Re-lighting Fuse

It’s been a minute.

For many of us in the Fuse community, we have not communicated since the Love > Fear event in October 2017 to benefit refugees. I want to thank everyone involved for making that evening so powerful, and apologize for not staying in touch. As you all know, paying bills can be time consuming.

The embers from Love > Fear never burned out, and the fanned sparks are re-lighting Fuse. (Please stop reading if I use another bad pun). I wanted to make you aware of some exciting new realities for Fuse.

First we have a new website, thanks to the brilliance and patience of Val Leeper, who, when she signed up for the gig, did not understand the breadth of my various manifestations of mental illness.

In any case, thanks Val for your amazing work. Please check out the new website (I have included a link at the end of this blog), which is focused on telling stories, recruiting clients and, most of all, keeping my family from living in a van down by the French Broad River.

Fuse is a collective of artists working on projects together, including recent graduate Aidan Weaver (I lost the bet), who sometimes lets me hold his film degree from North Carolina School of Arts; Will Osigian, a bright young Asheville filmmaker, who also does an amazing Trump impersonation; Dan Friedman, whose voice you would recognize from many commercials, and some of our old favorites — Aimie Burns, Hank Lueck, Tim Allmond, Daniel Ross, and Val (if she can stop mumbling swear words at me). I am genuinely stoked to be working with such an amazing core of artists and friends — people I respect and love deeply.

In even better news relating to the Fuse community, my daughter, Annalyse is getting married. Many of you are already engaged (this was an accidental pun, so keep reading) in helping with the event, and we are so excited for a kick-ass celebration on July 27.

This is an engagement photo I took of Annalyse and Jose, a DACA student who attends Western Carolina University with ultimate plans of becoming an immigration attorney. Besides the fact that he runs like a little girl when chased by a bat, Jose has won us over with his charm, intelligence, humor and care for our daughter. Annalyse will join Jose at Western this fall to pursue a major in social work. Because the Fuse community has played such a major role in shaping Annalyse through endless investment, I desire to share blogs with you in the days leading up to the wedding. (I especially want to get to the story of how I bought Jose a pack of Depends in case another bat stalks him).

That’s it for now. Stay tuned and please share the upcoming blogs and our new website.