On a chilly gray October morning, one year after Sputnik was launched and four months before Buddy Holly died, I was born, the second son of the guy who ran the Tilt-a-Whirl at the carnival. A paying job drawing cartoons for the Los Angeles Kings booster club at age 14 convinced me that this art stuff was an effective way to avoid working for a living and turned my attention away from my previous career of vandalizing vending machines.

Several years of well-deserved obscurity followed, during which I designed patches for outlaw biker gangs, sculpted little clay bunny rabbits for craft shops, twisted balloon animals at birthday parties, and appeared onstage as a killer pygmy, a dinosaur and a British housemaid. After a brief stint creating t-shirt designs for Corona Beer, I moved on to such projects as illustrating the Hooked on Phonics reading program.

My work experience includes 3-D modeling and computer animation, telemarketing (selling fraudulent investments), coloring comic books, website design, dressing in a chicken suit, photo retouching, and airbrush painting. I have never learned to juggle.

I carry a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in my wallet in case I am ever arrested. I can't whistle, but I have correctly used the word "encephaloplegia" in a sentence. I've been caller number nine and won the concert tickets. I have no tattoos, and my lifelong ambition is to be a curmudgeon.