didn’t lis­ten and over the years I’ve had the chance to write stuff that paid the bills, cre­ate and shape brands, win some awards, and most impor­tant­ly make a dif­fer­ence for my clients. I’ve also devel­oped an out­sized fas­ci­na­tion with Pink Floyd, 1970s films, and good scotch — and occa­sion­al­ly I ask myself why. Maybe it’s the same rea­son I want­ed to be a writer. Icon­ic rock and roll can be ring­ing cash reg­is­ters, bark­ing dogs, and howl­ing back­up singers. Excit­ing movies can be slow char­ac­ter stud­ies. And deli­cious whisky can taste a lit­tle like a burned Band-Aid. There’s not a sin­gle right answer in the things that real­ly move us. That guid­ance coun­selor just didn’t grasp that. But he was also a math teacher, so I’ll cut him some slack.