What inspired you to create "Tales of Mere Existence?"
I don't remember the initial reason, but a lot of these stories were ones that I'd tell people about over and over at parties or bars or whatever, and after a while I figured if I told them in video form, I'd never really be able to tell them verbally again. Kind of sticks the nail in the coffin and forces you to have new stupid experiences so you have more stories to tell.

What is your film background?
Me & my brother got a little super 8 camera when we were kids, and made some of the most demented shorts that ever classified as home movies. We had a bunch of adult comedy records from the 60's we had stolen from our dad, Nichols & May, Alan Sherman, Bill Cosby and stuff like that and so we developed a pretty adult sense of humor by accident, and totally passed over the potty humor stage. We did parodies of Television commercials, used car salesmen and news broadcasts before either of us entered double digit ages. I got back into it when I got into Art school, and I majored in Video Art. I went knee deep into Bohemia, and did a lot of abstract stuff influenced by the Mummenschanz. After college, I made tons of bizarre subversive comedy shorts that did okay in film festivals, and then I made a movie called "Liberty Beast" which was like a Sesame Street for adults. That was such an enormous project, I cooled it for a while and didn't do anything until I started "Tales".

Are all of the scenarios based on you own personal experiences?
Yeah, but their not just based in fact, they're pure unadultrated fact. Whenever I've even tried exaggerating a story a little, it falls flat for me so I stick to what actually happened. I think people would be able to tell if any of it was bullshit.

Do you have any future projects you are planing to work on?
I never know what I'm going to do until it's 99 percent done. I don't think too far in advance, so I'm just planning to do "Tales" until I get sick of it.

Your short films exalt the everyday, mundane realities of existence. Is this an attempt to compensate for a perceived deficit in these qualities in art, or do you feel that all facets of life are equally precious and deserving of being captured in art?
I don't really know. But I know that I get kind of bored with movies with totally evil Villians in them, because there aren't a lot of situations I know of where a person is truly good or truly evil.. I somehow get sick of implausable stories, but maybe that's just where I am right now. I get into more or less true stories, where you can get into someone's head. I don't know if that really answers the question.

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