1961: born on Andrews Air Force Base, Camp Springs, Maryland; lived in Marlow Heights, Maryland.
1961–1962: car trips to Norfolk and Ann Arbor in April and June, respectively; flew to Jacksonville and stayed with grandparents from December 1961 to March 1962; flew from Washington, D.C., to New York, and on to London in June; stayed in Marylebone for a month; traveled by Soviet ship from Portsmouth to Stockholm, Riga and Leningrad; traveled by train to Moscow aboard the Red Arrow on the night of July 15–16.
1962–1964: lived in Moscow, notably during the Cuban Missile Crisis; cared for by Taimi Himlova.
1964: spent several months in Wiesbaden, Germany while his father recovered from leg surgery.
1964: travelled to Frankfurt, flew to Dover, Delaware, and the next day on to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, as his father was medevacked there for further treatment. Flew on with his mother to Jacksonville, Florida, attended Murray Hill Methodist Church nursery school from June to December.
1965 January–March: lived for several months in Key West, Florida at two motels, the first of which was across from the famous Casa Marina Hotel.
1965–1966: lived in Norfolk, Virginia from April 1965 to May 1966.
1966–1967: attended first grade at Hamilton Elementary School, North Kingston, Rhode Island, living near Wickford from June 1966 to May 1967.
1967–1969: attended Saint Mary Star of the Sea School, Key West, Florida, living on Trumbo Point from June 1967 to September 1969, with the exception of a six-week stay in McLean, Virginia, during the summer of 1968. Little league all-star; Red Cross advanced beginner swimming certification; altar boy for the first communion of Tennessee Williams; extensive off-shore fishing on his father’s 18-foot Crosby; personally had an eight-foot Cuban refugee boat powered first by oars, then by a used outboard motor. Began “lobstering” in 1969, which involved free diving down to coral reefs; rode a dolphin on the surface and underwater.
1969–1970: attended Ursuline School, Athens, Greece, living in Kifissia from September 1969 to March 1970, with trips to the Mount Olympus region, Delphi and the Corinth Canal; witnessed celebration of Oxi Day (“Day of No” commemorating the rejection of Mussolini’s ultimatum) on the island of Aegina; December–January trip to Israel with stops in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa (where he witnessed the arrival of the U.S. Sixth Fleet), Nazareth and the Dead Sea.
1970–1971: attended Hamilton Elementary School, North Kingston, Rhode Island, first living on a cow farm and then in a suburban subdivision, often biking to the nearby birthplace of Gilbert Stuart. Family cruise with detailed tour of the U.S.S. Intrepid aircraft carrier.
1971 Summer: stayed with cousins in Levittown, Pennsylvania, for two months, going daily to stables in the countryside, working alongside his cousins and learning to ride horses.
1971–1973: attended Wickford Junior High School, Wickford, Rhode Island; several trips to the Boston Garden to see the Celtics and a trip to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts; played basketball on junior high school and Christian league teams; also played Little League baseball and Pop Warner football. Learned to sail in Bissel Cove with his 12-foot Rooster class sailboat.
1973–1974: drove across the country with stops in Chicago and Las Vegas; attended Coronado Junior High School, living in Coronado, California; competed in motocross races.
1974–1975: attended Coronado High School, where he was co-captain of the freshman basketball team; lived in the Coronado Cays on the Silver Strand, where he started surfing and skateboarding on a daily basis; family trip up the California coast to Ventura, Big Sur, San Francisco, Fresno; trip to Hawaii, surfed Waikiki and Mākaha, visited memorials for the 1941 attack at Pearl Harbor; was threatened with a rifle for parking money at K-55 Baja California surf spot; found, along with another surfer while on dawn patrol, a large abandoned shipment of packaged marijuana strewn across Silver Strand State Beach near a motorized inflatable boat—the remains of an unsuccessful smuggling operation.
1975 Summer: attended the two-month Paskowitz Surf Camp, surfing breaks from Malibu to K-131 Baja California, Mexico—met surfing legends Skip Frye, Mickey Munoz and Terry “Tubesteak” Tracy.
1975–1977: attended Jeb Stuart High School in Falls Church, Virginia; trips to Ocean City, Maryland; Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; and Jacksonville, Florida. Competed in numerous skateboard competitions. Family reunion in Philadelphia, including a visit to Independence Hall and other sites associated with the American Revolution. Toured Colonial Williamsburg, the Mount Vernon Estate and participated in the 1976 bicentennial parade in Washington, D.C.
1977: moved first to Kutuzovsky Prospect and then into the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, which was under Soviet microwave bombardment; worked as a counselor at Camp Wocsom, located at the U.S. dacha outside the city in Serebryany Bor; trip to Leningrad. He was working as a barback at the Marine Bar on the night of August 26 when the embassy suffered a massive fire that started on the eighth floor, allegedly set by the Soviets to gain access to sensitive areas by agents posing as firemen.
1977–1978: attended Leysin American School, Leysin, Switzerland on a basketball-related work-study program, where he was senior captain and most valuable player of the team; recognized as most athletic male student in the school.
1977 September: tour of the Château de Chillon in Veytaux, Switzerland; tour of the Palace of Nations in Geneva—the European headquarters of the United Nations—where the World Health Organization was holding a conference.
1977 October–November: trip to Munich, with side trips to Dachau and Eagle’s Nest (Kehlsteinhaus) and Neuschwanstein Castle; several trips to Geneva.
1977 December: trip to Moscow.
1978: several trips from Leysin to Geneva during the winter and spring.
1978 February: school trip to London for exhibition basketball games.
1978 March: ski trip to Zermatt, taking T-bar lifts up toward the Gobba di Rollin (or Dos de Rollin in French)—the highest ski lifts in Europe.
1978 April: trip to Amsterdam and The Hague, the Netherlands.
1978 May: school trip to Nice, France, with a solo trip to Cannes; trip to Château de Courdée at Sciez-sur-Léman, France.
1978 June: graduated from Leysin American School.
1978 June–August: worked for the General Services Administration making embassy-related furniture deliveries around Moscow.
1978 August: trip to Paris and Biarritz, France.
1978 September–December: attended American University, Washington, District of Columbia (D.C.); trip to San Diego.
1978 December: travelled by bus from Washington to Dover, Delaware, where he witnessed the coffins of the 900-odd victims of the Jonestown massacre on a hanger floor; and flew on a C-141 military transport plane to Frankfurt, Germany. After two weeks at Rhein-Main Air Base, flew to Moscow.
1979 January–April: worked at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, in the Press and Cultural Section; traveled to Helsinki, Finland. Tutored in Russian, targeted by the KGB; approached by Kim Philby; brief encounter with George Blake.
1979 April: travelled to Beijing, Jinan, and Tai Shan, China; June: travelled to Sochi in the North Caucuses region of the U.S.S.R.
1979 July–September: attended l’Alliance Française and La Sorbonne in Paris; lived in Neuilly-sur-Seine, toured the Château de Versailles, trip to Meaux with a side trip to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Belleau.
1979 October: train trip through Italy to Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
1979 November–December: worked as a sports trainer at European Health Spa, Arlington, Virginia.
1980 January: attended American University, living in Annandale, Virginia.
1980 June–August: worked as a concrete finisher and laborer on large building construction in Tysons Corner, Virginia for Folger-Pratt Co.
1980 August: travelled to Belgrade, Dubrovnik, Hvar and Split, Yugoslavia.
1980–1981: attended American University, living in Washington, D.C.; worked as a laborer on the construction of Sutton Place for Lawrence N. Brandt, Inc.
1981: lived in Annandale; worked as a sports trainer at European Health Spa, Springfield, Virginia. Began work at the national headquarters’ mailroom of the Internal Revenue Service—summarizing and routing correspondence using I.B.M. System 6 information processor.
1981–1982: attended George Washington University while living in Washington, D.C.; nominated for honors in French, continued study of Russian.
1982 March–April: trip to Manhattan through radio station prize drawing; met Ozzy Osbourne at what was then the Helmsley Palace Hotel.
1982 September: left the Internal Revenue Service; bus trip to Miami and moved to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; taught English at El Club de Ingles.
1982–1983: lived in Sosua, Dominican Republic; managed the windsurfing and sailing school for Servicio Turistico Dominicana.
1983 May–August: bus trip from Miami to San Diego. Worked in San Diego as an auto detailer for Rancho Oldsmobile and Saab and as a journeyman plumber on new apartment construction for Heartland Plumbing.
1983 August: cross-country bus trip to New York City and on the Hamptons, New York.
1983–1984: attended George Washington University; graduated with a bachelor’s degree in international affairs in May 1984—senior thesis on Soviet visual propaganda.
1984 May–July: lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
1984 July–December: lived in Newport, Rhode Island. Held jobs as a new house construction carpenter’s helper; a janitor at Dos Yanquis restaurant; and a night watchman at a shipyard for Shoreline Security. Worked on a commercial trawler.
1985 January–August: lived in Springfield, Virginia. Worked as a salesman for PDQ Delivery; competed in several triathlons and in the Beer Can Series of sailboat races, as crew on a Cal 25, out of the Annapolis Yacht Club.
1985–1986: camping trip across the country; lived in Glen Park section of San Francisco, California. Worked as a salesman for Speedway Messenger; surfed Ocean Beach with Hawaiian-scale 15-foot waves. Family trip to Fresno. Numerous weekend trips to Santa Cruz. Camping trip to San Diego.
1986–1987: camping trip across the country; lived in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Worked as a salesman for TNT Skypak international express delivery service in Manhattan and then as a broker of several similar services. Fall of 1986 trip to London as a courier on the British Airways Concorde.
1987: worked for several weeks in the summer as a canvasser for Greenpeace’s Cambridge office, making frequent visits to Walden Pond.
1987–1989: lived in Springfield, Virginia. Worked as a security guard at Highpoint Condominium in Alexandria, Virginia and as an editor for Georgetown-based Theisen Communications producing country supplements for the Washington Post Sunday Magazine—traveled to Costa Rica and Haiti for these projects. Worked as an instructor of English as a second language for Berlitz Corp. in Tysons Corner. Ski trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming; carpentry work/surf trip to Topsail, North Carolina. Attended lectures by Carlos Fuentes at George Mason University.
1989–1993: lived in Arlington, Virginia. Worked as a carpenter making redwood decks and as a salesman for Allstate Courier.
1989: published the novel Freeplay.
1990: trip to Amsterdam, Zandvoort, Rotterdam, Paris (staying in the 10th arrondissement), Compiègne (toured the Glade of the Armistice—where the Armistice of November 11, 1918, was signed, ending World War I; as well as were the Armistice of June 22, 1940, was signed after Germany won the Battle of France), Lacanau, and Reykjavik.
1991 January: participated in the Jan. 26 protest in D.C. for Peace in the Middle East.
1991: worked as a handyman for a small North Arlington apartment building owned by Mose E. Lewis; coastal road trip through Delaware and New Jersey to New York; trip to Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, Paris; trip to Madrid, Barcelona and Rosas, Spain.
1992: worked a salesman for Pilot Air Freight; worked as a night dispatcher for Allstate Courier; published Stasi Slut; attended PhenomiCon in Atlanta where he met Bob Black, Jim Keith, Adam Parfrey and Kenn Thomas.
1993–2000: lived in Bowie, Maryland. Worked as a line-stander on Capitol Hill; as a bookseller at Black Planet Books in Baltimore, unionized under the Industrial Workers of the World; as a salesman for Washington Car and Driver, a division of Barwood Taxi in Rockville, Maryland; as a legal researcher for Swidler & Berlin using antiquarian case books at the Library of Congress Law Library; as French-language legal researcher for Shook, Hardy & Bacon using the Library of Congress Periodical Library.
1994 February: founded the First Extranational with Bob Black under the motto “no nations, no work.”
1994 Spring: published Extraphile I.
1994 Summer: published Extraphile II; trip to Copenhagen, Klampenborg (Bellevue Beach), Silkeborg, Amsterdam, Zandvoort, Paris.
1994 Fall: published Extraphile III; released Access 5 cassette, recorded with X. Stewart and Michael Wiik.
1994 Winter: published Extraphile IV.
1995 Spring: published Extraphile V; trip to Hong Kong with overnight stop in Tokyo.
1995 Summer: published Extraphile VI.
1995 Summer: trip to Amsterdam and Paris, staying the 18th arrondissement—was in editorial office of a book publisher in the Latin Quarter when the July 25 bombing took place at the nearby Saint-Michel station of the regional train system.
1995 Fall: trip to Paris, staying in the 18th arrondissement—walked extensively in the exhaust-filled city during the October 10 civil servant/transportation strike.
1996: first samizdat publication, in pamphlet form, of his adaptation of Omar Khayyam under the title Persian Love, as well as underground distribution of a cassette-recorded reading of the poem.
1996 Winter: speech at the Haçienda nightclub in Manchester, England.
1997: three-week trip to Paris, staying in the 18th arrondissement; published the biography Guy Debord—Revolutionary; interviewed Ignacio Ramonet in Paris on his book Geopolitics of Chaos; traveled to Culpepper, Virginia with Kenn Thomas and interviewed Marion Pettie.
1997: launched the Baltimore-Washington Psychogeography Association with Andrew Smith; published Aphorisms Against Work as an eight-page pamphlet. Distributed the text to the news media and to the secretary of labor on Labor Day.
1998: published The Arch Conspirator and a translation of The Real Report on the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy by Gianfranco Sanguinetti and Guy Debord.
1998 Summer: cover story in Washington City Paper; one-week trip to Paris, staying in Charenton-le-Pont; started what would become a seven-year period of studying and practicing Argentine social tango.
1998 Fall: published Extraphile VII; published Open Letter to the Citizens of Poland as a pamphlet.
1999: published his translation of The Right to Be Lazy by Paul Lafarge; released Access 5 cassette Twilight of Humanity; published The Neo-Cataline Conspiracy for the Universal Cancellation of Debt as a pamphlet.
1999: published Extraphile VIII–IX double issue; launched the Campaign for Nobody with Andrew Smith. Trip to Morgantown, West Virginia. Published the second edition of Aphorisms Against Work as a 13-page pamphlet.
2000 April: participated in the A16 anti-globalization protests against the IMF and World Bank.
2000: released the CD On the Line with Len Bracken; published Extraphile X; began filming The Lazy Ones in Baltimore and Washington.
2000 July–August: worked on the Campaign for Nobody at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
2000: awarded Professional Editing Certificate, George Washington University; screening of The Science of Spectacular Domination and the Decolonization of Daily Life, his first film, at the Polish Film Club in Washington, D.C.
2000 November: started work at Bureau of National Affairs as a copy editor on the Daily Report for Executives.
2001 January: participated in the protests against the January 20 inauguration of George W. Bush.
2001: trip to Quebec, Canada with the Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists; moved to Washington, D.C.; joined the Washington-Baltimore News Guild; trip to Riga, Latvia, to participate in the citywide Untitled anti-consumerism exhibit.
2002: published Shadow Government: 9-11 and State Terror, with Andrew Smith contributing the chapter on anthrax; Bracken presented his General Theory of Civil War at Johns Hopkins University. Informal basketball tryout for Michael Jordan at Sportsclub L.A.
2002 October: participated in the Oct. 26 protest in D.C. against the planned war against Iraq.
2003 January: participated in the Jan.16 protest in D.C. against the imminent war in Iraq.
2003 April: participated in the April 12 protest in D.C. against the Iraq War.
2003: film editing work trips to Manhattan; first screening of The Lazy Ones at the Anarchist Book Fair in Baltimore, Maryland; published Dialectical Hedonism; gave two speeches at the Aquarium L-13 art gallery in London. Beginning of several year collaboration with John Judge on 9/11 CitizensWatch.
2003 October: participated in the Oct. 25 protest in D.C. against the occupation of Iraq and the USA Patriot Act.
2004: film editing work trips to Manhattan; second screening of The Lazy Ones at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C., with his first photography exhibit.
2005: spring trip to Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Chibi, Wuhan, Guilin and Yangshuo, China. First published the novel Snitch Jacket.
2005 September: participated in the Sept. 24 protest in D.C. against the Iraq War.
2006: first publication in book form of Persian Love; fall trip to Paris (staying in the 15th arrondissement), Biarritz, Pau, Arles, Cannes, Saint Etienne, Bellevue-la-Montagne; December trip to Los Angeles, met film producer Ted Field.
2007 June–July: two trips to Philadelphia; trip to Brooklyn.
2007 August–December: reported on the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve for the Bureau of National Affairs. Published revised version of Snitch Jacket.
2007 September: participated in Sept. 15 anti-war protest in D.C.
2007 December: trip to Brooklyn.
2008: volunteered as an assistant news producer at WPFW radio station; short story “Subprime Girl” published in the HunterGatheress Journal.
2009 April: trip to Toronto, Canada.
2009 June: family trip to Reading, PA for a wedding, with an added leg on to the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia with many relatives.
2010–2018: covered international trade law for the Bureau of National Affairs, which eventually became Bloomberg Law.
2010 June: Leysin American School reunion in Las Vegas.
2011 February: family trip to Philadelphia.
2011 April: Leysin American School reunion in Houston; covered the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Honolulu, Hawaii; surfed the North Shore.
2012 May: family road trip to Savannah, Georgia.
2012 July: trip to Paris, staying in the 11th arrondissement; talk given to the McClendon Group at the National Press Club on the Sarkozy-Holland transition in France.
2012 November: trip to Nice—side trip to Monaco and Menton; met Michel Onfray in Caen, France.
2012 December: trip to Paris, Fontainebleau.
2013 July: trip to Miami and road trip to Key West.
2013 October: trip to Nice—side trips to Cannes, Cap-d’Ail, Cap Ferrat, Vence, Saint-Jeannet, Monaco; began filming ...the bourgeois youth of guy debord....
2014 October: trip to Amsterdam, Zandvoort, Bollenstreek, and Rotterdam; gave roundtable briefing on trans-Atlantic trade negotiations at Georgetown University.
2015 July: selected for the Sixth China-United States Journalists Exchange by the East-West Center in Honolulu but prohibited by employer from participating in this program funded by the two governments.
2015: covered the final negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in Atlanta, Georgia; trip to France—Paris, Antony, Nice, Vence, Saint-Jeannet, Cannes and Île Sainte-Marguerite, Èze and Beaulieu-sur-Mer; published the fifth edition of The East Is Black (Stasi Slut).
2015: release of Persian Love as a video, reading along with Laura Salisbury, as well as a new pamphlet that fits in the video case.
2016 April: interviewed U.S. Trade Representative Froman at Bloomberg Conference on International Trade. October: trip to Nice with side trips to Grasse, Le Cannet, Èze and Èze-sur-Mer as well as Monaco; beginning of his father’s illness.
2018 August: death of his mother.
2018 September: death of his father.
2018 November: left Bloomberg Law.
2019 completed work on the film ...the bourgeois youth of guy debord...; published New China Syndrome: The Early Rise of Red Capitalism 1979–2005 in book form.
2019: September trip to Nice, with side trips to Saint-Jeannet and Vence, Menton and Monaco.
2019: December trip to Paris, staying in the 6th arrondissement.