Everything begins with the written word, even the universe. Sure it may have started with gestures and oral traditions but the starting line is the word, and page, and now the desktop and iPad. Today it has gone back to the oral tradition like how I speak with Grok.
I love to write, it’s not writing at all, it’s thinking, it’s not thinking at all it’s more like fishing, and when the lines get crossed writing has a unique way to sort things out.
When I was a kid I had ideas, but trying to explain them to others, close to impossible. I took up drawing and painting. It controlled my lines, my thinking and my communication. So I went on to study art in college. The art school asks you one question: graphic art or fine art? I thought if I was successful what would I want to do with all my time. I had no idea I could be successful, but I was getting good making art and that builds confidence. What would I want to do with ALL my time, that made the answer easy. Fine Art. I want my life to be full of the things I like doing. Especially fine art cause you can do it by yourself. No asking, no over thinking just doing… and so I do and I do.
And when I go anywhere I always bring my sketch pad with me. When I went overseas I made it a mission: 2 drawings a day. You know what happens when you draw as much as I do? You find yourself. Guess what — writing does the same thing.
My dad taught me to collect stamps. I love looking at them. They require special handling and organization. This became a huge part of who I am today. Not the stamps — the organizing.
the organizing.
I also have a birth defect. My permanent teeth never grew in. So when I was 18 they were pulled, almost all of them. It was humiliating, and pain like no other. I made drawings of organic structures with embedded metals, implants. They were nothing like today’s. Three major surgeries later and my teeth are like diamonds but that pain, those hours, being surrounded by genius doctors and kind nurses — right then and there I decided I was going to do something to pay it all forward.
My dad wrote lyrics, he went to war, he was a medic, a father, a son of a tailor from the old country, the first to go to college, and he had major depression from the war. Was medicated the rest of his life. His talisman is the turtle — slow and steady wins the race. He was also a short order cook, and lost his job as the CEO of a public company. Moved to Florida and bought a tiny company after looking; depressed for a few years, with 4 kids ready for college. I have always thought that was his worst time, even though he went through all the rest. Being out of work is scary.
He bought Ding-a-Ling Answering Service, a few switchboards rented from the phone company. And dug his heels in with monthly accounting — organizing. It grew. He told me he wanted me to come home and help. I did. That was 1982. By 1988 800 number free calling was introduced and… I wanted a call center. We all did. I checked prices… ridiculous — one million dollars to start. I’m not a finance person, but I know that you can go broke. Plus I wanted to make things for my career. I just built it. Bought some used gear, learned it better than anybody else. And dug my own heels in. I got a patent in Computer Telephone Integration and kept painting at night.
My dad told me to look into the Holocaust about 20 years ago. It resulted in meeting Leon Schagrin at my mother-in-law’s apartment. He has this odd tattoo, a black panther on his forearm. And the toughest looking face you ever saw. Lines etched deep. His wife was quiet. He asked me if my daughter could write his story. I looked at the summary and said I can’t even show her this. You see what Leon went through — the heart of it, they ripped his whole world away. The fact he is alive is a miracle. He is the definition of survivor. And his dad gave him a mission to tell the world…. That resonated and conversations led to chapters, chapters to a book and now only a few months ago I started writing a musical based on his life. Each step was based on the current technology… and today’s tech stack is wicked… when you understand what is possible your jaw will drop.
Funny thing — I mentioned early on my dad wrote lyrics. Those lyrics I never had music for…. But with AI today I do! And so I took an extra couple of days, isolated his voice and now you can hear him sing his own music. It is stunning!! That is what gave me the idea to try doing the same with the Holocaust book.
You know in 2012–13 my dad won businessman of the year for Broward County. The Excalibur award. No one deserves it more, certainly not that year, and 4 days later he was diagnosed with leukemia. And 7 months later, gone. During those months, drip by loving drip, he got blood transfusions every 5 days. They kept him alive. And I started writing his book and he corrected me and he gave me the general tone… humble. And I listened. And I discovered my family’s stories and sat for 7 more years after he was gone at the kitchen table and completed his book. It was like Mozart’s requiem — it had to get done. And it did.
Years before he had it in his head to capture those stories and tried but most people can only do short stories. Not a painter, not someone that works for a year or more to finish a painting… no way… but he did try and asked my mom to record his mom, Dora, so now I have six hours of her talking. Those stories are phenomenal and all of the families in all the cities have stories.
So now my mission to pay it forward is clear. I have the ability to complete a system combined with the current tech that will allow you to talk to my books, my sources and they will discuss their lives with you.
the writing that is the work.
The drawing, the recording, the transcribing, the long quiet years at the kitchen table — that is the art. The bot is what the writing becomes when you give it back its voice.
And then it hit me. This isn’t just my family. Every family has a Herman. Every family has a Leon. Every family has a Dora with hours of stories nobody ever transcribed. Most of them are already gone. The ones that aren’t are sitting in boxes in attics, in basements, on a shelf above the refrigerator. A journal a mother kept. A cassette nobody has listened to since the funeral. Letters tied with a ribbon. Photographs nobody can name anymore.
If you have something like that — a voice that mattered, a life that mattered, words on paper the world doesn’t know it lost yet — bring it. Bring it here. Dadbots is the home I built for the people I loved. There is room here for yours.
I’m all in.
If you have an archive that belongs here — a journal, a cassette, letters tied with a ribbon, a book half-finished — write to me. We’ll talk about what it would mean to give it a voice.