Young artist from Bozeman trying to make it in Big Apple

By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer

Patrick O'Connor did the first run-through of his one-man theater show while cooling his heels inside New York's famed Rikers Island jail.

That's only appropriate, given that the piece is his fictional story of a down-and-out character's night in jail in Bozeman.

It's a comedy he's performing tonight, called "Jimmy Jack's Trailer Trash X-mas Eve Tale (from the first an' a half floor of the Gallatin County Jail)."

He patterned the character partly on Neal Cassady, the wild hipster who inspired writer Jack Kerouac ("On the Road") and drove Ken Kesey's 1960s psychedelic bus.

Since graduating from Bozeman High School in 2000, it's been a long, strange trip for O'Connor. Now 23, he has always stood out in a crowd with his mane of dreadlocks.

"My big dream is to be a respected writer, poet and performer," he said, sipping coffee at The Daily. "I do go hungry, but it's OK."

He clearly has talent. In high school, he shocked some teachers when he won the state speech and debate championship with a memorized public address, with a chilling rendition of killer Charlie Manson's parole hearing. He went on to the national forensics competition and, with teammate Noah Watts, won 13th place, at that time the highest finish ever by Bozeman High's speech team.

O'Connor said then he was heading to Mexico in an old Winnebago and wanted to do performance art.

That's what he did, traveling to Los Angeles, New Orleans, Oregon, Germany and Portugal, getting married at 18 and later divorced, hitchhiking after the Winnebago bit the dust.

He tried college in New Orleans but couldn't stand it. So he started bartending and street performing. He'd dress up as Harlequin, place a noose around his neck and recite sonnets for spare change. He earned $50 in one good hour.

For the past two years, he's been living and working in New York City, drawn by its "cutthroatedness," by New Yorkers' sense of irony and the legacy of heroes like poet Allen Ginsburg.

He runs two venues, one a bar with an open microphone where performers can do poetry, stand-up comedy or circus acts. The other, Apocalypse Lounge in Manhattan, offers rock and punk music and burlesque dancers.

To pay the rent, he rides a bicycle rickshaw in Times Square.

He'd already written "Jimmy Jack" when he was arrested on a grand larceny charge, which was later dropped. But he spent two nights in a "hell hole" jail in Brooklyn and one night in Rikers. It gave him a few bits to add to his show.

It's tough being an artist in a post-modern world, he said.

"Nothing is shocking these days," O'Connor said. "There's new directions to go, you've just got to find them. And hopefully someday it will pay off, and I won't have to hustle tourists.

"I just want to stay true to myself and produce my own work."

At least one Lower East Side reviewer liked his "Jimmy Jack," calling O'Connor a diamond in the rough and predicting "someday soon he will shine."

Tonight's show opens at 8 p.m. at the Equinox Theater, 2304 N. Seventh Ave. ($10 at the door). Thursday night, he'll perform rock music and experimental poetry at the Filling Station.

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