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I came into the world on October 18, 1961. John F. Kennedy was President of the United States. The film West Side Story was released, and would go on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Major League Baseball was celebrating Roger Maris of the New York Yankees, who hit a then-record 61 home runs that season.
I was an excellent student, although a bit of a class clown too. I spent a majority of my time playing sports, but fell in love with newspapers, which was how I was initially introduced into writing and storytelling.
While attending Kingsborough Community College from 1979-1981, I served as editor-in-chief of the school's paper, and then joined the staff at Long Island University's Seawanhaka for my junior and senior years. At L.I.U. where I earned my Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism in 1983, I was also a selected member of Sigma Delta Chi, as well as Who's Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges.
My last year in college included an unpaid internship at WCBS-TV, Channel 2 in New York City, where I learned so much about the television business. Upon graduation, I landed a job at the network, starting as a news clerk for The CBS Morning News with Diane Sawyer, and also weekend shifts for The NFL Today with Brent Musburger.
After quickly rising in the ranks to producer, my life suddenly went on a downward spiral due to addictions to alcohol, drugs and gambling, which ultimately led to nearly six years behind bars for robbery.
My time incarcerated gave birth to my first published book, Jew in Jail, which tells my true story of how I finally decided to deal with my addictions and turn my life around, all the while under the toughest conditions imaginable of being a minority in the prison system, forced to fend for myself.
Writing Jew in Jail - as I was doing my time - allowed me to become very introspective, and realize that I could help others in similar situations of being an addict and/or living with low self-esteem.
Today, I still reside in my hometown of Brooklyn, New York, where I am working on my next bookproject, continuing to promote Jew in Jail, and always helping other addicts through my motivational and inspirational speeches, and one-on-one consultations.
I was an excellent student, although a bit of a class clown too. I spent a majority of my time playing sports, but fell in love with newspapers, which was how I was initially introduced into writing and storytelling.
While attending Kingsborough Community College from 1979-1981, I served as editor-in-chief of the school's paper, and then joined the staff at Long Island University's Seawanhaka for my junior and senior years. At L.I.U. where I earned my Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism in 1983, I was also a selected member of Sigma Delta Chi, as well as Who's Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges.
My last year in college included an unpaid internship at WCBS-TV, Channel 2 in New York City, where I learned so much about the television business. Upon graduation, I landed a job at the network, starting as a news clerk for The CBS Morning News with Diane Sawyer, and also weekend shifts for The NFL Today with Brent Musburger.
After quickly rising in the ranks to producer, my life suddenly went on a downward spiral due to addictions to alcohol, drugs and gambling, which ultimately led to nearly six years behind bars for robbery.
My time incarcerated gave birth to my first published book, Jew in Jail, which tells my true story of how I finally decided to deal with my addictions and turn my life around, all the while under the toughest conditions imaginable of being a minority in the prison system, forced to fend for myself.
Writing Jew in Jail - as I was doing my time - allowed me to become very introspective, and realize that I could help others in similar situations of being an addict and/or living with low self-esteem.
Today, I still reside in my hometown of Brooklyn, New York, where I am working on my next bookproject, continuing to promote Jew in Jail, and always helping other addicts through my motivational and inspirational speeches, and one-on-one consultations.
Excerpt
From Chapter 1:
I crossed the street and found a cozy corner in which to drink my beer before calling it a morning (it was still only nine-fifteen, and I wasn’t ready to “escape” into the subway system just yet). All of a sudden, from seemingly out of nowhere and coming from every direction, were the police. Before I knew what hit me, one cop tackled me hard to the sidewalk, knocking my bottle of beer high into the air; it came crashing down to the pavement.
“Where’s the gun?” the flatfoot demanded.
“What gun?” I asked, as he took the fake weapon from out of my pocket.
He then pulled me up off the ground and brought me over to one of the many squad cars that were now on the scene.
“We got him. We got Woody Allen,” the officer chirped as he handcuffed and handed me over to another of New York’s finest. “Don’t move an inch, you piece of shit,” the second officer ordered, as I finally realized the magnitude of what I had done, although still not believing that all of these cops had come just for little old me with the balding head and thick prescription eyeglasses.
After being positively identified right there in the street by my last victim, the elderly Chinese man, I was placed into the police car and taken over to the 17th Precinct, without even having had my rights read to me.
At the police station, I was immediately processed (photographed and fingerprinted), and then thrown into a filthy, stinking cell. Oh, yeah, and my money and pills were taken from me, presumably to be held as evidence.
“Now I’ve really done it,” I remember mumbling to myself, as the gravity of the entire situation began to completely sink in. Then, after lingering in my cell for over an hour, two sharply dressed detectives came to pay me a visit.
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"Gary Goldstein is a refreshing presence to the literary world. He's accomplished what so many continue to seek - that rare ability to create magic with nothing more than a pen and paper. [Goldstein is] a rising star!"
- David L. - Best-selling author of Over Your Dead Body, Chalk Outline Confessions, My Life Is A Movie and Represent
