Jessica Pompei was born in Italy and contracted TB from her mother, Hope Luby Pompei Nestle Freedman (depending on which marriage you caught her in). At the time of Jessica's birth, Hope was separating from her Roman Catholic, no-English-speaking, rageaholic husband, Elio. Hope and Jessica moved to Racine, Wisc. and then ducked the snowy hick town of Hope's disapproving parents and moved with Jessica to L.A. to do real estate.

Jessica attended Olivie View Hospital for one year until she bit another three-year-old. In addition to traveling back and forth to visit her father in Rome, Jessica had hobbies: TV and singing along to Brazil 66 and throwing a football. She liked going out for passes.

Hope's third marriage landed a Beverly Hills duplex, and Jessica made a concerted effort to avoid matriculation at Beverly Hills High by way of LSD and other unappreciated mechanisms.

Cal Arts overlooked Jessica's shit grades and accepted her based on a photography session she had with the Stooges minus Iggy at the Sunset Marquis before its face-lift. But Cal Arts didn't last.

Her punk band, Kommunity FK also did not last. Pompei called it quits after a year because her childhood friend/bass player refused to pay her. Then Ms. Too-Penniless-To-Pay-Jessica bought Jessica's exact Prophet keyboard and stole Jessica's matchbook ambient signature style.

When she was 21 years old Jessica worked at a private club for the living-well-is-the-best-revenge crowd, and for three years all her frienimies were jealous, (especially that witch bass player). At the pinnacle of Jessica's bar tending career she was fired because the boss didn't believe her when she said she was late to work New Year's Eve because she'd been raped.

After a 12-year, drag-strip marathon of negativity and depression, Jessica moved to Tibet where she mingled with nature and befriended a Llama. In 1984 she felt ready to face humanity's plastic melt down nightmare and decided to do it with teacher/guru/performance artist Bob Flanagan, in Venice, Calif.

Bob was a brilliant poet masochist, and there he was at Beyond Baroque, out in the open, at the Wednesday night poetry workshop. Jessica became a regular at his workshop and flourished. She found her voice. Then she used a video camera to document Bob and his dominatrix, Sheree Rose, as they performed across the country. Bob was weak and constantly dying with CF. After leading the workshop for 10 years Bob handed the baton to Jessica and said, "Don't worry, anyone can do it." Jessica currently facilitates this notorious workshop, which is now in its 25th year.

While applying for grants to complete post-production on her documentary, Jessica lives with her three cats in Santa Monica, Calif. When not playing volleyball with the best, she is writing songs and playing music and considering herself lucky to have been born in a place where she doesn't have to marry a slob or live in a monastery to do her work. Although it probably wouldn't have been much different.

Jessica's first book, "Meat Me," will be released soon. "Meat Me" is already released as a CD and tape and as a movie directed by DuVerne Gaines starring Jessica Pompei.