Short Autobiography
I was born
July 24th, 1973, the youngest
of two brothers and the great
great great grandson of both
Brigham Young (an early leader of the
L.D.S. Mormon church and architect of
the Mormon colonization of Utah) and
Heber C. Kimball (a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and
first counselor to Brigham Young). I grew up in a big 6-bedroom,
super-sixties house (matching bright yellow vinyl furniture included)
in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, Utah, where I spent the majority of my
young life sipping milk out of my favorite cow-shaped bottle and
listening to scriptures on tape in the wee early hours of the morning
before school. My father was a strict, religious, entrepreneur in
the nutritional field and my mother was an easy-going artistic and
agnostic, slightly feminist, aspiring school teacher in college.
They divorced when I was 8 years old (go figure) and the courts awarded my mother
custody of me and my brothers. My
grandfather (Gramps) on my mother's side was very instrumental in my
upbringing and could be considered a third or surrogate parent of
sorts. He was a pilot and owned a charter bus company, as well as
his very own little Cessna airplane. He believed that it was
better to learn by experience rather than by reading, so he would often
pull me out of school to take me with him on his various expeditions
around the country. By the time I was a teenager, I had visited
most of the United States and parts of Canada by accompanying him in his
travels. We remained very close throughout my adult life until his
passing in January of 2003. My Gramps could be SO INSANELY FUNNY... I now carry his torch of never-ending wit and
sarcasm! After my parents divorce,
our family became very poor for quite some time. My Gramps was
generous to a fault and often came to the rescue. It was a very
strange life of going back and forth between total hardship and total
excess. Despite my family's hardships, my mother encouraged my
artistic growth and made sure that I always had access to art supplies
including colored pencils, markers, paints, and origami paper. She enlisted me and my brothers in weekly lessons
from a local art teacher and made it a point to take us to various
museum exhibits. She also had a good handful of quirky
and artistic friends and there was never a shortage of creative projects
involving a multitude of mediums to participate in. It was a family
ritual to excel at not being the 'norm'.
Once my mother had attained her degree and
become an elementary school teacher, I was introduced to the world of technology via the
Atari 400 personal
computer that she brought home from school. It wasn't long
before I learned how to program in the Atari BASIC (Beginner's
All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) computer language. I would
continue my love for computers and programming from this point forward.
As I grew into a teenager, I became very
independent and quite rebellious. It was the mid-1980's and I was
quick to discover that a lot of the fun of life really begins at night.
I had become a young fixture of Salt Lake City's new wave nightclub and
punk scene.
By the time I was 13, I had started smoking,
taken my first hallucinogenic trip on L.S.D., and participated in my
first sexual experiences with men. I'm very comfortable with my sexuality-
it has always been
sort of an afterthought as opposed to the focus of my identity. I guess
you could say I was blessed with a bit of a punk rock chip on my
shoulder as it's been fairly easy for me to tell off anybody and
everybody that didn't agree with the ways in which I've chosen to live
my life.
My copious consumption of L.S.D. continued
at a feverish pace over the next couple of years along with some
dabbling with cocaine and other drugs. To this day I believe that
my drug use has made great contribution to my overall artistic senses,
but not necessarily without repercussions. By the age of 15, I had
run away from home, come back, and been committed to a psychiatric
hospital for severe depression. I
realized at this time that it was imperative that I be set free from the
constraints of living under the authoritative thumb of my parents. I shaped up a bit and forged an agreement between myself, my mother, and
my psychologist that allowed me to live on my own at age 16. It's
amazing how quickly my relationship with my parents improved. I
continued my high school education via home school and worked various
full-time retail and fast food jobs. When it came time for
graduation, I was denied my diploma on the basis of several missing
physical education credits. Two years later, I would take the test
to receive my G.E.D. (General Education Diploma).
By the age of 18, I was desperate to
escape the confines of living in a city where the laws of the land were
governed by the Mormon church. A small pocket of my friends had
left Salt Lake City and regrouped in Atlanta, Georgia. I made
Atlanta my destination and it would later prove to be a bittersweet
experience. I struggled to survive, but enjoyed living in a bigger
city. Just over a year later, I would ultimately decide that the
struggle was not worth the fight and I moved back to Salt Lake City.
It didn't take long before the boredom set in.
After settling back into my home town, I
started plotting towards the creation of my first business,
Galaxina.
Following two years of planning, an incorporation, some business
management classes at the local community college, and a plea from
friends and relatives, I managed to put together a meager $8,000 to
bring my fashion dreams into reality at age 21.
The clothing store, itself, could easily be
seen as one of my greater creative accomplishments to date. With
the help of just a couple of friends, I transformed an upstairs office
space in the 9th and 9th district into a vortex of black rubber
flooring, fake leopard trimmings, and deep purple walls engulfed in neon
green hot-rod flames. Galaxina quickly became the center of Salt
Lake City's alternative fashion world, as well as home to many local
designers including the now burgeoning fashion-forward (yet, sometimes
backward) designer, Jared Gold.
My three years of operating Galaxina would
later prove to be invaluable. I taught myself web design and
Galaxina's website would be my first. I also learned a lot about
photography, graphic design and marketing.
Galaxina lured in many shopping celebrities
and touring rock acts including the king of all controversy,
Marilyn Manson.
However, in 1997, the lease for my store space had expired and the
prospect of moving to a new location offered little other than a start
from scratch. I sold Galaxina's assets, paid it's debts, took what
cash was left, and made a break for Hollywood.
My adventures in Hollywood started off
somewhat menacing. Shortly after moving to Hollywood, I
suffered the wrath of a car accident and other non-related health
problems that left me incapacitated for months on end. It
was during this downtime that I created the initial foundation of the
Hollywood Monsters website.
As my body healed, Hollywood Monsters took on a life of it's own.
It was shameless self-promotion for the masses and a virtual playground
for L.A.'s bands, clubs, and artists. I enjoyed two years of
non-stop nightlife escapades photographing live band
performances and promoting all that the underground scene had to offer.
Various events lead to the destruction of Hollywood Monsters over time.
The Los Angeles underground was suffering as clubs were closing and
bands were breaking up. The events of September 11th literally
killed what little was left of the scene at that time. My personal
survival needs took precedence, and in 2002, I pulled the plug on
Hollywood Monsters for good.
I began
freelancing as a web designer and
rekindled an interest in producing my own personal artwork. Living in
the grime of Hollywood continually forced me to look for beauty wherever
I could find it. Most of the time, I was left to create it. In
2003, I had become disenchanted living in Hollywood for many different
reasons and decided to seek refuge in the suburbs of Los Angeles. I now live happily by the sea on the sands of Long
Beach where I spend the majority of my free time pursuing my artistic visions. You
are: Home > About
Budgie >
Autobiography |
