NYC Nights

Formika & me NYE 1999-2000

Wow!!  It's been a really long time since I wrote anything and I was feeling the itch to communicate.  I recently was going through old photos - I have a huge trunk full of photos from the 90s and early 2000s, in those days I was never without my Yashica T4 camera and a ton of film.  I pretty much documented my life and the awesome NYC club scene, opposite of the paparazzi I was an invited guest, part of the scene and everyone mugged appropriately for me.  I only went through 4 envelopes of over 300 and I started dividing the photos into groups to send to friends.  Back then I always got doubles and now I have a treasure trove - 1 for me and 1 for you.
     I separted the photos by people and made about 5 stacks that represented some of my closest and most glamorous friends.  The whole time walking down memory lane and being so in those moments again.  I was laughing at how wild we all were and how outrageous and awesome our style was.  I have to say I was pretty impressed I thought we all looked amazing and no one looked glum.  I suppose in those days if you were down you either stayed home or masked it with a ton of booze and powders.  I had an absolute blast stuffing the photos into cards and mailing them off to the friends that were portrayed in them.  These days no one gets mail and certainly no one gets actual photos any longer.  Everything is fast and disposable and then gone.  In an instant (Instagram) the moment is captured and forgotten - no keepsakes in this digital age.
     My dear friend Mistress Formika who ruled the downtown scene back them in stilettos and sky high wigs texted to say he had gotten the photos.  He too was impressed with how wild we were and how the kids these days have no idea what our NYC was like - believe me it is NSFW the places we ran and the things we did there.  One photo in particular of the 2 of us in The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black makeup - he painted all white and totally nude and me painted all black with my teeth blacked out and huge white wings around my eyes - really stood out.  If you don't know Karen Black was and still is sometimes the sickest band.  Juvenile cardboard props and dancers performing fright wig kabuki theater to a soundtrack of punky-metal music.  I knew the photo was from the late 1990s but couldn't remember exactly when.  Formika reminded me in was New Year's Eve 1999 into 2000 and all of the sudden the entire night flooded back to me like it was yesterday.
     We were performing at the stroke of midnight with TVHOKB at CBGBs which is now a John Varvatos store.  In fact, The Bowery used to be derelicts, homeless shelters and artists lofts like Nan Goldin and now it's the chic-est street with the most expensive hotels and boutiques.  We got ready across the street at our friend Scott's loft then walked across to CBGBs, Formika totally nude on NYE!!!  It really struck me that I performed at that legendary place!! I mean The Ramones and Blondie and Patti Smith and so many more got their start there and here we were on that very stage nude or mostly nude except for body paint and wigs ringing in the new millennium.  I mean, now that I look back that's fucking legendary and I had totally forgotten all about it.
     The night only began there I mean NYE in the city-that-never-sleeps literally goes on forever.  After the show I ran to my friend Drea DeMateo's house on 2nd Ave between 7th and St Mark's place which, drastically, exploded and burned to the ground last year!!!  I arrived at her house totally painted black looking insane and amazing - always the life of the party.  I hung out for a few hours then jumped in the shower and changed and hightailed it to The Cock to bartend the late late late shift which was like 4am - 8am or so.  Man, those were the days when we packed more into one night than some people do in a lifetime.  We had no idea how amazing and crazy our lives were.  I mean, we had fun but we didn't really know how magical it was.  So many nights were just as legendary as that one.
     I still like to live my life under the guise of the best is yet to come.  I never want to think that my glory days are gone or the the magic has stopped.  Things are different now and, unfortunately, all of my friends no longer live in a 10 block radius.  I'm older and not so wild but I still seek beauty and glitter and magic and love.  The world will always be filled with creativity and no crappy government can trump that out of us artists!!! I believe in magic and I always will.

Creativity

Last page of a story I wrote in 3rd grade

When I was a little kid all I liked to do was draw and paint.  I used to make books of my drawings -  for instance, I once drew the alphabet in animals with names that corresponded to very letter.  Art supplies were always my favorite gifts.  I was obsessed with a Crayola Caddy that my mom bought me for Christmas one year.  It was like a lazy susan that was filled with paint, markers, pencils and crayons in a rainbow of Crayola colors.  I even won a few prizes at art shows and contests around town and had a watercolor painting a did of a deer in snow with a fuchsia sky on display at the local library branch.
     I'm not exactly sure when I let the creativity slip away for the 1st time.  My parents got divorced when I was 7 and that was physically, mentally and emotionally crippling for me at that age.  Some other traumatizing life events took place after that coupled with the fact that I was cruelly teased and bullied in school - all of this lead me to retreat within myself with a profound desire to escape and disappear.  I exiled myself to TV Land and anything else that would distract me from the emotional pain I felt in reality.  I would shop lift and spend my whole afternoon at the arcade and slowly and surly the creative stuff fell by the wayside.  Of course later on when I discovered drugs and alcohol it was a match made in heaven - until it turned to hell.
     When I got to high school I finally had like minded friends.  We were definitely a motley crew but the thing that bound us all together was a level of intelligence that was generally missing from the majority of our high school peers.  We sought out cool bands and artists to explore and we challenged and accepted each other no matter what freaky style we had going on.  It was a pretty creative group to say the least.  In my senior year of high school I felt like I was ready to explore my creative outlets again, being surrounded by all of my artsy friends inspired me.  I took a ceramics class with this amazing art teacher that had been my mortal enemy in 9th grade.  This time around we got along like gang busters and I let her teach me and expand my horizons and it felt great to make art again.
     Around this time I had also started doing photography.  I took some classes and got an amazing camera for my Bday and even joined the yearbook committee which was a life saver my senior year.  It meant a stack of hall passes and "get outta class free" cards that my favorite English/Photography teacher & yearbook advisor had given me at the start of the year.  I spent a majority of my year stoned in the darkroom and then had the privilege of flooding my senior yearbook with photos of all the cool kids and paying little mind to the jocks.  It was a very Breakfast Club moment.
     Since then my life has been this constant tug-of-war between me and my creative side.  For some reason when life gets tough I'm generally inclined to let the artistic side go instead of exploring it and using it to reach new heights and depths of art.  These days I've gotten a lot better at expressing myself and even let some of my uglier truths rise to the surface so I can tell on myself and free myself from them.  The writing has helped a lot.
     I 1st got the idea to write a book of my stories about 8 years ago on a trip to Costa Rica.  I was going to meet a large group of friends, mostly from NYC, and when I booked my travel I had the dates wrong.  I ended up arriving 4 days before everyone else and it was the best thing that could've happened.  In those 4 days all of the stresses of city life melted away, I read 2 books and had this creative avalanche pour out of me when I put pen to paper to start jotting down one of my famous stories involving a really expensive pair of custom made pants and some cheap ass cocaine (you'll have to read the book!)  It was one of those moments when the words literally flowed out of me as if it wasn't even me writing.  The pen was furiously scribbling words on paper and I was sitting in the backseat like a passenger or observer.  When you have those moments while you are creating something it is truly magically - it's when everything aligns and you are really in the moment.
     Just this year I have re-committed myself to finishing this book that was conceived on the sands of the beach, next to the jungle of Costa Rica many moons ago.  I have been getting up every day a 1/2 hour earlier than normal so that I can write before my day gets going.  Some days it's a challenge and other days the words flow out from that magical sweet spot of creativity.  The book will be done in a few moths time and I cannot wait to share my ridiculous happenings with you and the world!!!!











   

Ten - Thirteen

NYE 2014 - 2015

Ten years ago yesterday I moved to LA from NYC.  That also means that in 2 days, if all goes well, I will be sober for 13 years.  Those are pretty decent sized numbers if you ask me.  For about 8 years I was saying that I lived in LA for 5 years until I realized that I had been spouting that fact for at least 4 years running.  I'm not great at math but I came to the conclusion that I had been here longer than it seemed.  Sometimes I feel as if I just got here and it definitely does not feel like a decade has passed.

     I had been mulling over the prospect of "go west young man" for a few years but I just couldn't decide.  I asked other people what they thought and no one else had any satisfying answers either.  I waited until I had been sober for several years before I decided to uproot my life and go to the furthest coast away from the East Village.  It's suggested that you don't make any radical decisions in the 1st year of recovery because it's simple too overwhelming, stress inducing and, often, can trigger relapse.  Because of that I stayed working as a bar tender 5 nights a week while I was a newcomer to recovery.  The weird thing is that I became the best bar tender ever because all of the sudden I was focused on my job and concentrating on making money for the club and myself and not distracted by partying behind the bar.  Funny how things work.

     Once I made the firm decision in my mind that I was "Hollywood or bust" it seems that all of these doors magically unlocked.  The whole time I was hemming and hawing all of my plans and ideas seemed hazy but the moment I decided for sure doors sprang open.  A friend contacted me out of the blue because he had been traveling for over a year and was coming back to NYC in Jan. with just a backpack and no other belongings.  He needed a place to stay and I just happened to be leaving my apartment fully furnished.  Perfect.  

     Then, I had decided I should take an acting class in LA but the task of finding a good one seemed insurmountable.  One day I was out and about on a snowy, NYC afternoon and I stopped at one of my favorite places for lunch.  I heard a woman talking and her voice was instantly recognizable.  It was my Grandma's friend Jean-Ann who has a very distinctive, bold, boisterous, NY voice.  I approached her table and was going to ask if she remembered me (hadn't seen her in a decade) and she immediately looked up and proclaimed "Gregory!"  She said my grandma had mentioned my plans to relocate and then for no apparent reason I said I was going to look for an acting class.  Well, lo and behold her sister Robin was a working actress in LA who, it just so happened, was starting an acting class in the new year (2005).  She said I would love Robin because they had similar personalities and I always loved Jean-Ann!!!  Again, crazy how stuff works out. 

     To be quite frank I moved to LA because I wanted to be on TV.  I mean, I had already appeared in a national Always Panty Liners (no joke) commercial and played a - wait for it...junkie on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent."  But, I wanted to do a lot more of that.  I easily signed with an agent out here because, like I said, things were all falling into place and I started booking more national commercials.  Most of you already know the story but a few years later seemingly out of the blue I got a call to come meet Kat Von D ASAP to discuss the possibility of being the new shop manager on LA Ink.  Of course, that's exactly what I did and there it was - I was on TV regularly and it was tons of fun for a while.

     Now, it's a new year and I realize that I haven't set any new goals for myself lately.  Looking back it seems like most of the goals that I did set came true in one way or another.  The thing about making goals, writing them down, saying then out load, shouting them to the universe is that most often they do materialize!!  They usually don't happen in the manner or time frame in which you expect though which is why its important to keep expectations in check.  You absolutely can create the magic that you desire in your life and be the alchemist of your own destiny.

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” 

― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist