I was born a small black child....

I got married once in Las Vegas.

Wow! Great beginnings!....so yeah..I'm listening...

I have dozens of illegitimate children. Possibly hundreds.

Well, teach them to read.

I was once named Queen of Seattle.

I was elected President of Southeast 142nd Place.

I served as Secretary Of Agriculture in a bar on 79th street. No, wait I just took a dump there.

I've traveled the world, been homeless, been arrested, blacked out, laughed, been laughed at, committed crimes against impersonal property, gotten drunk in squats and mansions and boats and boxcars and hotels where they leave chocolate mints on the pillows, sold my body for money, read the dictionary (through 'E - excommunicate'), lost the plot, found the plot, cleaned my socks, and happily, my limbs still function.

sold my body for money,

I did that, too. mainly to scrap yards, laboratories, and the occasional butcher shop.

I burnt the tip of my index finger over the weekend, and now I'm trying to type without it. Really makes me rethink those daydreams of cutting off the tip of a pinky.

I like unicorns.

The second son of a librarian and an analyst for the Department of [redacted], I grew up in a bucolic suburb between Baltimore and Washington, DC. Childhood was nice, and I managed not to fight with my brother or my parents much. Things from that time that I don't mention are either repressed or dealt with and private.

I went to college 513 miles from home, in Richmond, Indiana, at a little Quaker school, on a National Merit Scholarship and some grants and a work-study job and some bank loans, which my grandfather paid off just before he died to get around inheritance taxes. I wound up living in Japan for a semester and earning a BA in Japanese Studies, with a concentration in history and culture.

After college I moved to Israel for a year, and did some travelling elsewhere in the Middle East.

Then I moved to Japan for a few years, until my mother was diagnosed with cancer and I moved back to Maryland to help out.

Three years later, after radiation and drugs had healed her, I moved to New York to become a writer, and here I am.

I have worked at a produce stand, a liquor store, a library, in the pit orchestra of an opera company, as a landscaper, currying horses, milking cows, tending ostriches, keeping chickens, harvesting cotton, picking citrus and avocados, in a plastic factory and a toy factory, as a sous-chef and a dishwasher, as an exterminator's assistant, as an English teacher to Japanese elementary and junior high schoolers, salarymen, and retirees, in retail sales and management, as a production assistant on commercial shoots, a backstage dresser and a stagehand in off-Broadway productions, a personal assistant to the vice-chairman of the world's largest bank, and as a bean-counter and pencil-pusher in the high-stakes gambling said bank calls derivatives. I think that just about covers it.

I've loved the same woman for about ten years without necessarily knowing it through all that time. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. I'm just about bursting on that score.

I've got a real close family; my brother's wife is like a sister, and my nephew, well, he could be made of gold and shine less than he does in real life, that boy.

So here I am.

I think a quick googlesearch of my name will dredge up more than enough.

Google says I'm a gay, hard boiled detective in my spare time, whose cute lover shares my real-life middle name.

My previous occupations: paperboy, worker in raincoat factory, busboy, grocery clerk, video store stockboy/janitor, worker in bread factory, baker's helper, bookstore clerk, newsstand clerk, tech support guy, computer salesman, and (currently, and for the next two months) data entry guy. I've also done a multitude of weird temp gigs, including proofreading an enviornmental supply catalog, selling tickets at a Winston Cup track, and counting 495 pairs of thong underwear in Little Havana.

I am the only son and oldest child of a home furnishings salesman and a schoolteacher.

Born in Australia, came to England as a young child, grew up in a town in the Midlands where anyone with any get-up-and-go had got up and gone.

Left school the day after my 16th birthday, left home the day after that. Moved to London a year later.

Drifted, drifted, drifted for years on a sea of booze.

Got married at 30. Got divorced. Got married again to the same man (co-dependent addicts, the pair of us). Got divorced again.

Got sober.

Met a man. Fell in love. He died. I died inside.

That's about it, up to today.

born in New Zealand, single mother, only child, very poor, put self through university, scholarships to grad school, moved to Baltimore, MD, met future husband within 12 hours of landing, got married, moved to NYC, planning on heading back to NZ mid 2008.

oh, and I played a lot of team sports.

Well since we're all sharing...and I thank you for it here's a little about me.

I was born in the middle of the Summer of Love...July 1969.
I've been writing since my brian figured out where to place my fingers on a number 2 pencil.

Today, I serve as 1 fifth of the Hip Hop outfit Little Egypt
(I go by the name Khordz-355 aka Joey Newborn).

I'm actually and truthfully really famous in Poland and semi-famous in Sydney, Australia.

Currently I'm working on a solo project called the NEWBORN EXPEWRIENCE and a new EP, A CROWN HEIGHTS AFFAIR with my group mates.

Last week, through our agency, I sold an instrumental to Darksenses Productions which is currently producing a documentay called 'A YOUNG FATHER'S PROJECT' which will air on PBS sometime this fall.

Check me out here if you wanna:

www.littleegypt-ny.com
www.myspace.com/littleegypt

Or just axxxxxx me a kwestchun and I'll answer!

Thanks, kids!

I love your list of musical influences on the www.littleegypt-ny.com site. That's some good stuff right there, let me tell you what!

Venezolano Negro!

Raise tha mu-fuckah and set it on fiyaaaaaah!

I almost died on Aconcagua once. I learned my lesson and never did anything interesting again.

And here's a performance pic in Torun Poland, 2001 for my main man HUGH!

≡ Click to see image ≡

Thanks, Iconomy!

Yeah..it's pretty long, eh? But, I'm actually really inpsired musically by each and every one of them. I guess you can even say that I breathe it.

Make sense?

I spent part of a night in jail for unpaid dog tickets.

I publish and edit porn. This makes my mother squirm a lot.

When I was a child, I ate paper.

That crimpy lass in the front row is gagging for it, Joe.

I mostly lurk here, but not because I'm creepy. I am training for a half-marathon, and it is making me sick all the freaking time. Currently, I have a low-grade fever, and my lymph nodes are insanely swollen, and I just googled to discover that lymph nodes CAN POP. so now i'm kind of grossed/bummed out. oftentimes i forget to use caps, or switch back and forth. it's not because i'm lazy or stupid. or creepy. i swear.

I realize that wasn't very biographical, exactly.

I've lived in Texas, California, and New York. Not once has my vote counted in any big election.

Don't you run to feel healthy?

If it's making you sick, shouldn't you stop (or slow down) 'til you feel better?

Don't pop your nodes for a silly race, please!

Funny thing, Hugh. She hitched a ride to every show we played that year. EVERY SHOW!
It was 5 cities. She's a school teacher.

Awesome. Did you rock Gdansk?

I KNOW. (caps to imply that i am being completely ridiculous by wanting to run, not that your comment is unwarranted). i'm not running now, and i'm certainly seeing the doctor tomorrow. i think that earlier i convinced myself that the running wasn't what was making me sick. and now the race is only 2 weeks a way.

Nah, Hugh, but here's the poster from that year. The cities are listed below...

≡ Click to see image ≡

Yeah, unknowncommand, you definitely don't want to wear out your lymph nodes, or wear out yourself while you're sick. And forget the race if you're still sick; you'll likely wind up in the hospital if you finish a half-marathon with a fever. I've seen it happen.

And Joe Famous, that r00lz!

I'm a bastard. My birth certificate says my mother was fifty when she had me. I once lived in a red house in Lake Forest with haunted woods out back. I used to brush our German Shepherd's teeth when I was three. Nuns once bought me shoes. I tried to hang my cat. I played a concert in the swan boat park in Stratford-upon-Avon. I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. I was especially fond of this one stripper with glasses. I like anchovies on pizza. I cry in the shower. My favorite 45 when I was eight was Please Mr. Please. My father made Bed Springs. He's buried behind Blockbuster. I can stop time.

And I'm a school teacher too.

Pips....you gota learn me how to stop time! lol.

Great bio!

Pips is a good writer.

I am a semi-man of mystery, so let's just say:

I was born at a hospital in the east village, my moms had to walk to harlem from chinatown to go into labor.

I fell out of thing and went sailing. I shot guns. I collected comic books. Quakers taught me stuff, like latin and how to smoke tons of weed. I got beat up by skinheads, I beat up some skinheads.
I listend to lots of music and read lots and lots of books.

I committed standard teenage crimes.

I've worked in a deli, as a basketball coach for 6 year olds, in a bronze foundry, as a doorman and a porter, in several bars, as a associate producer on some documentaries, at the fucking Javitiz Center, for people who wanted to use the internet to make money, for rare book dealers and in publishing.

I love people and things.

I sang back-up, with about ten other classmates, during my high school days, for Barry Mainilo's Madison SQ Garden and Medowlands concerts.

BOOYEAAAAA

Pips is a good writer.

Indeed. I've always told people, she's the one in the family who's good with words. I'm just the comedy relief and cigarette girl.

If we're doing the random details thing:

I once sold a book to an illiterate. I have relieved my self in some of our finest institutes of higher learning. A college friend of mine sold the gun used in one the 1990's most famous crimes. I lost my virginity on the corner of 79th & Amsterdam. I was suspended from high school for arson.

I was born on Long Island to a couple who moved from Brooklyn. They had tried for years to have a child but couldn't, so I was a surprise (and an only child). Normal upbringing until my mom contracted cancer and died when I was 14. Dad remarried to a nice woman with four sons (they're in their mid 80's now). Went to college in Rochester for photographic science but hated it and switched to food service. Drifted for a while after graduation (security guard, Rite Aid manager, etc.) but stayed in Rochester because I was seeing a local girl who would eventually dump me for a friend.

Met another local girl who, along with my best friend, would get me on track. Went back to school for my CompSci degree, married her and settled down as embedded software developer (I would eventually also get my MS). Two daughters, 18 months apart, both now in high school. Slow but steady career advancement until I ended up here at The Big Company (not its real name) where things have sort of plateaued. Contemplating a career change but not thinking too much about it.

No one said The Way would be a straight line.

tommasz, sometimes I wonder if there actual is a "Way,' as opposed to simple random happenstance. I need a beer.

Random detail?

I got suspended from catholic school for tagging the church.

I was born and have lived ever since.

I'm not famous. Nor is my name Joe. I did engrave a plaque for Leonard Nimoy once.

Random detail: When I was a year old, my parents went to Hawaii, where they met a haggard Steve Martin on the beach, a haggard Steve Martin who then held me in his arms and said something entirely forgettable.

I am the result of some birth control sabotage by one of my parents. I was misdiagnosed with a brain tumor at age nine. My dad and I used to go fishing with no hooks. I was runner-up for "Best Hair" my senior year of high school. I keep all the really important stuff to myself.

I was born under a wanderin' star. Hit sweet sixteen in leather boots, not giving a damn about my reputation. The spaces in between ain't nobody's business, but I was sure on a highway to hell. Man, I was a one-woman surfin' safari, riding that wave of mutilation, until one day I thought to myself, "Where is my mind? " I realized it was a swindle. Now I still don't wanna grow up, I love rock n’ roll, and wild horses couldn't drag me away from all tomorrow's parties, but those weird scenes inside the gold mine just don't make me wanna shout any more. I mean, really…is that all there is?

YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly -- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is -- and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece -- all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round -- more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them, -- that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't.

I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, that much is true.

I love you for that, killdevil.

I'm just this guy.

Born and (mostly) bred in Boeing Busted Seattle. Mom stayed at home, Pops was a fireman. The 'rents bought me encyclopedias and a turntable, for which I'm eternally grateful.
Folks split when I was ten (pops had the usual mid-life crises) he moved to GA. I followed a few years later and hated it. Back to Sea-town for my senior year in time to see my quiet hometown's national profile rise (and no, I'm not all that happy about it.)
Worked in insurance 11 years after high school, until a buddy got me on at a certain digital media company.
I played bass in some bands and own tons of CD's. I've briefly flirted with libritarianism, Daoism and
lotsa cute girls. Vodka Collins is my drink, Satan is my motor and Mancini is The Man.

That is all.

Late to the party as usual - been ill!

reproduced from my blog...

A snake has fallen on my head before.

I have a 50 inch hip.

I was almost named Sophia

I hate brussel-sprouts and cauliflower.

I'm fixated with all things feline.

I am a big reggae fan.

The motto on my High School crest reads " Ut omnes unum sint".

I'm a 38D.

I have used a pit latrine before.

I once lived in a little town where i was the only black person in the entire town

I've tasted cat meat before (tastes like chicken).

I've suffered a life threatening meltdown before and was hospitalized for it.

I've had sex with a man of God (he was married, so who was the bigger sinner?)

I used to ride a motorcycle.

My favorite color is blue.

A 16 year old boy had a crush on me when i was 23.

I sleep naked.

I am a published limericist.

I wear rose colored glasses (thats really true. I thought buying rose colored glasses would make me life in a whole new and more posititve light. It didn’t!)