Welcome to the first in a new and almost certainly infrequent series of Drink at Work.com articles called "Why Are You?" Each week—or month or every two years or so—we will invite individuals to describe in their own words the reasons behind their career choice, in the hopes that our readers may benefit from their experience or simply thank God they did not make the same mistake. Enjoy.

Why am I an actor? Why am I an actor? One might as well ask a recently engaged couple to explain in full the reasons behind their decision. Or ask God Himself why certain individuals are born leading-man handsome while others are born character actors or ethnic. Acting, like love and a flawless profile, is not a choice. It’s a gift one cannot refuse, such as cash or a sweater without the price tag or store receipt. It defines who I am. It defines who we are. It has always been and always will be a fundamental part of each and every one of us, from the days our pre-lingual ancestors would flail dramatically to indicate that they were having a seizure to the time of tribal cultures when the shaman would don a grotesque mask to scare both evil spirits and small children off his lawn to the Elizabethan era, when the lowliest cobbler to the toniest shoe consumer would come together and sit separately, watching in quiet awe whilst the leading men and boys of their day would show what it truly meant to give oneself over to passion, to a cause or to the business end of a dagger!

And so it was—eager to learn not only who I was but who we all are—that at the age three I enrolled in New York’s renown StageDoor Manor acting camp—or as it was known back then, "Sid’s Daycare for Histrionic Tots." Truth is, acting has always been in my family’s blood. In fact, my great-grandfather was half of the rather famous vaudevillian duo "Mordecai & Moretti" back in the very early 1900’s. They, uh, they mostly wore blackface and made fun of the handicapped and homosexuals. But they made sure to portray them as characters, not as characterizations. And while they never were the darlings of the critic circles, they also never made fun of the Irish and so pulled in a rather tidy sum performing at policemen benefits.

My grandfather, however, found both minor respect and a nominal paycheck as one of the original "Little Rascals"—"Sammy." That wasn’t actually his real name. The studio changed it when they bought him from his parents. You see, back then Hollywood child labors laws more or less consisted of two unwritten rules—1) there must be a teacher on site or at least reachable by mail and 2), whenever possible get twins in case a stunt goes horribly awry. This was also before the passing of the Hays Moral Code for movies, so it wasn’t uncommon to see Sammy and the rest of the "Little Rascals" in a film drink alcohol, smoke cigars or jump someone in a dark alley. And the less said about the 1932 short "Spanky’s Oriental Cathouse" the better. By the time he was 10, not only was my grandfather’s career shot but so was his liver and lungs—as well as his left eye thanks to a poorly choreographed jazz club gunfight sequence in the short "Alfalfa Just Loses It." Eventually Sammy wound up playing nothing but drunk, raspy-voiced, one-eyed preteen prospectors in such films as "Look On Yukon," "Gold Rush Hour" and the uncut version of "The Magnificent Ambersons."

Of course, tastes change and by the mid-50’s when my mother first entered the trade comedy was king and television was its throne. And no one ruled the genre like Sid Ceasar in "Your Show of Shows." Thanks to some family connections, my mother was able to get a regular gig on TV, although on a rival variety program called "Chesterfield Cigarettes Tasty Tobacco Time Review" (which was eventually renamed "The Howdy Doody Show"). The problem, however, was that comedy was and always has been a "boys club." The staff simply didn’t know how to—or perhaps even care to—write for a woman. So while the men in the cast got to do hilarious monologues, movie satires or just stand around on stage together and down gin, my mom usually got such roles as "Dumb Blonde" "Buxom Waitress" or "Curtain Opener." Eventually she quit the show in disgust—not to mention in the middle of a live broadcast of the show’s most popular recurring skit, "Let Her Sit on My Face." Mom soon took to the theater and in no time she was earning rave reviews for her spellbinding performances in "A Doll’s House," "Anna Christie" and "12 Angry Men." In fact, she was so lauded by critics and theatergoers alike that soon she got the call every actor dreams of—to come to Hollywood to star in a television show. So she returned to the medium to play the main role in countless short-lived sitcoms throughout the early to mid-60’s, including "Mom to the Kids," "Wife of an Executive," "Homemaker Make Us Feel at Home" and "Mom Sure Does Love Her New Amana Stove." By 1970 she had dropped out of entertainment all together to join a militant agrarian cult, which eventually became known as "Starbucks."

And then there’s me. At the age of four I was picked out of acting camp to star in a series of hamburger TV ads for a regional fast food chain. Although the chain soon went out of business—something about how they couldn’t also sell food under the name "Burger King"—I quickly gained fame because of my commercial catchphrase, "If I don’t get a burger right now then I might as well die!" Within no time I was making guest appearances on such hit 70’s variety shows as "Donny and Marie," "Sonny and Cher," "Captain and Tenille," "Shields and Yarnell" and "Squeaky Fromme and Patty Hearst." And each time I said the exact same line, "If I don’t get a burger right now then I might as well die!" I even got my own Saturday morning live-action series on ABC in which every episode I actually would die because I didn’t get a burger or a bike or a "thank you" for passing the salt (the show aired between the cartoons "Grape Ape" and "Grape Ape in Outer Space"). Soon my face was on trading cards, iron-on transfers, metal lunchboxes, even a Milton Bradley boardgame that was sort of like "Operation" only the goal was to try and kill me. I was also on the cover of "Dynamite" magazine, "Tiger Beat" and—thanks to a cross-promotional tie-in I have never quite understood—the book jacket for Judith Krantz’ "Scruples." I even released 12 LPs in four months, scoring a number one hit with the song, "She May Be Your Girlfriend but She’s My Woman." But while the bucks were rolling in, I wasn’t really growing as an actor. I was just growing. And soon no one wanted to see an acne-scarred, pudgy 13-year-old drop dead just because he didn’t get a Fudgsicle®.

By the 80’s I had pretty much bottomed out. Plus, my dad had burned through my earnings trying to market an entertainment system he pitched as, "just like Atari, only without video." At age 14 I had no money, no real offers and no teeth, due to a bar fight with Ryan O’Neal. Occasionally I would get a commercial gig for "Smurf Cereal" or "Donkey Kong Cereal" or "Rubik’s Cube Cereal" (a product that ensured a frustrating breakfast). Or I would appear in the background of some music video for Sheila E or Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam or Bruce Springsteen (that’s my hand Courtney Cox steps on when she climbs the stage in "Dancing in the Dark"). Or I’d have a bit part in such TV shows as "Square Pegs," "AfterM*A*S*H" and "CBS Evening News"—the last due to security video of a botched liquor store robbery that ended with me shooting 16 rounds into my own foot.

While in prison I got my high school equivalency diploma, a community college degree and 12 different men’s names tattooed on my ass. When I was released the World Wide Web had just taken the country by storm and I was quick to use my education to capitalize on the "New Economy" that was Internet porn, appearing in 3200 bondage and submissive Shockwave shorts between 1998 and when we were raided and shut down under a bylaw of the Patriot Act in 2003. Since then I have used my money to finance a series of Christian evangelical motion pictures, many of which I have also starred in including the hip-hop musical "The Rap-ture," the romantic comedy "I Love Jesus but I’m Marrying You" and the religious retelling of hydroelectric power, "God Dam."

So, when people ask me "Why are you an actor?" I think back on the ups and down of my career, on the trials and tribulations of my family’s history in showbiz, on what it all has brought us as well as cost us, and I answer their question simply yet truthfully, "Because it got me chicks."