 He attended the University of California at San Diego where he was a Special Projects major, specializing in contemporary literary and film criticism and creative writing.He graduated "summa cum laude", then moved to Los Angeles to attend the graduate program at USC School of Cinematic Arts.He dropped out in the early 1980s and, with his then-wife, Barbara Schock, wrote and directed two independent feature films, "California Without End" and "From Hollywood to Deadwood".