I was born in a small town in Maine.

When I was 13 I found Simon & Garfunkel records. I listened to them for a few years and decided I should become an artist.

I was tone deaf and didn't like the idea of lessons so I watched on TV how Mr. Simon's hands moved on the guitar. That's how I learned to play the guitar. By singing along, I overcame my tone deafness, or perhaps created a binary system of remembering pitches. Like a computer.

If nothing else, I have a good memory.

I studied theater at Dartmouth College and met Pavol Liska. We have since founded the experimental theater group Nature Theater of Oklahoma and our peculiar work is invited into cities the world over.

I started making short films. I would have preferred to just act in them, but someone had to direct. I love editing.

I moved to New York City.

When I was 25 I recorded my first album, Songs of Straw & Gold. I haven't listened to it for awhile, but I remember it having some nice touches.

When I was 29, I went to Nashville to record four new songs for a compilation album released by Wild Oats Records, which they called Mighty Above All Things. I was pleased with the Biblical title they chose. The night before I recorded Amelia Earhart, I nearly broke some ribs.

These four songs and several others, recorded in a room in Manhattan, comprise my new album and best work to date, Athletes of Romance (to be officially released Aug 1st, 2006 by How land? Is land? Music). It was co-produced by Robert Johanson (co-founder of Boston's The Stairs), who also performs on several of the tracks.

I perform my music live, at venues throughout NYC like CBGB's, The Bowery Poetry Club, and The Knitting Factory, or in New England. I have been graciously asked to sing at the next Leonard Cohen Event in Berlin, in August 2006. As far as playing live goes, I used to be very quiet between songs, but now I like to throw my two cents in.

My work is an attempt to crystallize into snapshots the bizarre experience of being alive. Sentient life, after all, doesn't seem like the most natural state of things. I find comfort in articulating my bewilderment. Sometimes the articulation helps to make sense of things, or even better, mercifully relieves the need to make sense at all. I also want people to love me and be attracted to me, so I publicize my work and hope that it will win me affection. Hence, the flattering photos.

I'm primarily concerned with elemental themes, and attempt to express them in an elemental but illuminating fashion. I try to write for the long-ago dead and the far-off unborn, as well as my peers, because I believe one's work has to transcend one's little lifetime if it's going to shed any light on that lifetime, while one is living it. That's all I'm concerned with: light in this life. Immortality is for the birds.

And as they are all love songs, they are never really complete. An atheist by traditional definition, I am always looking for something higher than what surrounds me. I want to tap into that part of life, or that part of my brain, that is able to hover gracefully above the mess. Like the beautiful, immortal hummingbird.

I don't know what else to do with myself.