yo!

Laguna dude, California, USA

FireMikeZ@yahoo.com, AIM: FireMikeZ, ezboard global: FireMikeZ, FireMike or FireMIkeZ at HoP, DOA, JS, HCH, SDR, DT

fire memberships

firetoys

OrangeFire admin, Producer, Gallery Director, Home of Poi member (FireMike)

fire poi, fire glowstix, fire-breathing, fuelwriting, lantern staff, photo editing, photons (red)

my best move

move i'm learning

fire glowstix twists

breathing a fire ring and them spitting through its center

WHO ELSE SPINS FIRE IN MY FAMILY: sister's graphic animator in NYC, goes to Burning Man, learning poi

HOW LONG I'VE BEEN SPINNING FIRE: first breathed fire 4 years ago

HOW I STARTED: naturally love fire, not destructively but coz it's brilliant, fun, & i grew up in Zimbabwe where Zulu-descended Matabeles and bantu Shona trained & told stories by firelight. watched their spearplay by torchlight over Victoria Falls, modern "8 wonders of the world" (native name: the Thunder Who Roars).

GROOVIEST THING FIRE & I HAVE DONE: learned a lot of fire lore as apprentice to Brother Blue, Boston's official Storyteller, & his wife Ruth Hill who runs an oral history program at Radcliffe College, so designed a fire-chalice, gilded glass like a hurricane glass with a candle inside, for a communion-style blessing rite performed by two ministers saying the blessing and touching people on the forehead at the same time each pair.

CRAZIEST THING FIRE & I HAVE DONE: was about 10 when i stuck this gizmo in the socket in the house, it blew like immediately like a fuse with a golden glow bang

WORST BURN I GOT FROM FIRE: not so bad, really, but alpha-testing my newly invented fire glowstix, blistered index & 4th finger (not little ones) on each hand, even tho i wore hide gloves, from the brass tubing of the stix conducting heat from the fireheads over them; the middle finger on top of the shafts was fine, no blisters under it either. lasting so far a coupla weeks. . . but had a huge good time trying them out.

bio

real world

MY AGE: i'm retarded, like 19 for a third time going on 29...you tell me, dude!

SCHOOL I WENT TO: high schools from Harare & Marondera, Zimbabwe to Savannah, GA; Harvard University. this terrorist scare we got since 9/11? in boarding school in Africa we used to have terrorist drills all the time, the housemasters would shoot off real FN rifles so it felt more real

MY JOB: event producer: just decided to use my bizz training (researched for Harvard Business School) and get fully into event organizing, especially music, so starting to look into that

thrills

chills

KRISPY KREME RULES: totally true, tho Dunkin Donuts Bavarian Creme is very fine, i love custards

NUTELLA, BOVRIL, MARMITE, VEGEMITE BREADSPREADS ROCK: haven't tried Nutella, the others. . . NOT!. . . mainly made of harshly dark yeasty growths, huh? peanut & sesame butter good, sweet marzipan ground almond past rules!

WHAT CANDY I WANT NEXT BURN: gotta bring something chocolate with chilies in it, ancient-skool native style

SICKEST FOOD: well, actually i'll make you sick, i eat EVERYTHING

ILLEST DRINK: mango juice, eggnog, flambee of course, amber beers, sometimes crave horchata

CHILLEST COLOR: rich ones, like intense dark red, metallic beetle green, gold-blonde, Prussian blue, not brown unless it's wood, and then red's better too.

COOLEST HOLIDAY: for fun, Mardi Gras, for love, Christmas & Divali, for serious, Yom Kippur

MUSIC I LISTEN TO: hard nuRock (System of a Down, Linkin Park, P.O.D., Rob Thomas, Disturbed), hard nuMetal (Tool, NIN, Marduk, Sepultura, Korn), hardpunk (B-52s, ), hard hip hop (DMX), hard romance in my R&B, hard pop, rich Latin beats (RageATM, Molotov, Juan Luis Guerra, new Shakira), tangy funk (Azra in Croatia), dark honeyed divas (Clara Nunez do Brasil, Ofra Haza ha-Yemen, Aretha Franklin, Edith Piaf de Paris), class (Ryuichi Sakamoto, nuSantana, Celine Dion, Andres Segovia), love most a capella forms but skip barbers ~ like SE African melodic (Ladysmith Black Mambazo) to Celtic (Anuna), Sioux drums, Sanskrit chant, oKonigen der Nacht's aria in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Flamma Flamma, George Kranz' boogaloo,. and some twisted night I might goth it for kix

MUSIC I DANCE TO: mainly tekno ~ like hardcore (The Horrorist NYC, Ron D Core's my local) - gabber (Fear Factory; speaker worship), hard/NRG trance (new Tiesto, Energy, Fiocco, Hyperion & Kosmonova in Europe, Darky, 007, Donald Glaude near LA, Ghost In The Machine), goa (Infected Mushroom, Massive Attack), hard synth, slam, & tekstory (Rammstein, Underworld, VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berzerk), selective but love DnB and jungle, chill some house

TONGUES I SPEAK: Gen Y & oldskool American English, Irish & Brit English, was a Battlerap mod, Mandarin, French, love Spanish & its fire a lot but not fluent yet, taught myself enough formal & gutter Japanese to write some cool poetry then forgot it, UK teachers stuffed Latin in me, a lil ritual Hebrew, dog talk.

MY FAVORITE FIRE MOVE TO WATCH: spontaneous play with style & feeling, partner moves & theatricals

SPORTS & BODY ARTS I DIG: kicks & punches, run with my dog bro. watch xtreme sports, Olympic ice skating (yeah, Elvis Stroiko still rules!) only a lil live team, beach sports. tats, body painting fascinating, tho if it's not semi-permanent, what a drag not to touch anything & just look good! hey, make me grin with your hair!

CREATIVE ARTS I DO: rip some slam poetry, starting into lyrics, i paint, digital graphics, designed a Toreador costume won first prze for my horse show friend Sara Bryan when we were like 12.

MY IDOL: Pele of Home of Poi

MY PETS: my dog bro Cody (English Springer Spaniel), koi, like most insects

my word

my word is i don't discriminate against anyone, including enermies, that's my style, & you can always add a good 3rd opinion that's different from the first 2.

so tell me back what tickles you, glad to meet ya, let's play with fire!