BIOGRAPHY

Pink's journey through life is a dizzying barrage of strange events. Caeser was born a "blue baby" to working class laborers in Alfarata, Pennsylvania, a small village in a secluded valley of the Appalachian Mountains (population 475) . Although the county was given an award as "All American City" in the 1970's, it was an area torn between righteous religious extremism and rampant drug and alcohol addiction, low-wage poverty, and random violence. On the surface it was an idyllic rural paradise, but lurking below was a nihilism that infected many within the community, causing them to take part in self-destructive behavior.

During his youth Pink was a social misfit who felt at odds with his environment and oppressed by the conservative values of the community. Pink became a musician when he was seven years old, and by the age of thirteen was spending his weekends performing in the country and western bars and firehouse pubs in the region.

In high school he joined a punk rock band called Friction that became an outlet for his social/political frustrations. Although the band never reached beyond the level of regional cult status, to their fans they were a voice that stood against the boredom of conservative mainstream culture, and the hopelessness of working class existence.

By age eighteen Pink was living in a twilight world of sex and drugs, often mixing Quaaludes and tequila before staggering onto the stage to perform. Just as it seemed he was following the path of self-destruction that was so common among the youth in his hometown, he was seized by a shattering spiritual vision that transformed his life and sent him into a Thoreau-esque hermitage deep in the Appalachian foothills.

Surrounded only by trees, a mountain stream that ran through his front yard, and a few chickens for eggs, Pink spent the next two years in study and quiet contemplation. With no opportunity for regular employment during the Reagan-era recession, he lived in extreme poverty, often reduced to stealing food for survival, and living without phone, television, hot water, and with only a small wood-stove for heat.

After two years the tide turned when Pink won ten thousand dollars in a government lottery. Within a short time he used the money to invest and accumulate a commercial recording studio, a home, rental properties, and an extravagant collection of eastern artwork. But at a time when most men might settle into a more traditional lifestyle, Pink turned in another direction.

Feeling that the materialistic and mundane existence had become meaningless to him, he threw away all of his material possessions and severed personal ties in order to gain artistic and emotional freedom.

In the midst of this he was the focus of a vengeful conspiracy among the sheriff's department and members of the local police force in retaliation for a harassment charge filed by a state senator on Pink's behalf. Soon afterward he was warned by the state Attorney General's office that his phone was tapped by an unknown source.

Only days later he was taken into kangaroo court, thrown into jail on invisible charges, and once inside, other inmates were urged to beat him at the sheriff's request. Luckily the inmates recognized Pink from his punk rock days and warned him of the sheriff's intentions.

After fleeing his hometown to escape the wrath of the local authorities, his next two years were spent living on the edge. While studying filmmaking and philosophy at the Penn State University his life became a hectic whirlwind of disastrous love affairs and dangerous forays into the dark nights with the lost souls of America's underculture.

From being held at knife point in the New Orleans projects, car-jacked by one of New York City's 14th Street transvestites, to finding solace among small time drug dealers, homeless vagrants, and cheap prostitutes, a new search for vitality and meaning became precariously self-destructive. While watching friends be destroyed by drugs and suicide, and lovers collapse into mental breakdown while trying to survive amid his chaotic lifestyle, Pink's life spiraled downward.

After leaving college Pink recruited a group of friends from the Penn State Film Department to create a multimedia performance that combined music, performance art, dance, and video projection. Unable to find a theatre that would allow them to present the performance, they were forced to debut it on a local bar. When the audience, who were used to seeing cover bands playing the latest top 40 hits, were greeted by the multimedia spectacle, it became a local sensation.

Reaction was torn between passionate love or hate. A storm of controversy surrounded the performances.  One was cancelled due to threats to riot from religious groups, women's study classes debated Pink's message on sexuality, and lawyers were called in when the University banned flyers for the performance, then denied doing so when the local newspapers began to cover the story.

The performances expressed a message of creative freedom, social and self awarensss, and of personal, spiritual, and sexual liberation through independent thinking. Inspired by this message, a community of artists, activist, and spiritual seekers coalesced around Pink and the performers.

After a year in Central, Pennsylvania, six of the performers decided to relocate to New York City. During the relocation process Pink began to hit rock bottom. Homeless and living in the back of an old car, physically ill and mentally disintegrating, he collapsed into what he refers to as a 'spiritual death.'

By the time Pink arrived in New York City he was at his lowest point. With no money for rent, he slept on the basement floor of a friend's Staten Island home. His belongings, now reduced to a few old crates of tattered books and CDs, were scattered around him. One morning as he lay on the floor a book suddenly fell from one of the crates. The book, "The Politics Of Experience," by R.D. Lang expressed an unconventional theory that some forms of mental breakdown were actually a spiritual passage from one stage of consciousness to another. A passage often spoken of in eastern religions and ancient mythologies. Pink used the concepts in the book as means of understanding his experiences and as a guide to begin the long healing process. Since that time this concept of dissolution and rebirth has been a theme in his work

Pink now resides in Greenpoint, Booklyn. Since arriving in New York City he has presented nearly a hundred multimedia performances with an ever-growing cast of talented artists, activist, technicians, and supporters. While Pink uses the talents and energy of the community to help create group works to express his message, he also provides a platform for artists to express their own creativity. Often providing young artists with a opportunity to develop their own artistic skills and confidence as performers.

Over the years Pink has produced a wide range of projects including street theatre protests, art exhibitions, fashion shows, poetry reading, musical concerts, music recordings, masquerade balls, an underground TV seriesexperimental films, music videos, documentaries, books, radio broadcast, and a variety of websites.