A Manhattan native, I grew up in Morningside Heights across from Columbia University. Now if you knew the city in the 70's, this was quite pioneering. And no we didn't have a driver, that is our building appearing in a movie. Apparently both the big and small screens favorited the building - it appeared in Sugar Hill, Witness, Enchanted, The Longest Week and tons of episodes of Law & Order, Grey’s Anatomy and many more.
Then I attended LaGuardia High School of music and art & the performing arts, A.K.A. "Fame school" where I studied guitar and trombone and “worked” with true musicians (not the electronically produced and auto-tuned crap you hear on the radio today).
For the record, our Jazz band was insane. Played for POTUS at the Waldorf Astoria, on a float down Amsterdam avenue, and won Downbeat magazine’s high school band of the year. Some incredibly talented musicians and teachers went through our halls.
I left the city for Binghamton University, where I continued playing music, varsity tennis and added Psychology. Lived on campus for the first two years in “college in the woods”. By junior year, it was time to move out and I lived in a run-down house with 9 other guys (non-frat) - shout out to 93 Chapin.
After college, I returned home to my parents place. I played a few professional jazz gigs but quickly realized that this path wasn’t going to last. So I started my career in the business world in sales, realized sales wasn’t my calling and shifted towards the ad agency world where i found the combination of marketing strategy, media, creative and technology to be my calling.
About three years after joining the corporate world, I met my future wife...we moved in together about 3 years later in a tiny little place on the upper east side. A few year stint in Hells Kitchen and we knew it was time to leave the city and get hitched. So we proceeded to the other side of the Hudson river and have been living in Jersey ever since.
Then we decided to start a (pet) family. Our first pup was Moose, a wheaten terrier. He was a lover, not a fighter.
After Moose passed (RIP), we decided again to get a wheaten… and welcomed Cooper Bradley into our lives.
Clearly if you have pups, you need at least one kid… enter Emma Caitlin Appel. The shocking red hair was a surprise to us all…
But apparently the modelling agencies love it…she signed with Ford at 6 months and has been going since.
But why only have 1 pup when you really want 2?
First, we added Rosie Perez, a feisty little thing that we adopted after she was found homeless on St. Martin after the big hurricane there. While we loved her, she unfortunately was a lot older and passed away suddenly after just 2 years with us. So we decided to adopt again - this time a “havashit” puppy named Mocha.
