on Fire Island. Later, Sullivan became a cab driver in Manhattan and then a part-time music consultant at Joseph Patelson Music House, a classical music specialty store in the shadow of Carnegie Hall. The flexibility of working part-time gave him the freedom to explore the city’s late-night entertainment scene. In 1981, Sullivan rented a creaky three-story house at 5 Ninth Avenue in the Meatpacking District, which was then still many years away from its rebirth as a fashionable area. Larry Tee, Sullivan’s friend and one of his last roommates, recalled in 2021 that the “dilapidated turn-of-the-century building” was “made from pieces of old ships, and thus you could see through holes in the floor to the floor below, in certain places.” Career In 1981, Dick Richards, James Bond, and Potsy Duncan used newly available home video equipment to create a weekly television program, The American Music Show, which was cablecast on Atlanta’s public access television channel. On a visit to Atlanta, Sullivan was impressed with Richards’ new video camera and soon bought his own set. The equipment consisted of a shoebox-size camera held on the shoulder and a recorder deck and battery pack hung from a shoulder strap. (Later, Sullivan used lighter and more maneuverable Kyocera and Ricoh 8mm camcorders.) In 1983, Sullivan began videotaping his excursions to booming nightclubs like the Saint, The Limelight, Danceteria and Tunnel, as well as dives like the Pyramid Club and C.B.G.B. In addition to stage shows, he captured backstage intimacies and after-party antics. He videotaped the rotating cast of characters who made their way to his home. And he taped long walks with his rescue dog Blackout through the sleepy predawn streets after nights of clubbing, and evening strolls along the Hudson River piers as the sunset. Because many of Sullivan’s friends had aspirations in show business, they invited him to videotape their performances, and he gave them copies of the tapes. He also sent video reports to Richards, who showed them as part of The American Music Show. According to Larry Tee, Sullivan’s videos document “a generation of forgotten drag queens, art stars, performance artists, cultural revolutionaries, and the local color of New York of that time. John Sex, Manic Panic's Tish and Snooky, Ethyl Eichelberger, Wendy Wild, Dianne Brill, Tabboo, Chicklet, The Boy Bär Beauties, Patricia Field and Rebecca Field, Sister Dimension, Julie Jewels, Rudolf, Dean Johnson, Details magazine’s Stephen Saban,