Series of counter-culture projects

In 1977, Rod Swenson, who received his Master of Fine Arts in 1969 from Yale University where he specialized in conceptual art , performance art , and neo-dada art, holding the view that the measure of true or high art is how confrontational it is. He began a series of counter-culture projects which, by the mid-’70s, found him in the heart of Times Square producing experimental counterculture theater as well as video and shows with the likes of the then-little-known bands The Dead Boys , The Ramones , Patti Smith , and others. It was there that he met Wendy O. Williams after Williams found a copy of Show Business Weekly someone had discarded on the bus station floor. The issue lay open to a page with an ad in the casting calls section for Swenson’s theater show Captain Kink’s Sex Fantasy Theater . She answered the ad and applied for a job.