WHO AM I ?
A LOOK AT MYSELF.
By Philip Liborio Gangi

Since this page is supposed to be a little biography about myself, I might as well include my recent self portrait (above).

It occurred to me since adding the "Dolly Parton" page to this site, I have had many new visitors who don't know who I am. Sometimes I wonder myself.

I was born during the last century in Brooklyn, New York. I grew up as the oldest of six children in a middle class Italian-American family in Queens, New York. My brothers and I loved to watch the Three Stoogies comedy shorts every night around super time. I believe somehow the Three Stoogies had some kind of affect on my out look on life.
For my ninth birthday my parents gave me a Kodak Brownie camera. I started shooting the people around me - my friends and my family. I shot on and off for about seven years. Although I always owned a camera, I lost interest during my later teen years, and shot photos at a minimum.
I graduated from the State University of New York at Stonybrook in 1974 with a Theater Arts degree. I acted in an experimental play entitled "Evolution" at Stonybrook. There were plans to bring it Off-Broadway, but nothing materialized. I acted in a few more productions, but lost interest in the theater after graduating.
In 1976 I moved to San Francisco with my friend John Reiss. We were both searching for something. Both trying to figure out what our lives were about. We had both had relationships end poorly, had dead end jobs and needed to just start off fresh somewhere. I read the "Social History of the Grateful Dead" by Hank Harrison and was intrigued by the party atmosphere of the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides, we kept hearing about these great Grateful Dead shows here in California.So off we went.
San Franciso turned out to be almost exactly the way I pictured it. Although the party atmosphere was nothing like the book. The 60s were over. But San Francisco still had a special feeling about it. Things that I was not used to seeing in New York - the health food stores, the carrot cake and apple juice sold at concerts, the laid back calmness when you walk down the street and the cool breeze of the Bay. It was different and I was just glad to be away from New York.
TO BE CONTINUED.....