ALL ABOUT RAFE

I was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and live on the west side of New York City.  Having worked for the legal compliance industry, fashion industry, music industry, art industry, and flesh industry (the most interesting people on earth have), the most life-changing employment was learning and teaching Meisner Technique of Acting.  I suspect that’s because I hadn’t cash for proper therapy at the time. 

I cannot be handcuffed to one discipline only:  in addition to prose I love writing classical music for orchestra and small ensemble, country music songs, musical theater, plays, and screenplays.  The moment somebody tells me I should stick to one thing only is the moment I want to smack 'em.  The creative process is exactly the same for me in each genre.  I write because I feel buried alive and suffocated, and I shovel my way to the surface until I can breathe again through words, cadences, and movement.  Be it words or notes, the origin, the schlep, and the endpoint are equally compelling and equally mandatory.  

I’ve found New York City to be an apple best consumed when juiced for its sweetness rather than bitten for its bulk; thus I am continually grateful for all the small bits and squeezes of creative support and adversary I’ve received here that make me a braver and freer writer, composer, listener, learner, watcher, doer, loser, and winner.

I’m mostly grateful to my twin brother (the straight one).  Whether at my side or separated by a continent, he continues to make the slicing through this rambling, thorny life worthwhile. 

Delectables:

• Character development so strong you don’t even realize the plot is even stronger until you’re completely entrenched.
• Two-stepping, Line-dancing, and West Coast Swinging
• Alfred Hitchcock and the continuing noble ambitions of all his cinematic wannabes
• Mom’s teriyaki chicken and lemon meringue pie
• My brothers paintings, one of which I’ve maligned in the background of my header on this website
• Korean films
• Sanford Meisner
• Samuel Barber’s Essays, and the second movement of his Violin Concerto

Odiousness:

• Narcissism and all its tentacles
• Over-posting nitwits on social media
• Sitcoms in novel form
• Unkind people
• Laze and malaise
• Viewing of television without discretion
• Heterophobia among my gay peeps
• Enabling chemical, alcohol, and emotional dependencies
• Crutches, and miles to go
• Professional bulldozers