Why I started BRKN

It all started with a hangover so vicious, it felt like my brain had been tenderized by a meat cleaver. I woke up in West Hollywood, groggy from another night of overindulgence, swimming in booze and bad decisions. Too wrecked to paint, too disillusioned to care. The kind of morning where the light feels like an interrogation lamp, forcing you to confront the fact that you’re not just hungover—you’re deeply, chemically, existentially depressed.

I knew the drill: Monday would come, and I'd limp back into my sober life, where my job was my crutch to keep me out of trouble. But even then, it was obvious something was rotting inside my head, a void in my heart that no amount of corporate distractions could fill.

And then it hit like a hammer to the face: a rejection letter for my short film, followed by a one-two punch of getting laid off from Disney. The Mouse kicked me to the curb. My ego? Annihilated. My confidence? Obliterated. But strangely, in that rubble of my self-worth, I found clarity. Like a bomb went off, and the dust finally settled enough for me to see straight.

Despite feeling like an unaccomplished hack, there was an odd thrill about having nothing left to hide behind. With corporate America out of the picture, the busy-ness stopped, and for the first time in forever, I could actually hear myself think. My heart, practically screaming: Pay attention to me, you bastard!

It became glaringly obvious—underneath the drinking, the sex, the endless parade of anxiety and stress, there was a good man in there. A good artist with something to say, not just about the world, but about his world. I felt broken—shattered, even—but in that mess, I felt found. Like I’d been drowning for years and finally surfaced for air.

The journey isn’t over. I’m still dealing with the wreckage of my life, still piecing together the fragments of a sanity I may never fully grasp. But I realized, hell, I can’t be the only one riding this wave of chaos, trying to keep it all together while the world crumbles around me.

And that’s how BRKN was born. A raw, unapologetic shout into the void for anyone who's been chewed up and spat out by life but refuses to lie down. For the artists, the misfits, the ones still standing on top of their wrecked lives, proud of the battle scars and the survival stories. This isn’t just a brand—it’s a manifesto. A rallying cry for the beautifully broken.