As I reflect back I realize I don’t fully understand this life and reality. But I’m trying to let go of worry, let go of bitterness, let go of negative patterns, and to embrace wonder, kindness, laughter and compassion. I think there is something profound and also absurd about being human. I’m content with this beauty and chaos swirling in me. I used to think I needed so much, and I realize that I don’t need much, and I love being alone. But I am spending more time with my daughter—trying to spend more time in the forests and … Read the rest

Check out the Chicago Underground Film Festival trailer I directed with Usilia Warood and cinematography by Ben Hernstrom.

If you enjoy my films please consider purchasing my latest zine Boy from War. These are selections from my art journals when I was 18 years old and full of passion and angst. I was a romantic weird guy, trying to figure out my life by working out my stuff in drawings and words.

30 years later I decided to publish this embarrassing work as a peak into my headspace as a young man.

I think of this as a type of time-machine that can fuse my past and present into something new.

This is a hardcover zine with 80 … Read the rest

Rare polaroid (my mom found) of our house in Basra, Iraq after several bombings in 1982.

These are stories from my childhood about being lost in the night with my dad, the war in Iraq with my dog, and dropping acid.

Rare picture of me teaching at the University of Colorado Boulder on how to direct actors in film.

(picture by Geoff Marslett)

A film-in-progress with Usilia Warood.

Muffin

I made this short movie over 18 years ago on a cold winter night in Chicago. I convinced a good friend to buy me a Sony 3-chip mini-digital video camera, in exchange to stay in my crappy apartment for free. Back then, especially coming out of film school, video was considered low-brow, cheap and crass. But I loved video and enjoyed the possibilities it gave me. I could finally grab a camera and do it all myself. This early short movie set the DNA of much of my later work. The interview style mixed within a narrative, the … Read the rest