Story of a Junkie

John Spacely, known on the streets as Gringo, has spent much of his life selling - and using - drugs, mostly heroin. Since relocating from his native California to the Lower East Side of New York, Gringo has gained a group of steady customers for the dope he sells, amongst them musicians and actors and, in the process, has also developed a reputation as a colorful street character; hanging out amongst the dilapidated environs of Lower Manhattan. But with his own drug habit starting to get the better of him, Gringo must challenge himself not to end up on an even darker path, from which there may be no way back.

An unflinching study of addiction from multi-award winning documentarian, Lech Kowalski, STORY OF A JUNKIE (originally titled Gringo) stars Spacely as a semi-fictionalized version of himself, mixing staged interactions with grim documentary realism. Filmed entirely on location, and featuring a supporting cast of Gringo's real life friends and customers, Vinegar Syndrome Labs presents the Blu-ray debut of this remarkably human document not just of the long-gone punk counterculture on the Lower East Side, but of the fascinating and colorful personalities who populated it.