
INTERVIEWER: You aged out of participating in the groundbreaking television series The Real World twenty-three years ago. How does it feel to star, solo, in the imaginary revisioning of the series... in your head?
BREEZE: It's awesome! You know, I was just talking about the series and how I was obsessed with getting on the show when I was younger. I auditioned for the show THREE TIMES in my twenties and even went to an open call at the Hard Rock Café in Chicago. Somewhere in my apartment is one of my audition tapes! I can't imagine what I sound or look like!

INTERVIEWER: Really? How do you think you have changed?
BREEZE: I was a kid, man! I look at myself at 23, cornrows, making out with strippers, drinking Windex colored liquor, eating Popeye's for Breakfast and Pizza Hut for dinner, EVERY NIGHT... I don't regret a minute of it. I lived my life. But you can't be 23 forever. And that is a NIGHTMARE statement in the gay community. And I get that terror. Because so much of your identity is caught up in justifying your place at the cool kid's table or proudly declaring victim-based outsider status of not being invited to sit at the cool kid's table. How have I changed? I graduated and got out of that goddamn cafeteria. I got my own table, and I'll invite who I want to sit with me. And if I have to sit by myself, that's totally fine. And needed sometimes.
INTERVIEWER: But you are opening yourself up by being on this show and letting people into your most intimate thoughts and feelings. In your posts, you talk about being sexually assaulted and relationships with your family and exes and your finances; it sounds like you are asking people to sit at your table or maybe trying to create your own "cool kids" table.
BREEZE: Maybe. I mean, we're communal creatures. We need each other. I think I outgrew the rat race of communicating with each other. So yeah, maybe I did create my own cafeteria. Hell, I created my own reality show in my head. I created you.
INTERVIEWER: And I thank you for that! How do you think you would have faired amongst the actual participants of the actual show?
BREEZE: I stopped watching it around season 7 or 8, so I don't know all of the contestants, but I really dug Heather B from season one, and as much of an asshole as he was, I always thought Puck would have been the perfect drinking buddy. As I hear, he is married with kids, and I have always assumed he is in the same position in life as I am right now of "... those were some really wild times. Time to take my blood pressure medication."
INTERVIEWER: Tell me about Koreatown. Do you like the neighborhood, and how did you wind up there?
BREEZE: I lived in Hollywood for about twenty years until a series of unfortunate events happened, and I found myself scrambling to find a place to live. I wound up staying with a "friend" in Santa Clarita and her family for around two years until she decided that expenses were so high that we were going to have to find something more economical immediately, and I found this place in Koreatown, which is super small and super cheap with the best view I have ever had. To stay positive, I will say that the neighborhood is okay. Parking is a thing of legend here in Los Angeles. Whole families come down and put baby carriages in the street to hold spaces for the members of their family that work, and they park their cars in a way so no one can park in between them, and they can just move up a couple of inches when said family member or friends come over. I usually circle the neighborhood for around 45 minutes every night when I come home from work. It's quite maddening, but... you just deal with it.

INTERVIEWER: I noticed you put quotes around the word "Friend." Care to elaborate? Is she living with you in Koreatown?
BREEZE: No. She's still in Santa Clarita.
INTERVIEWER: Did she move to something more economical in Santa Clarita?
BREEZE: No. She's in the exact same house.
INTERVIEWER: Well, you made it seem like she was in a rush to move immediately, but only you moved. And she stayed there?
BREEZE: Exactly. Thus the quotation marks. I can't deny the love and kindness she offered at a time when I most needed it, but, c'mon, it was kind of a bitch move. We could have just have had a conversation if she wanted me out. But I truly believe everything happens for a reason so, I trust the process of the creator. Or, as a wise woman once sang, "Everything is everything. What is meant to be, will be."

INTERVIEWER: Now that sounds like something your 23-year-old self would never say.
BREEZE: You got to trust the process. That's faith. And the universe is looking out for you if you listen. Say, for example, this place. It's super tiny. And because of that, I decided that not everything was coming into this apartment. Meaning: things, people, emotions... there was not going to be enough room for all of it, and I wasn't going to shoehorn it in. So some things got left behind. Some people got left behind. Some long-term relationships I've had for years got left behind. They never made it into the apartment with me. I, literally, have no room to accommodate anything that doesn't serve my soul anymore. So yeah, I was supposed to be here, in this tiny apartment with no parking. I think the universe was forcing me to focus on things that truly matter and to only allow those things into my home.
INTERVIEWER: Okay, time for word association. I'll say a word or phrase, and you say the first thing that comes to mind.
BREEZE: Let's do it!
INTERVIEWER: Santa Clarita.
BREEZE: Lovely. Peace.
INTERVIEWER: Coronavirus.
BREEZE: Money. Made lots of money. A lot of people stayed home and started their own business and needed graphic/web design support so I kind of cleaned up.
INTERVIEWER: Monogamy.
BREEZE: Overrated. But needed. Like sugar.
INTERVIEWER: Marriage.
BREEZE: Contractual. Something you should do to get tax breaks, not because you're in love.
INTERVIEWER: Sex.
BREEZE: Relaxing. I view sex as nothing but recreational nowadays, like vodka, edibles, or a good movie. It's great when love is involved, but they are two completely different entities that can exist without each other.
INTERVIEWER: Love.
BREEZE: Addictive. All that matters.
INTERVIEWER: Koreatown
BREEZE: Ghetto. Ghetto.
INTERVIEWER: Hollywood
BREEZE: Ghetto. Better weed. Ghetto.
INTERVIEWER: Middle Age
BREEZE: Grateful. Blessed. So much more game to play.
INTERVIEWER: The Bathhouse
BREEZE: Absolute fun! Though I haven't been in ages and with Covid-19 not sure when I will ever be back, which is fine with me. I remember being such a slave to that place at one time. Like that was an addiction. I remember joking with a friend once that I would be in the basement of that place after having group sex and looking over at another participant and saying, "Dat shole was good, but ise wonders what lifes like to be free outside dem dare doors in da reel wuhld."
INTERVIEWER: Well, it was a pleasure speaking with you. I hope to speak with you soon.
BREEZE: Well, I'm starting therapy soon, and I'm going to run this whole conversation past them to see their take on my imaginary interviews and exposing so much of my life on social media all these years. Good chance I might be taking a break from social media for a while. But you never know, you might be back for when I star in the next and final season of America's Next Top Model: Middle-Aged Black Bears.
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