Years ago, my younger brother, Loren, and I traveled to Uruguay to study Spanish and eat grilled meat. Our return home included a troublesome and frustrating connection in a regional Brazilian airport.

Previously, Loren had worked at CAA as a talent agent assistant, the classic “start from the bottom” role that included everything from getting coffee to making restaurant reservations with fake names to arranging and attending meetings with talent like Chris Farley, Heather Locklear, and Wesley Snipes. He had experience with resistance.

At the airport counter, Loren tapped my shoulder and said, “Take it easy. I’ll handle this.” So, this gringo walked away.

While Loren could do a mean impression of Donnie Brasco, he did not speak Portuguese. And while the folks at the airport counter wore colorful shirts, they didn’t really speak English. Regardless and somehow, minutes later, Loren and I had seats together on a plane about to board.

Loren gets things done.

Feed the Chicken

In high school, Loren taught me to “feed the chicken”, his hand gesture that meant “let’s go” or “take care of business” or…nothing. It caught on with friends, and we ended up feeding chickens up and down the hallway and on both sides of the road.

In his campaign for Class President at the University of Pennsylvania, Loren compared himself to famous people. Like Lorena Bobbit, he “takes problems into his own hands” and “won’t keep what doesn’t belong to him.” And like Michael Jordan, he “enjoys new challenges” and “got cut from the baseball team.”

Yes, Loren fed a lot of chickens and won the election.

Sleeping with Baseballs

Dad taught Loren and me that you should “want the ball in your hands” at the end of a game, like Larry Bird or Joe Montana. My brother took this a step further by sleeping with a baseball lodged between the fingers of his throwing hand. Doing this night after night helped spread his fingers out to better hold and throw a darting forkball when pitching in baseball.

To this day, Loren can spread the pointer and middle fingers on his left hand unreasonably and oddly wide, far enough to simultaneously poke both eyes of a buffalo.

Making Films

Loren’s effectiveness, humor, and creativity translate well to his career as a filmmaker. A.P.E. #9, a 5-minute short he made 25 years ago while in film school at USC, appeared on PBS and continues to attract views. I have watched this dozens of times.

Loren has been involved with many projects, and examples of other films he directed and produced include:

• Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Green, an award-winning documentary narrated by Don Cheadle about the original “shock jock” with a shout-out to Howard Stern.
• Cockfight, a blood sport documentary about, yes, cockfighting, that was nominated for an International Documentary Award. Travel for the production took place in his old Ford Thunderbird, named “the Dirty Bird.”
• Bad Boys of Summer, about a prison baseball team. Shot inside San Quentin prison, the tag reads, “The inmates run this place. Except on the baseball field.”
• Our Time is Up is a 13-minute, Academy Award nominated short film starring Kevin Pollak about a therapist who receives life changing news. You may recognize a few of the cameos.

More recently, (when not getting strong-armed into making little filmlets for his nerdy brother…thanks, Loren!) he was part of the team that produced American Manhunt: Boston Marathon Bombing.

Friends Matter

My brother is a remarkable man and my best friend. I believe that Loren improves the life of each person he encounters, and I think his friends, family and chickens would agree without blinking (though I cannot speak for those behind the counter in that Brazilian airport decades ago).