Michael was my first BIG boss in the real world. I remember interviewing with him like it was yesterday. The office, the sunlight, the exposed brick and the immediate connection. Since that day back in 1997 a lot has happened and our relationship has grown from Young Junior Art Director/CEO to...
Ricky might have more stamps in his passport than I do. An intrepid documentarian and traveller, Ricky sees life frame by frame. We met back at Yahoo! and have been friends ever since. His brand of story fits perfectly with my desire to tell them. Through the years he’s made visual...
Ben Long and I have bumped uglies more times than you can count. Before you get ahead of yourself understand, that’s what happens when you share a tiny kitchen with a fellow chef. When not sweating over sauces and meat in a kitchen together we always plan for our next dinners and...
Trippple M and I go back. So far back that the first thing we worked on together was an ad campaign that used digital ad space as the medium and Adobe flash as the editing platform. This is way before YouTube was even an idea let alone possible. From then until now we’ve collaborated,...
Raul and I had known each other for about 5 minutes before it was clear we both shared an overwhelming love for food adventures. When he is not eating or taking random visitors around Lima to his favorite haunts, (as he did me and Tony) he’s busy being the editor of the popular...
Food, photos and Italian-ness. That’s how my first conversation with Ashley Batz went so, needless to say, I was instantly intrigued. As it turns out we’d talk a lot more in the next few weeks as we prepared to finish this project with her incredible photos. After I picked her up from...
David was shooting digital photography in 1998. I was a young junior Art Director and he was this pioneering photographer that taught me how to use digital photography in creative and in business. He also would cook me lunch whenever there was a client in the studio. It was sort of the...
Wyatt Neumann’s mold was shattered when his jewish parents gave birth to him on Native American soil. To know Wyatt would be to understand how this is simply par for the course. His skin, garb and stride exude badass cool but his heart is as tender as the filet mignon he doesn’t...
Give Ross 5 minutes and he’ll make you think, laugh and feel like a kid. Not necessarily in that order. One of the most organized people I know, running some of the largest projects marketing can conceive, Ross has a way of making everything work out. Whether its a huge project or a troubled...
I was introduced to Jeff three times independently. That should speak to his social circle. In a word, TREMENDOUS. Which also is an adjective used for the type of guy he is. Jeff’s one of those mild mannered, UBER connected guys that, most likely, has three degrees of separation from Obama but...
I first met Doug because he produced a project called LVHRD. Introduced to the idea through a conference he spoke at, I made it my mission to meet him and pick his brain about the invite only, random gathering, collective he dubbed LVHRD. I was fascinated by the idea that like minded people would...
Within the first 3 minutes of our first meeting Bengt and I were in the throws of a deeper conversation than a first lunch meeting typically produces. The topic might have been hospital birth vs home birth but I honestly can’t remember. Every lunch with Bengt Anderson has seemed to drag us...
Joey and I are what you call goombahs. It took no more than 30 minutes for him and I to bond a friendship that centered around food, Italian-isms and retouching. Yes retouching. I was still a green, 22 year old kid trying to make a life in advertising. We’re talking 1997-98. On day three of my...
People usually say they don’t make great friends late in life. After college and your 23rd birthday you are pretty much set with friends. Your circle is complete and you lock the front door. Everyone from there on out is an acquaintance. Sometimes that ridiculous norm is broken. For me, that...
With in the first five minutes of meeting Chris and Andrew I felt I’d known them for three hours. Three solid, carnivorous, men-hanging-out-talking-food-smack hours. And, that is precisely what followed. Let’s back up a bit. NYC sees a new restaurant open ever day. In this mid-recession...
I have known John as long as I have been alive. Over the last 35 years he has been many things to me. In precise order here is the list. 1. The first barrier of defense when my other cousin Joe would use me as a barbell 2. The person with the most number of comic books I have ever seen 3. A rock...
