History

His first memory of childhood starts about age six. He lived in Saint Louis Missouri which is his place of birth. His parents had just divorced, and he was still trying to learn about the world that awaited him. He went to a small school in the neighborhood named McKelvey Primary School. He does not recall a lot of the first two years of school that being 1st and 2nd grade other than attending classes and participating in outdoor activities in the afternoons in playground areas of the school behind the building. He does remember having a particular interest in the science field but the other fields bored him and often times he ended up in the principals office for disciplinary actions probably due to his boredom with these other subjects that were non-science related.  Strangely he did not care for anything historical or numerical concerning memorization at that early stage of his life.  This would come later in life where now he is known for posting daily historical information on social networking and blogging sites and followed by several thousands of people on the Internet.  At any rate, he attended this McKelvey school for 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 6th grades. During 3rd and 4th grades he was shipped off to a school called Edgewood Children’s Center in Webster Groves, Missouri. It was a private boarding school for so-called emotionally troubled kids (in his case due to loss of parent – his natural father) and those in trouble with the law(mostly juvenile delinquents . His mother believed that he was angry and upset due to his father leaving the home.  She had some insights that as a child he had no clue how to handle emotionally. He personally is unsure if this was really the case or the stem of other childhood issues that all people experience,  probably some of both.  He was allowed to come home on the weekends. Only occasionally when his mother felt he did not behave properly did she send him back on a weekend. He does remember one time getting into some trivial argument with an Aunt on a Saturday afternoon. His Mother did not approve and drove him back to Edgewood campus while he cried in the back seat of the car. He remembers attending classes on the campus for the first year and being allowed to go the public local school during the second year. Mainly the only thing he recalls about this time span in his life was going two times a week to see a psychologist named Helen. Daily classes both on and off campus, he does not remember particular events or classes.  Moreso he recalls Helen and her style of therapy with him and perhaps other children at the time.  She was a forceful type of woman whom during one session threw objects at him to get him to react in an emotional way since she felt they were being bottled inside at the time. Being fairly passive in those days, all he did was cry while sitting on the couch in her office. If it had been today (he considers himself much more direct and assertive today) , he probably would have taken the objects (bean bags) and thrown them directly at her face after getting up and punching her.  They were bean bags that were small and not really dangerous or harmful. But it made somewhat of an impact on him at the time since he remembers it so vividly. He also seems to recall a one rogue type of boy that stayed in the same residence. A rebel acting and looking type, Gene seemed very masculine.  He looked up to him for his masculine characteristics. Perhaps he helped him to begin to understand his own sexuality at the time. He doubts Gene even realized the admiration or observations at that time.  Later in life he learned to be less passive and more direct and assertive.

Next, The 5th and 6th grades were a seemingly regular childhood. During that time his mother remarried. He did not like his step-father back at the time since it was perceived by him as a replacement parent that was forced upon him without his consent. This was not a rational choice but nonetheless one made by him at that time.  He felt at the time he did not want a “substitute” father thus he ostracized him at all possible times.  His step father is a detail-minded scientist with 3 masters degrees mostly in engineering fields. Thus he had a lot of the same interests and skills. Somehow it seems strange there was no natural bonding that might have occurred with Larry and his new step-father.  But somehow that just did not occur for complex emotional reasons Larry chose not to follow that path.  However, his sister seemed to befriend him much easier while he was constantly antagonizing him. So this lead to what happened in 7th grade at the age of 13. He was sent to yet another boarding school named Kemper Military School and Academy(it currently is closed). It was his mother’s intention to give him the strict discipline and routine she couldn’t not teach by sending him there. In addition she was afraid he would ruin her marriage since she did not have the stamina to discipline him herself.  He believes this was due to his Mother being fairly passive and unable to deal with a strong willed emotionally troubled boy with so much outrage connected to a missing father at that time. So for the next two years he went to Boonville, Missouri (about a 2 hour drive west of Saint Louis) and was permanently housed in a barracks at that school. He only returned to Saint Louis for three summer months for those two years.  He shared a bedroom with a bunk bed and one other boy. His name was Andre from Costa Rica and often recalls fantasizing about him without his knowledge. He was still naive in those days and had no idea how to act on his urges and still learning about his sexual preferences.  He was only 14 and trying to deal with puberty as any boy does at about that age. Next thing he recalls was meeting Rick, the captain of the swim team. He was about 3 years older and was 16 years old at that point in time.  They had sexual relations many times over the course of the next two years. Their relationship was intimate and close. He recalls the first time they met. A friend of his took him exploring in some abandoned barracks, and they heard a noise at the end of the hall. It was Rick at the far end of the hall in a room alone. He was masturbating. They walked to the end of the hall and into the room. He was sexually aroused and sat next to Rick. Rick unzipped his pants and performed oral sex on him. It was a feeling that he never experienced before but obviously enjoyed immensely. And since this was about the time he was completing puberty, he was very aroused by this and future interactions. After that day he had regular sexual exchanges with Rick while at Kemper in private places where authorities would not find them. They also would go on Friday evenings to a nearby town for temple services since Boonville had no Jews or temples in it. One weekend he remember it was the first time he got drunk from alcohol consumption. They decided to skip the temple services one Friday evening and go to an entertainment arcade with pin ball machines and a bar to the side.  A sorted type of trailer park place that you might see in a John Waters film!  On the side they served liquor drinks along a black leather covered bar, and Rick got drinks somehow for all of the boys in the group. After several beverages made with Slo Gin, Larry was completely drunk. He only has memory of this from what Rick told him the next day. He apparently was vomiting, screaming, and carried on while they dragged him back to campus awaking most of the student body in the middle of the night. The next day all of them were given a punishment called “area” for 25 hours. The idea was to make them dress in heavy clothing, carry heavy armaments, and march in a square in the middle of campus to display how bad we were for breaking rules.  Also this was meant to be difficult physically so the lesson was intensified by they heavy things they were made to carry.  He only marched around for a few of those assigned hours before he figured a way to get office work as he started becoming interested even then in technology.  He recalls some of the older equipment in the office like a typewriter with one of those punched paper tape feeder additions which was a predecessor to the computer.  Slightly more sophisticated than a manual typewriter but not a computer.  Basically it allowed automated typing so many documents could be replicated with same words on them.

He will never forget meeting Andy, the clerk in the office that processed paperwork and performed other bureaucratic tasks for the school such as record keeping. He was very effeminate and most likely gay.Larry had no idea about that at the time he was attending. But it is interesting that he had the chance to interact with such a person before he even knew he was gay. He remembers a lot of the history of the school also. It was built and funded by Will Rogers. It was a philanthropic effort for Rogers. He also remembers this brash Commandant named Rickenbacher that was the man who gave them the punishment for disobeying the rules the night Larry got drunk. The Commandant was a large stern heavy man with a deep voice that was a retired Major from the Army. Most of the non-student staff at the school were retired military officers, mostly from the Army but some other branches as well. The man who ran the entire school’s administration was a Brigadier General William H Blakefield. He was an older man with grey hair and very formal in manner as Larry recalls. He did learn a lot of discipline during that time frame of two years. Everything from meals to daily classes was very organized and planned. Even the extra curricular activities were planned out ahead of time.  Larry learned how to shoot a rifle with training at a range at the school.  He also learned to use a pistol.  Again this was due to the school being preparatory for the military.  As for daily meals, the dining hall was a large room with long rectangular tables. All the students were grouped by age and barracks. A senior officer sat at the head of each table and enforced any applicable rules. Lastly Larry recalls several upper class men in his barracks.  Kemper had a junior college program to prepare officers for the Army.  So as they progressed they were given responsibilities to handle a group of boys by living on each floor and making sure the boys followed all rules set forth.  Strong bodied men that he fantasized about after watching them naked in the showers. Often even today he thinks about those memories which are etched forever in his memory being of a very erotic nature. If there had been a video camera at the time, this surely would have made a very profitable pornographic movie.

After returning from Kemper, in the 9th grade he went to Parkway East Junior High School and then to Parkway North for the remainder of senior high school. Both were public schools with good educational systems. Again he was very interested in science topics. And he has some vivid memories of some of the boys in the locker room of the gym. He still did not realize his sexual identity completely at that time as he was dating a girl from another school in an attempt to assimilate into a normal so called straight lifestyle. But he does recall two identical twins who were blond haired blue eyed hot boys like you might see in an Abercrombie ad which he fantasized about many times.  He was them a few times in the locker room in their underwear and that sight was quite arousing for him. During most of high school he was basically called a dork or geek in type. He was teased, called faggot and other derogatory names by classmates as they knew what he was (homosexual) even before he did. He was the boy that wore square black framed glasses, had a pocket protector, buried his nose in a book often times, and had very few friends. One friend named Brandy was a strange freaky type as he recalls. She lived with her divorced mother and he thinks she was probably an alcoholic based on observing her behavior on visits to their home. He never used alcohol or drugs thankfully. Brandy was colorful and pretty and entertaining during our visits both at her home and when she came to his home. One funny memory he has of her as follows. She came to his home, knocked on the door, and when his Mother answered, she said “Can Larry come out and play?” He graduated with high marks in senior high school and was accepted to University of Missouri. He considered going to a college out of state but just could not afford the expense of it. And since his mother was unwilling to finance such things, he put himself through college with financial assistance and loans from the government.  He believed that a proper education was essential to his adult success and that so called American Dream that was drilled into his head by his family and other adults in his teen years. He first selected an accounting and business program but later switched to a computer science degree program. He kept a full schedule and took as many credits per semester as possible. It took him an extra year since he was sick and hospitalized for one semester at the start of college. He remembers the first dorm he lived in called Smith Hall. He was taking a shower and a fellow resident came into the showers which were communal types with several shower heads along the walls. He took off his clothes and as he began to shower was extremely aroused by this form (a boy he observed with an extremely large member).  No kidding, he claims it was down to the boy’s knees. Anyhow, by this time he was getting more comfortable with his sexual preferences. But he still only was looking, not acting on the ugres he felt. Later that year and in the following years at college, he frequented a gay bar called the Tiger Lounge. He had regular weekend trysts which he often continued either in his first apartment off-campus (He had two room mates but they had their own bedrooms) or in his last apartment which was a single by himself. For the most part during this period he was very studious and concentrated on the completion of his degree.  But he drank somewhat and had lots of sex on the weekends. Sure he was learning more and more about his sexuality and identity as time went along, but that was not his primary focus. There was actually one man named Matt whom he had an intimate relationship with at the time. Matt was a sculptor and painter artist which he thought had interesting work and found the creative personality attractive. Larry was not educated in creative and artistic matters at that time. This came much later in his life as you will read below after he moved to Los Angeles.

He got his diploma and started his first job in Saint Louis at Union Pacific Railroad. This was a dream come true at the time as Larry found trains and that form of transit very exciting.  He was a programmer for the mainframes(computers on a larger scale than personal computers) and was given specifications on different algorithms to program them. He had many computer jobs over several years and traveled to several places within the 50 states, probably 40 of them. He only stayed at Union Pacific for about 2 years before he moved to Chicago. He wanted to live in a larger city with a more diverse set of people that were more accepting of his sexual identity. He found an apartment and quickly moved into a suburban area called Rolling Meadows, or as they joked and called it, Rolling Ghettos. He did not like the winters but for some reason he dealt with it for close to 12 years. To this day he still misses facets of that city. Anyway, during his stay in Chicago he lived for a few years in the suburban area as mentioned above.  He also moved later into the city area called Boystown in the northern part of Chicago.  It is also called the Lakeview area. This was after he spent two years in Portland Oregon doing a job for Intel. He liked that city and job a lot too as he recalls. It was also the place where he met his first lover who happens to also have the same name Larry. Not a lot to tell about Portland, it was colorful all the time due to it raining most days. The people were fairly liberal in the area. The gay population there was actually fairly large. There are two areas which have large populations of gay people.  One called Northwest, and the other called Southeast.  It had interesting parks and museums and other city life. But getting back to Chicago, their weather being seasonal and less precipitation was a welcomed change at that time.  Chicago as a city has a lot of diverse cultures and areas.  All of it accessible by an elaborate transit system called the El (due to it being elevated trains, and a subway too).  This time he lived in the city right near all of the gay bars on Halsted Street (boystown as mentioned above). It was an interesting five years to say the least. Part of the time he owned a car and would drive to work at a contracted job he had in Evanston. Most of the time he did not have a car and used the public transit system which is very advanced and frequent as mentioned above. He worked several places in the downtown loop area during those years too. The longest job he had was at The John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation. He did all kinds of technology work for them. He had his own office and sometimes even was known to have sex inside it. He was fired from the job for having pornography on his computer. Such a shame too since it was a really good job at the time. But it was part of his history that was needed to get to where he is now. As he recalls, he was fired from many consulting positions for similar types of incidents which was a preamble to his switching from such a logic based career to one that is creative.

After Chicago, he decided he disliked winter cold and wanted to live someplace with sunshine and warm weather. The choices he explored were Arizona, California, Florida, and Hawaii. He was lucky enough to get a job offer from the Walt Disney Company, and they relocated him to Los Angeles. He lived for a month in temporary housing while his belongings were shipped from Chicago. He only worked for them for six months actually before he took part in a major layoff program. That was the summer before the infamous 9/11 attacks. After that, he was unable to find any technology jobs in California. He tried very hard to get work but just could not find anything. The reasons were because competition in California for high tech jobs tended to be extremely tough. And the economy after 9/11 just was terrible no matter what part of the country. Little did he know at the time that this was when his life would change drastically. He went from being a corporate geeky technology guru to becoming an artist and creative type. He walked to a nearby barber shop and asked the girl to do something fun with his hair for the first time in his life.  Up until that point in time, he never had any hair style other than a simple conservative one due to that being demanded by most the places of employment. He told the girl to dye it and make something fun out of it as best she could imagine with her creative style. So she cut it into a zigzag Mohawk style and dyed it green. He liked it so much that he decided he was going to let it grow into a big tall normal fan type of Mohawk that very few people see today on the streets. During that period, he was offered a few jobs as a photographer which got him started into that field. He went to a monthly night club named “dragstrip66” and started with a small simple camera. The man that was DJ and ran things is named Paul V.  The event is now on a yearly basis. Anyhow, little did he know then that this was going to be his fascination and new career, strange people in odd outfits dancing around in the middle of the night, which he took pictures of them and documented all of it. He started taking pictures of all kinds of night time events and some during the day. It became his specialty, doing event based photography.  He worked for a few years doing odd assignments for Frontiers magazine going to night clubs to cover whatever events they asked or red carpet events with celebrities.  It was not the most lucrative, but he learned to really enjoy it and was happy now being allowed to be creative. He has an eye for exactly what to capture.  He took a class at Los Angeles City College for fun even though he knew all about mechanics of Photography.  The professor told him that he had the gift and to keep it up and make it his career…which obviously he did.  Lastly, he wants to mention the idea behind his hair and look. It amazes him all the time how shocked and fascinated people are with his Mohawk. Sure it is tall and colorful and unusual and not the norm. But are most people that boring that they need this kind of stimulus to wake them up to reality? Perhaps.

Finally, the “Ten Bad Questions Asked about My Mohawk” which he made as video and placed onto youtube.com in 2009.  He revised this in and made a better version in 2011. The link : Youtube Video with Bad Mohawk Questions

First he would like to acknowledge Calpernia Addams for inspiring him.  She did a video called “15 Bad Questions Not to Ask a Trangender person”.  Following are the mohawk questions along with equally inane answers offered frequently to strangers at times.  Sometimes he just answers differently or more simply than what follows depending on if the situation warrants humor or not.

1) Is that your real hair?

Answer: No stupid, I shaved your mom’s beaver and glued it onto my head with some crazy glue.

2) How do you sleep with that?

Answer: I wear one of those big dog cones like you might see on a sick Great Dane!

3) Is that your real hair color?

Answer: Why yes, I was born with purple, then red, then green, then blue hair. It is like a chameleon in nature and changes color on its own. Or, Yes I am an alien with Purple hair.

4) Do you do that every single day?

Answer: No, only when the moon has reached its quintile 100th phase around pluto then mars

5) What product do you use to stand it up?

Answer: I use Horse semen. I stick my head between his legs, excite him, and he shoots this disgusting stuff into my hair. It works great. (*turns head and displays it*)

6) Are you trying to make a statement? Do you do that for attention?

Answer: No I am quite shy and wish you would stop talking to me.  Go away now!

7) Like Like Oh My Gawd, that is so rad. I used to see that on teen boys in high school like like 30 years ago (utters the 70 year old gay queen).

Answer: No, not a question, but thank you for giving me a history lesson you lecherous filthy old troll ; I knew all that history already thanks.

8) Aren’t you too old to wear a mohawk?

Answer: Yes, I am 88.

9) Is that a weave?

Answer: This usually is asked by black women. And the usual reply, yes, it is. Again, I shaved a small unsuspecting animal and weaved it’s fur into my own hair and dyed it. How does it look?

10) How long does that take you to fix up?

Answer: No time at all. It does it all by itself by magical powers. A Fairy just waves a wand over my head. And poof it stands all by itself.  Sometimes if this question is asked by hair care professional he will tell them he use freeze hairspray and egg whites.