A few years after high school and all of it's good and bad experiences had left my cerebral cortex, I started itching for some exiliarating excitement. The world was dealing with the aftermath of the A.I.D.S epidemic, due in large part to the struggle & powerful movement of a group called: ACT-UP which ran it's organization out of the Gay & Lesbian Center on 13th street in the West Village. The same place I use to attend gay youth meetings in the late 1980's with a group called GLYNY-Gay Lesbian Youth New York (also the same place were I initially met Keith Haring-that's another story for another time). At the time some of my friends were diagnosed and some died. I was very young and didn't really handle it all with the maturity that would eventually grow with age and proper education.
So having casual sex wasn't an option for me, So instead I found another outlet to express my creativity. Found myself in Manhattan at the MTV Studios which previously ran it's business affairs out of a place called National Studios on 42nd St. and 10th avenue in the heart of midtown (before relocating to it's current residence 1515 Broadway-where TRL used to film)
What was a young, black kid from the Bronx (at the time me and my mom had left the Bronx and moved into Yonkers, New York) around 1992, doing in Manhattan (alone) at MTV Studios...I wasn't there to audition but to be an audience participant in a show called FADE to Black, this appearance led me into one of the most spectacular events of my life. Within days, I became a dancer on a show hosted by the uber sexy Eric Nies from the "original cast" of season one The Real World.
Saw the entire run of the show because when The Real World first premiered in 1992 it was groundbreaking for it's time and Norman Korpi & Eric Nies both stood-out to me (later in life I would also have an opportunity to work with Norman Korpi-the first openly gay man on The Real World series). The show was called:The GRIND
To Be Continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment