numbers – Jeff Gauntt-Quiceno

The Naked Time

Do you have photos of moments in your life that make you cringe? I have a handful of them, particularly from my early 20s, when I was searching for a path out of Texas. I had moved beyond my flashy New Wave days of makeup and big hair into a strange hybrid uniform of 1940sContinue reading “The Naked Time”

The Hunger – Bauhaus and the Endless Void of Teenage Depression

I. I peer into the depths of a black tarp, loosely stapled across a makeshift wall. There is a constant hustle of people shuffling past as they rush to cobble together a haunted house for this elementary school carnival within 24 hours. By my side is David Johnson, a great neighborhood friend. I’d invited himContinue reading “The Hunger – Bauhaus and the Endless Void of Teenage Depression”

Episode 8: The Mallternative Factor – Parachute Pants vs. Capes

FADE IN: EXT. SHOPPING MALL – DAY The bland, overbright facade of a mall on the outskirts of Houston, Texas on a hot day with an unbroken, cloudless sky and cars but no people. A seagull slowly circles the lot. JEFF (Voiceover) For many suburban teens in the 80s, the mall provided a mini-vacation fromContinue reading “Episode 8: The Mallternative Factor – Parachute Pants vs. Capes”

Episode 5: Mirror, Mirror – The Path to the Nightcage

I move in slow motion, trapped in the crowd after a concert at Music Hall in downtown Houston. My friends, Michael and Steven, slowly move in syncopation as we awkwardly descend the steps of the balcony, taking tiny steps to assure we don’t kick or trip someone else. I am wearing grey parachute pants, aContinue reading “Episode 5: Mirror, Mirror – The Path to the Nightcage”

Episode 4: Amok Time – Triggering my Trekkie Sleeper Cell

“After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.” – Spock in Amok Time. In June of 2001, I lived in a loft space in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn. Bushwick hadn’t yet become the art and fashionContinue reading “Episode 4: Amok Time – Triggering my Trekkie Sleeper Cell”

Episode 3: The Space Seed – Uncharted Paths Away From Home

“It is better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven.” Captain Kirk quoting Milton’s Paradise Lost. The opening phrase: “Space, the final frontier,” introduced me to the mission of the starship Enterprise, to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and boldly go where no one has gone before. This phrase,Continue reading “Episode 3: The Space Seed – Uncharted Paths Away From Home”

Episode 2: The Changeling – Y’all Hallows’ Eve

I have photos from childhood Halloweens of my sister Michaelle and I wearing standard store-bought costumes that I have no memory of. There is one of me dressed as a race car driver, which must have been bought by my parents since I never cared about race car drivers, unless they were the doe-eyed, animeContinue reading “Episode 2: The Changeling – Y’all Hallows’ Eve”