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Please give a short bio of yourself for our readers. I am currently 20 years old, and living in a residence hotel on the upper west side of Manhattan in NYC. I grew up in upstate, NY. Moved to the city after I graduated high school, with all intentions of going to art college at F.I.T.(the fashion institute of technology) for fashion illustration and then eventually breaking into fashion design and somehow becoming a part of the "fashion world" and making a name for myself as a designer and becoming rich and famous. Like most people, I thought the meer act of moving to NYC would be all it would take to "make it". After a year and a half of college, I realized that as much as all that glamour and glitz appealed to me, it also made me want to throw up all over myself. Instead of continuing to indulge in the high society, rich yuppie lifestyle that fashion tends to circulate around, I began to surround myself with the other half of New York City, the half that the majority of people, wish would go away. I started to wander around the city on a daily basis, meeting different clans of Homeless People and filming them. Originally, it all started because one day, I had taken my video camera out with me while I was wandering around and I happened to pass a man named "dovey". He was a character that I had seen many times before, most New Yorker's probably have, he tends to stand out, usually I had seen him in Washington Square Park and I had always been intrigued by him. So, as I wandered past him while in search of unique footage, he asked me to film him. And so it all began. After that first day, I had decided that I wanted to begin making a sort of personal documentary, based on the different homeless characters or wanderer's or street rats that I met. Thus beginning, the second half of my life in NYC. I had been filming the same clan of people who lived in Union Square park for about a month when September 11th happened. For those people who don't know anything about Union Square, it had become a giant, candle light vigil to all the WTC victims and everynight the park was loaded with candles, flyers, mourners, and all kinds of WTC imagery. So as expected, the media would swarm to Union square on a nightly basis and they were beginning to film the Union Square Clan(including me), who had, by this time, become my good friends. So, I decided to shut down my camera, and begin writing about them instead, because, unlike the media, I knew these people on a personal basis and my tales of the encounters with them are far more unique then the candid photos the media would snap of them as they were sleeping outside. Something happened to me during the 2 months following september 11th. Basically, I got so involved in the Union Square clan and the drama that used to happen there on a nightly basis, that I forgot to take care of myself and I withdrew from college and eventually temporarilly lost my mind and my bearings and felt lost for a while.I have moved away from NYC only to return 5 months later to start my life over and begin to pick up the pieces and get back on my feet. I have been back here for 2 months now, am once again hanging out in Union Square a lot, with the same majority of people, but this time, im not going to fall into their lifestyle, Im sticking to it and just trying to pay my rent, keep up the writing and get back into college. Why did you choose this username? Im not exactly sure. TEJ was something that me and 2 friends came up with in high school, after combining the first initials of all 3 of our names. It was supposed to be the name of our clothing line. But we never went anywhere with it or even made a clothing line. But I always liked the way the letters looked together so it has kind of become like my tag. I created this diary on a whim and really didn't put much thought into my user name. The 81 stands for the year I was born. So that's the creation of TEJ-81 in a nutshell. Why do you keep a diary online? It serves as my therapist pretty much. I believe that keeping a journal on-line is extremely therapeutic. Some people have on-line journals and they give their friends and people that they know the adress to it and to me, that ruins it. Because, If that was the case with me, i'd find myself sensoring everything that I have to say and it would no longer be a journal, just a personal website instead. But at the same time, I LOVE the idea of actually getting the things that I have been carrying around with me off my chest, still being able to keep it anonymous and actually get feedback on it from real people that dont already have preconcieved notions or ideas about me, so that their opinions are completely un-biased and probably more accurate then any advice other people could give me, because these people are more inside my head, they are reading my secret thoughts that I dont tell people in real life. Just like a trip to the therapist. Only this is free. This is always here anytime I need it and it keeps the wheels in my brain turning, I find that I am constantly feening to write ever since I started this journal and I think it is a highly positive thing for somebody to do for themselves. How important do you think a layout is for a web-based diary? Would you also comment on yours? I dont think that the layout is too important, as long as the words are easy to read and it is easily navigatable. The simpler it is to read the entry, the better. If somebody's journal is too cluttered with other things, i'll find it distracting and I wont be able to concentrate on reading their writing. My layout is pretty simple I think. it's just got some 2d drawings of the characters from the GORILLAZ video. I love the gorillaz, i've been listening to their cd non-stop for the past 3 days actually. You write that there are "some things that only a certain kind of people have the brain capacity to comprehend or understand". Do you think that people are just born like that, or is it a learned behavior? It could be both. Some people refuse to believe things, even after they see them or witness them and then there are others who wont believe it until they see it, and then there are the few people out there who have faith, and they believe in something, regardless of weather it has happened to them or not. I find that I fit into the 3rd category most often. Instead of not believing in anything until I see it, I believe in everything until it has been proven to me that it doesn't exist. You spend a lot of time in Union Square with a certain group of friends, even though you have a home of your own. What's the attraction between you, them, and Union Square? People are more interesting when they are stripped down to almost nothing, take away the shiny cars, the fancy stereo systems the Gucci suits, PRADA bags and stand that rich person next to a homeless person and you tell me which person you'd rather hang out with. Your standing there, with 2 human beings, stripped down with no possessions, no clothing, just armed with their minds. Ask them both to tell you an interesting story. 9 times out of 10, a story about life on the streets will be far more interesting then a day at the NY stock exchange. In essence, that is why I continue to chill with the people I do. Not everybody that Hangs out in Union Square is homeless, in fact the majority of the people are skaters and BMX bikers from Brooklyn or Queens or one of the bouroughs. The fact that it all takes place in a park is because that's where it all began. Union Square is just that a "union" a meeting place. You go there to meet up with people, because that's where everybody always is, it's hard to explain to somebody who doesn't know about it. It just has this sort of addiction associated with it. Go there A few times in one week and you'll start to feel it happening to you. Eventually, you will continue to go back there the next day and then the next day because you find that you keep running into the same people there and they start to become your friends. After a while it just comes naturally, you'll go for a walk, and veer toward Union Square without even realizing it. Everybody ends up there, it's like a drug. You say that you're starting a zine called "The Urban Poison". What will it focus on? And why did you want to keep it anonymous? Basically, it will focus on tales of my random encounters in the city along with stories about the Corruption and stuff that goes on here. thus giving the name "urban poison". I think anonymity is important in anything where your dealing with somthing that could get you into trouble. I dont want to have to sensor what I have to say, and in order to do that, I dont want it to be known who exactly is saying them. And last, but not least, a fun little question. It's the million dollar question on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and you just got it wrong, even though you know your answer was right. Backstage, what do you say/yell to Regis? "didn't I get the question right? I dont get it.?" Interviewed by Notum
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