Stories I've Been Meaning to Tell You

STORIES I'VE BEEN MEANING TO TELL YOU is a young man's wild stories told with an older man's wisdom. It speaks to anyone with an interest in the 60s and 70s, subcultures (particularly bikers and hippies), and tells the stories of young men and women who hang out on street corners waiting for something to happen. "Stories I've Been Meaning to Tell You" chronicles Andy Romanoff's troubled and troubling years, and how he went on to make a different life for himself.

Andy Romanoff's memoir is a book about life and living, stories of hard choices and unlikely outcomes disguised as a book about running wild and raising hell. Filled with 80 years of stories told as fresh as today Romanoff takes you along for the ride as he makes a meaningful life for himself without turning his back on the person he'd been or the places he'd come from. "Stories I've Been Meaning to Tell You," is a wild ride filled with tales of getting thrown out of five high schools; stealing cars and motorcycles; getting tossed in jail; finding his way into the sleazy end of the film business; being there for the invention of Gore Films; spending time with counterculture legends like Ken Kesey, the Hog Farm, and Nick Ray; then slowly learning about love, life, and death as he becomes a reluctant success. Come along with him as he shares eighty years of stories, learning to accept success, friendship, and family while raising hell along the way.

For half of his life, Andy Romanoff wasn't looking further ahead than his next meal. After getting thrown out of five high schools and going on to steal motorcycles, scam credit cards, and burn cars for weekend fun, it seemed clear to everyone around him that he was a screwup. He took that reputation and ran with it, working on the first gore film "Blood Feast;" living with the legendary commune The Hog Farm; and hanging out with tricksters, scammers, and legends like Nick Ray, Ken Kesey, and Wavy Gravy. As he got older and saw more of life and how it ended, he realized he wanted more for himself than a list of adventures. He pioneered the use of remote-operated cranes in motion pictures working with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Hal Ashby, Billy Fraker, Conrad Hall, and Vilmos Zigmond. He is a member of the Motion Picture Academy, an Associate Member of the American Society of Cinematographers, and a member of the Motion Picture Camera union. He is also a regular contributor to L'oeil de la Photographie, the leading photographic arts publication with 250,000 daily readers, and he writes regularly on Medium. Most importantly, he lives a peaceful life with his wife of forty years and two grown children, who he adores.