In Conversation

When did you first realise you had all these wonderful images buzzing through your brain……?

I was about 6 or 7 maybe 10. I wrote a poem and i liked it. The images started to happen a few years later much later when at 13 I wrote articles and poems about World Peace. I also wanted to drop out of high school and and become a Philosopher or Spiritual soul.
I was a loner and was serious and strange a lot of the time.

When did you have your first poem published?

Before 1965 in small magazines and performed in Clubs lie Troubadour. World Wide 1969 or 1970 as a Poem in Weekly Unity Magazine.It was called God Is Alive in 1970. I dropped the 1970 after awhile.
Before that I published small books like If You Knew early sixties and songs after that for the Beach Boys .
but not on as large a scale as weekly Unity .I also wrote songs with the Beach Boys

How was it growing up in Brooklyn, realising you had this wonderful view of life?

I was growing up in Binghamton, New York not Brooklyn.
I was born in Endicott,New York

which of all your works fills you with the most joy?

I love many of them.It is hard to pick one but If You Knew gives me great joy and A Tale Of Man.
It depends upon my mood.

How do you write, do you have to sit down and concentrate or do they pop into your mind as if from nowhere?

They pop in everywhere driving sleeping on the freeway. something I see experience. I also can sit down and write but the key is to always be ready to receive the inspiration when it comes be ready catch it before it dissolves and disappears. I have lost many of them like catching a butterfly in a net. They fly through the holes.

Which poets inspire you?

Rilke,,T.S.Eliot,Whitman ,Baudelaire

Describe a perfect day for you?

I do not look for perfect days .I look for blessings and good days. A great grand day. Is a day I give some inspiration to help someone else through something.
If I can do it silently and without drawing attention to myself the better. Then going for a walk in the Mountains or on the Beach. I love walking then having a nice evening at a good healthy restaurant or at home.

Who are your favourite composers?

I love Beethoven, Bach,Mozart.
Modern composers PF Sloan. Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Tom Newman.

Tell me some of the major moments of your life that have made you into the person you are

I have to think about that one and get back to you.
I think of PF song Let Me Be
“I am what I am and that is all that I ever will be.”

How has California changed in the years you have lived there?

I do not know if California has changed or I have. I am in love with the beauty and colours the warmth and sweetness of it the gorgeous views and vision the idea of anything is possible that is still alive but diminishing in California and I am disturbed by its harshness and at times ruthless considerations people make in Business over all.