1988--
-- Wrote First Serious Poems, while a mental patient in Creedmore State Psychiatric Facility, began performing poems live at ABC NO RIO in Downtown New York City at the tender age of 19.. A very surreal and magical year for me...
1989--
-- After a Spring of Hawaii, and a Summer of Europe, including Paris, London and Berlin, I began performing Poetry with others, encouraging others of my peers to use their gifts likewise. A Poetry Group of seven young black, white, lesbian, gay, bi, straight, male and female poets is formed by me, named Dark Star Crew, We Begin performing all over New York City...:beginning at the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe on the lower east side in Manhattan
1990,--
--Dark Star Crew gets featured in the Village Voice, Seven Days Magazine, Vanity Fair etc, Debut Performance at the Knitting Factory and at BAM, Brooklyn Academy of Music, with Bill T. Jones, Audre Lourdes and Laurie Anderson, make a vow not to stop with my work until I am published, Produce a chapbook of poems at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in NYC called "Voices from The Other Side"
1991--
---Dark Star Crew performs for the Lesbian Gay and Pride Weekend with Crystal Waters, and others. Performance at Nells, West End Gate, ABC No Rio, etc, get a very encouraging letter from Author Clive Barker, Produce a chapbook of poetry from the Lesbian and Gay and Community Services Center called "Voices from The Other Side, Volume 2", Dark Star Crew is featured in Outweek Magazine,
1992--
-- Break My Leg getting hit by a car, but still stay active creatively by Performing at various Arthouses in the East Village, a tough, yet creatively rewarding year, become hardcore vegetarian after five years planning, write a few startling and shocking poems this year, showing me a new level of myself and my ablility which is dark, deadly and devastating. One of them is called "Queen Beast", a real "Monsterpiece"..
1993---
---Produce Chapbook with Lesbian, Gay Community Services Center called "Voices from the Other Side, Volume 3", Dark Star Crew Performs at CBGB's gallery,
1994---
--After Five Years and many transformations, Dark Star Crew finally ends--am deeply distraught and depressed about this, and for the first time in life, begin doing drugs, ---a year of darkness and despair, I write no poems and move into a super tiny Chelsea Hell-Hole, Begin performing solo again, at a new place Downtown Manhattan called "Surf Reality". I don't know it yet, but its actually a new era of performance for me.. Takes me another two years, but I finally understand the gift of the place, and sharing my gifts with the place, I actually begin to grow again as an artist, though I experience two years of hell, frustration and agony first. As the Year is really quite painful for me, I barely see any of the seeds of the good. Do a creative writing workshop at the Lesbian and Community Services Center where I produce a chapbook of poems called "Volume" with Johnny Pavlou and Jonathan Walsh.
1995--
--Only write one poem for the whole year, Ï'm Not Afraid of The Dark" which I decide will be the last poem in the book of poetry that I have now decided to turn my attention to write. Jonathan and I keep in touch, though he is Colarado with his girlfriend Jennifer. I have no idea what possesses him to leave her, but he does, and comes back to NY. We begin a sexual relationship, which in retrospect I deeply regret. I wish I had never met this person. Get an Extra Role for an episode in the TV series NYPD BLUE...and a similar thing for the Basquiat Film, the one where That Bitch Courtney Love plays That Bitch Madonna, and the film where David Bowie plays Andy Warhol .. Never knew I would be in Television and Film..was fun--great gig--while it lasts---too bad I had to tell that pissant assistant director for NYPD Blue to go fuck himself, and stop treating me like sambo, the friendly cave-nigger---it lost me some rather lucrative employment....I dont kiss white-ass well, I am afraid,...
1996--
--These Pivotal Years of the Nineties were crucial in my development. I write an amazing poem about Racism called "Eaten Alive"--another "Monsterpiece" Jonathan has gone missing for almost six months. I go to Hawaii for some R and R, and when I return, it seems, so does Jonathan. He moves back into my life with a vengeance, though it is only for six months. He finds for me a better place than my rotten Chelsea Hell Hole---a penthouse apartment on the Upper West Side, off Central Park West, not permanant but better for me than the rats nest downtown, that's for sure. Eventually we find a nice place in Washington Heights near the end of the year. One day, in the middle of all this, the point of all this rambling, Jonathan takes me back to a place I had previously vowed never to return, Surf Reality. Faceboy, the MC of Surf Reality, has not terriblly impressed me initially, but as things turn out, after performing there with Jonathan Walsh, I get involved with an intense girl there named Melanie Myle---his ex. She and Jonathan and I go back to her place in New Jersey, where I barely get she is interested in me, but Jonathan knows. He is cool with it, I imagine. Anyway Jonathan disappears sometime after Christmas, and I am pretty much dumped in an apartment which I can barely afford on my own...Deep Shit and I seem Made for Each Other... His leaving me without so much as a "fuck you very much" hurt me so much, boys and girls, I wanted to fucking die. Melanie was no help, moving on to other boyfriends, not that I missed her bullshit terribly,either, frankly. In my mind, people prove their value not in times of plenty, but in times of crisis. None of my lovers really were there for me this year, so, I really needed to clean house to make the space for better quality lovers and friends. I suppose that painful process began this year, though again, the year was so painful that I barely noticed---but at least I began performing regularly at Surf Reality after this, and, a new place, Collective Unconscious.
1997--
-- "Hysteria" was one of many dark and intense poems created after the great Jonathan fiasco. It was a great year for me creatively, though it was hard as hell, and filled with plenty of pain. Surf and Collective was there for me this year in a really wonderful way,and at some point, I recall travelling out to Albequrque New Mexico for a spell, doing some verse out there, having a hot spa, the usual stuff one does when out in America's Southwest. Of all the pieces created in 1997, Hysteria was the only one I found with no idea of actually sitting down and writting it. I mean, it was my handwriting and everything, and I had signed the date, but not my name. When I look back now at Hysteria, its really spooky. It was like I wrote this piece while in a trance, or fast asleep. The details it describesI also have no idea whether or not its true---if indeed, the mother figure is my real mother, or one of the many subsitutes I have needed to resort to over the years. Hysteria is very, very creepy!
1998 --
--A dark and intense year--including a serious eight week psychatric hospitalization, the introduction to my cat Midnight, and a host of other simply awful things, which for once, I am not going to go to detail with you---- all of which I am not sure is worth mentioning, anyway. For this year creatively, of particular interest is the poem Wasted, something which has always been so easy to perform.. Regretfully I probably identify too much with the darker elements of this poem, and I am the first one to admit it. Still Wasted is about the garbage you need to process to move on to greatness. There seems to be much of it, and sometimes this really makes me sick to my soul. Yet I work with it, and am amazed, time and time again that my patience with it always yields something creative.
1999--
--This year, I performed in Chicago, spending a month or so there, and helping my friend Zack, who I met at Surf Reality move on with his life. Zack's moving disturbed me because a part of me understood that something vital was also dying for me back in New York City. Performance at Collective and Surf are really amazing and vital for me, especially since at this point in my life, I need this creative outlet as it balances the very dark direction one with creative energy who is basically oppressed can go. Still, as Surf Reality and Collective Unconscious grow more popular, something spoils and grows more obscure for me. I write some really amazing poems this year for "I'm Not Afriad of the Dark", which is nearing completion. And support for me at Surf and Collective reach an all time high. My Performance and My Work grows both darker and brighter this year. Still, it is a terrible year for me, for I am Homeless for six months of this year. Here, the test of who really is valueable in my life came to pass. I see Jonathan one time this year---I had always told myself if I saw him again, I would cry--but as I was with my friend Rene at the time, what I did surprised me---I ran for it! Looking across the street at him, I saw him smile at me, time slowed down, and then I saw the lies behind the smile which sickened me, and had caused me so much pain before, and I ran for it, though, to this day, I hate myself for doing this. Wish I had been able to simply forgive the one man I really love--I was not able to, sorry to say, and I will pay the price for this for the rest of my life. Being Homeless this year for six months, another terrible thing happened to me that actually sort of marked the end of the dark period--I got raped on the streets of Manhattan by a man who held a razor to my throat in an alley. I talked with him through the act the whole time, after he hit me in the face a couple of times, and then, after prudently making sure he ejaculated promptly and nowhere inside of me, I was free of him. Amazed to be alive, I went to perform at Surf Reality that night, and no one except my friend, Steve Gerber, knew. Until now, of course....What has any of this got to do with my creativity? Simply this---although none of these details are in the 1999 poems, they are in a way. How can you live through trauma and surive it without honest expression? I haven't gotten this far bottling up all this pain, that's for sure.
2000---
--After The Hell, something nice to report--this was the year I met my Australian Sweetiepie, Tiger. Tiger is quite a trooper, and I was amazed by his tolerance, his endurance and his ability to work hard at creative things. He has a particular strength organising others for film work. He does some films this year which, later, I am stunned by, and one of them, which he acts in, is so good it makes me cry. I finish "I'm Not Afraid of The Dark" and I perform at a benefit thrown by my friends at Surf and Collective.
2001---
---Do some Puppet work for the Student Sci-Fi FIlm Lesbian Space Pirates, directed by Tiger, Perform poetry in Sydney Australia, have a kick-ass Septemeber 11th Performance at Collective Unconscious (it was the day the Twin Towers was destroyed) and also an interesting performance of Poetry in Toronto, Canada.
2002---
--This was the year when I realised things were not happening creatively for me in America anymore. Earlier that year, TIger and I go to something called Queeruption London, and after performing Queen Beast there to a stunned audience, something burning and new awakens in me. While in Europe, which I havent been to since 1989, I travel to Amsterdam and perform at the American Book Center in Amsterdam. Dublin, Ireland, which I eagerly expect to embrace my work, is full of Wankers and the Worshippers of the Dead Poets Society, creatively yielding nothing for me. Still, my spirits are hardly dampened. Made two new friends in Europe, Michael and Kevin, both whom I meet in Ireland. Kevin went back to France, Micheal went back to Germany, and I went back to New York City, but we never forgot each other, and kept in touch. Unfortunately, Tiger and I are unable to find much peace this year. We fight like two cats trapped in a burlap sack. I feel that Tiger does little to exploit the creative potential of his Australian Clique of Buds, which includes my input in meaningful way. Its all very nasty and boring to me. One day, after a terrible drug binge, I find "I'm Not Afriad of The Dark" under a pile of garbage, and it changes everything for me. Did I really go through all I have with my work just to have it end up like this? I really didn't think so. Sick of not feeling creative satisfaction with Surf, Collective, and Tiger, sick of not writing anything new, something snaps and I decide, "Why the Hell am I stuck in this Ignorant, Assbackwards Racist Fucking Country when I could be plying my trade in Europe and the World Abroad..." It was the beginning of a new era for me...Moved to Germany, where I began touring. Micheal put me up for a short while in the beginning, but as I had a gig in Amsterdam, I had to leave him. However, things did not go well in Amsterdam as far as a place to stay, so Micheal put me up for the rest of the time that I needed after he invited me with such love and sincerity. I could not turn him down. And things went quite nicely from there. Here, I begin writing the first poems for my new poetry collection "Dunkelheit"
2003--
--Begin Performing My Work in German. Go to Queeruption Berlin for my debut performance of such, and Tiger visits me after we are apart for six months. He and I pick right up where we left off, and I film Queeruption Berlin, my first video-documentation. Though overall, it was a great year, the worst of it was my cat Midnight, dying of a heart-attack while I was away. That shook me up a bit. Finish Dunkelheit collection of Poems, Go to Australia at the end of the year to be with Tiger, who has left New York City in August and returned to his country. My second visit to Australia really changes my life, and surprisingly is creative for me. This visit, I realise how big, beautiful and amazing Australia is, --this time I stick around and get aquainted with the locals..
2004--
---Have more performances in Australia, go to Gilgandra Australia to help a friend, Gavin Ritchie, bury his father, meet some fabulous new boys in Melbourne, including Wazzi and Rob. Stay in Melbourne almost a month, loving it so damn much, and have a birthday there. Get the idea for a new collection of Poems, Return to Europe, then go to New York City for three weeks, where I perform briefly at Collective and Surf, which I haven't been to in two years. Have no idea what I missed the past two years, but it looks like not much. Some of the performance artists at Surf and Collective are beginning to look worn out and exhausted. Life has not been easy while I have been gone. Not sure if I really want to return to Europe but I do anyway, for Queeruption Amsterdam, where I begin finishing the poems for my latest poetry collection, The Insidious Illusion of Choice, Queeruption Amsterdam is no bed of roses, and even filming it is hell. This leg of my European tour I have to make some decisions and find a new base of operations, as things with Micheal and Germany go unpleasantly, and I decide to leave my base there. Setting up a new base in Amsterdam, seems Ideal, but its not easy. I spend months being Homeless in Holland, dealing with nasty situations until finally things settle down again for me, and I am able to have that quiet poet's life, and in one of the coolest cities in the world. Things are nice enough even for Kevin to visit me. Then, later TIger visits me Christmastime in Holland, and though he tries, he is unable to straighten out my visa messy situtation from my previous visit to Australia, I am not sure of it, but it looks like I am going to miss Queeruption Australia, even though I helped set up for it with Benefits and the like while I was in Sydney earlier in the year. But seeing Tiger again is loveley. A new level of love is reached. When love for someone just keeps growing and growing, wisdom and reason tell you clearly to stick around--for things are really about to get interesting....
2005--
---Finish the work for The Insidious Illusion of Choice, (De Verraderlijke Illusie van Keuze).Begin performing in Dutch, decide its time for a website which won't embarrass me professionally, and the idea for Poetry is Not A Sickness Website is discussed with my new Dutch Sweetie, Bartje... Then, we work on it intensely for my last week in Holland before I return to New York. The first few months of the year see me traveling to more obscure parts of Holland like Seeland and Rotterdam, both of which I love visiting and filming very much. Still, as prepare to return to the US for a two month stay, I flirt with the possibility of going and doing a Hawaiian Retreat with James Wanless, the creator of my tarot deck although Queeruption Spain is also tempting. With the certainty that I am not going to Queeruption Australia, though I was sad about this, then a part of me was also relieved. I have to remember that my schedule is flexible enough to accomodate something better when things don't work out. It's a big planet, has always been my motto, more than enough room and places in it to go to experience something or someone mindblowing and pure. What will I do this year? France? Spain? Hawaii? Tune in later,boys and girls, for more juicy and exciting details.... So here is how 2005 actually turned out. I went back to the US for 3 months. New York had changed so much, I felt terribly out of step except when performing at Collective and Surf Reality, where I was better than ever. Went back to NYC wondering why I even had bothered. My Time with Tiger was less than memorable, though we did get plenty of work done. This was, of course at my own insistence. Missed a flight to Europe which was sure to delay my arrival at Queeruption Spain, but the work was crucial for me to finish, and I moved mountains to make it work Left for Europe unsure of what was next to come. It was strange for me. When I returned Bart was more than pleased to see me again, meeting me at the airport with tears in his eyes. Then we spent the next few days on the road, traveling through vineyards of France. We spent three days on the road, but when we arrived at Barcelona, it is night. I have never seen the Mediterreanean before. It is vast and black in the night. That night, my first one in Spain, we learn that Queeruption Barcelona has been besieged by Police, and no one is being let in. The next day is strange. Bart and I park somewhere in town in the white van, and going to look for a bathroom somewhere, I get lost. Bart is unable to find me for hours. By that time, I am sick of waiting and sick of Barcelona. I get the address of Queeruption and agree to meet Bart there later. After my evening out on the town, I am shocked to learn the address some of my fellow Amsterdamers have given me is totally wrong. I spend all night trying to call Bart, and walk the streets of Barcelona til dawn. By the time I am heading to Queeruption, it is well into the afternoon of the next day. But as you can see on my picture section, I had a blast at Queeruption Spain. This year, I after Queeruption I spent time traveling through Spain for a month with Bart. It was intense. Got all through Barcelona, La Mettla del Mar, Sitges, Castallon and Valencia. Then, I also spent some time in the South of France and in Paris. This was probably not my best year this decade for Poetry. I cannot say I wrote anything this year that really knocked my socks off, but check out "The Illusion of Fame and Glory", and "Sick Illusions of Life that Dream". They come pretty close to pleasing me. I worked more on my queer sci fi novel this year, truth be told. Of note over the Summer, my friend Robert came to visit me in Amsterdam from Melbourne. Still, as the year came to a close, I thought many things that happened this year were not quite what I expected. I was planning on going to France, but then I got robbed and though I was able to make two trips to Germany and one trip to Switzerland, I was not able to return to France. The year ended with meeting more of Bartje's family at the family Weekendje, an interesting propostion for work at a XXXmas party, and Bart and I having a New Years Party on a Squatted Boat.
2006--
--Again, lots of travel plans, including India, Ibiza, The US and Brazil. As the year grew ever so slightly, I learned I had to change some of these plans. As of present, Bart and I just came from Zeeland, Zierikzee and Rotterdam, which was very refreshing. During the next few weeks, we are planning to go to the US together. He has never been before. I am trying to not to freak him out too much about one of the world's most right wing and fascist countries, which makes Europe seem like a bohemian paradised by comparison. With a cheaply bought car, we plan on driving from NYC to Albany NY, to South Beach Florida, to Tampa, to Texas, to Albequirque New Mexico, to Arizona, to Southern California to see relatives and my friend Nate who I met at Queeruption Spain, to Bart's relatives in California and mine, to a friend in Seattle named Will whom I havent seen since he went and joined the Bush War on Iraq.(He is out of the military service now, and happily going to film school.) I am looking forward to returning to the US only to perform my work. NYC and California are calling me to such a task. And yet beyond this, is the promise of Brazil, where Robert and I are supposed to meet up. And beyond this, returning to Europe where I am still keen on finding a place in France to live for six months. And this year, I am definitly taking a break from Queeruption. So, if you want to hear more, (like if I actually achieve any of the aforementioned above) including me finishing my french book of poems, tune in later, for more juicy and exciting details....