Book project: A series of seemingly innocuous documents, such as this personal ad, are run through the archtypical legal department for approval. The ammended document is then presented after the lawyers are through with it.

Before:

Writer for a product roll out.

Aunt Della's
The Original Recipe that Made Cookie History

  Whenever people credit me with inventing the gourmet cookie, I always have to tell them about my Aunt Della. It was in her kitchen that my love affair with the chocolate chip cookie began, watching her work and ptiently waiting to lick the bowl and spoon. While the cookies I've made in the past were pretty good, I still think my Aunt Della's cokkies were the best in the world.
   Now that the secret's out, I've decided to give everyone a chance to taste the inspiration for the original gourmet cookie.

Wally Amos
Formally known as Famous Amos

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Awards ceremony written and directed for a presentation on advances in treatment of Hepatitis C, featuring comedian Martin Short. The evening traced the chronology of medical advances in context with world and cultural events.

Peter Sago 1973 was a bad year to be working in the White House. In April, Nixon accepted the resignation of H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman and then fired John Dean, all the while denying any knowledge of the Watergate break-in or cover-up. On August 8, Nixon stopped denying and resigned. In April ’74, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army robbed the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco. The money was never recovered, nor did anybody ever figure out where Symbia was.                                Martin Short In 1975, Paul Simon released his platinum album, “Still Crazy After All These Years.” An early activist against the spread of hepatitis, it’s rumored he originally entitled the hit song from the album, “50 Ways to Love Your Liver.”                                (to the band) Hit it guys.                                    (sings) The problem’s all inside your guts, she said to me. The answer is easy if you think hepatically I’d like to help you beat the scourge of HCV There must be fifty ways to love your liver. Just lay off the smack, Jack. Eat some more bran, Stan. Don’t get a tattoo, Lou. Just listen to me. Watch out for pus, Gus. Don’t want to drink booze much! Keep testing your blood, Bud. And beat HCV.

Writer and designer of this pitch for a reality television project. Click for the pdf.

A Memoir

It had been years since I abandoned the mainland, tearing up roots in a hurricane of restlessness. Whatever demons I had run from hadn't yet caught up with me in Hawaii, blown from my soul by the trade winds, washed clean by the ocean, and for that I was thankful.
     The telephone doesn't respect big distances, of space nor time.

     "Hello?"
     "Dan?"
     "Yes..."
     "This is your father."
     "Who is this?"
     "Is this Dan?"
     "Yes. "
     "It's your father."
     "Stop it. Who is this?"
     I didn't recognize the voice, though I can't say I didn't compare it to the vocal pattern of my long-gone father. I suspected a prank but shuddered to think I knew anyone who'd pull this on me.
      "Is this Dan Ziegler?"
      "Yes it is. Your turn."
      "Maybe I'm mistaken. I'm Leonard Ziegler from Nebraska."
      "OK.  OK, you've got the wrong guy."
      "Oh."
      That simple.  There was a moment of silence out there in the great plains somewhere.
      "I'm sorry.  Goodbye."
      "Goodbye."

      We hung up.  It wasn't, as it turned out, my father at all, but a  father, a father who'd lost his son somewhere in the shuffle, who was googling across the country trying to find out where he'd gone wrong, lost track, forgotten. How he'd made a stranger of his own son, put off parenthood until the day that growing old and lonely scared him into reaching out and touching someone, his very own son, hopefully, but someone nonetheless. Me. Reaching out and touching me. A son who'd never really spoken to his father, on the horn or otherwise, a son that had put his father on the long list of things to disbelieve in, like tooth fairies and God, a marooned son on a tropical isle, slipping away from his tribe.

      "Hello?"
      "Mr. Ziegler?"
      "Yes..."
      I will find his number.  I will search all the Zieglers in Nebraska in 0.42 seconds.  I will search for him like he searched for me, and though I will know he is not my father, my search is the same as his, and a better opportunity to close may never offer itself to me.
      "I hope I'm not disturbing you. This is Dan Ziegler, the guy you called in Honolulu the other day."
      There will be that midwestern silence. I will go on uninvited.
      "I am sorry I'm not your son.  No.  I'm sorry you're not my father... that we matched..."
      "Yes."
      "If you find him, tell him I said not to waste the chance."
      "I will."
      "And if you're ever in Hawaii..."

      I'll never get that movie moment in the woods, late afternoon, snow on the ground, still-warm elk strapped to a muddy Explorer. They've just had a fist fight, the first time the boy's ever hit his dad, a lip is bleeding, their breath heaving in clouds as they simmer, check their wounds, eye each other carefully and finally find that manly talk only the screenwriters can manage for a man to express emotion. That's quite a left, kid.
      I write and rewrite that talk with my father, and suspect death offers no great impediment to our meeting, may in fact offer less than life did, given the facts of our lives.  But now I know I need to connect with my father. I need to make the call.