If You Could Take Something With You, It Would be Bright

A ship comes in every day...

"When Your Number Isn't Up"
(Mark Lanegan)]

"Did you call for the night porter?
You smell the blood running warm.
I stay close to this frozen border, so close I can hit it with a stone.
Now something crawls right up my spine,
That I always got to follow.
Turn out the lights.
Don't see me drawn and hollow.
Just blood running warm.
No one needs to tell you that,
There's no use for ya here anymore.
And where are your friends?
They've gone away.
It's a different world, they left you to this.
To janitor
The emptiness.
So let's get it on.
When the sun is finally going down, and you're overdue to follow.
But you're still above the ground,
What ya got comin' is hard to swallow.
Like blood running warm.
Did they call for the night porter?
And smell the blood, blood running warm.
Well I've been waitin at this frozen border, so close you could hit it with a stone."

And just for the fuck of it, here's a photo I took of Vittoria last December. Because, I know that's the only reason you're here...

Listen.

Fuckers.

"Puppeteer Chromosphere"

"Show your women you can be a champ get large and last http://www.mpsfelek.com sightseeing bide servile."

Spam I got tonight.

Why do they even bother? It's surrealistic at best.

Don't click on the link 'cause they're just gonna take your vain-ass money to make your dick (not) bigger.

I'm hatin'.

Self-portrait with Erin.

Not hatin' her.

Fuckers.

Whatever

I don't feel good.

Here's Mosh.

From Sunday.

And she ain't even naked.

Fuckers.

Happy Black Friday

This photo of Darenzia hopes you spent a lot of money all over the place today for absolutely no reason at all except for a completely manufactured and false one, you fucking sheep.

There. I said it.

I'm sure that Darenzia the person would agree with me.

I went to see the Richard Prince show at the Guggenheim, but that's ART, bitches!

Then I bought two pairs of shoes, 'cause, well, it was buy one and get another for 1/2 off.

Oh, shut the fuck up.

Happy Black Friday.

Anything but.

Fuckers.

Just Yesterday - July, 1975

My sister gave me this cut out ad recently. She found it at our parents' house when she was going through her childhood things. She cut it out 32 years ago. She was 8 years old.

Time flies.

I know it's a cliché, but it seems like the older I get the faster the world goes around the sun, with enough speed incrementally to pretty soon throw us all into space, like that State Fair spinning ride at the end of "Strangers on a Train." Wiser and more experienced, yes, but the longer I go, the more profoundly sad and melancholy it all seems.

This life.

I moved to Brooklyn from Little Italy a few weeks ago, it seems - although it was four years this past month. Four years.

Here's what this tiny little piece of yellowed newsprint brings back to me:

At the ripe old age of 11, I asked my Mother if I could go see "Jaws" when it opened all over the country on the weekend of July 4th, 1975. She said no. I flipped out. I already knew that I wanted to be a filmmaker (or photographer) and this was just not acceptable. I was not about to miss out on a cultural milestone. So off my sister and I went to stay with my Grandparents for a week and my cousin Johnny decided to take us out for a movie and pizza. He asked what we wanted to see...and you KNOW what I said.

Seeing "Jaws" in a packed theatre on July 4th was significant to me. It also scared the shit out of me and I had kicking feet nightmares for weeks.

And of course, when I returned back home to all my 11 year old friends, I was a hero. And I was really in trouble with my Mother...

So one by one I rounded up my friends and took them to see "Jaws" at the Village Twin, since I was already "tainted." First Toby, then Chris - all in all, I saw it three times on its first theatrical run.

Flash forward ten years and I found myself the Assistant Manager of the Village Twin during my sophomore year of college. I even remember the freaking phone number! It all came to an end when my projectionist spliced the reels of John Boorman's "Emerald Forest" together backwards and upside-down on opening night and we lost two sold-out screenings of revenue. I was "dismissed" but went to work at South Hills Twin with my pal Todd ironically for the very same (and very out of business) Fuqua Company.

All those theaters are long gone. South Hills was a Gold's Gym at some point I think.

And all I have are the memories and this little piece of proof.

In a Funk

So here's some more Isabella.

1/3 All About the Light

1/3 all about the model.
1/3 all about me.

No, wait...

60% me, including the light.
40% the model.

No, wait...

100% the light.

No.

There IS some combination but it is relative, random and most of all, organic.

There is no recipe to make a picture. To steal a soul. To make art.

Thank fucking god.

Isabella.

So Sick and Tired of All These Pictures of Me

Elliott Smith wrote that in his song "Pictures of Me" from his first masterpiece, "Either/Or." Is it about the Academy Awards appearance? Don't know. Is it about heroin? Probably. EITHER way OR whatever - it's a great song with a great little guitar solo.

I used to see Elliott in the East Village fairly regularly. One Saturday I saw him twice in the same day and we both looked at each other like "what the fuck?" I was once at a "Bastards of Soul" show at the long-gone and incredibly missed Tramps, when my nose was so suddenly overcome by human funk that I literally had to step to the right by three or four people. Elliott had walked up beside me to watch the show.

My friend Greg's band used to play with Elliott's first band, Heatmiser, and knew him pretty well. It was Greg who gave me this album, saying "I think you'll dig this" when he came up once and we drank an entire bottle of smuggled in Absinthe - the real stuff, not that froofy NOT absinthe stuff that the cruds are selling now. Wormwood and Elliott Smith late on a Saturday night. The last time I saw him was at Irving Plaza on the "XO" (his second masterpiece) tour. It was awful. The size of the room was literally smothering him. He didn’t know what to do with the size of the crowd and just tried as best he could to get through it. I felt sorry for him, but hey...

A little while later, someone played me a copy of "Figure 8" and I couldn't stand it. It sounded to me like what that show had been for him. Too much. I still have yet to hear it a second time.

Then suddenly, he was dead. "Self-inflicted stab wound." Think about what it would take to do that to yourself without the proper Ninja training. Really. Think about it. The Portland police said "case closed."

Someone killed Elliott Smith. Popular thought is that it was a dealer.

It's sad that he didn't rate highly enough as a human being - forget his genius - that the cops didn't see fit to think twice about it.

If Elliott couldn't get a second thought, where does that leave me?

This is my friend Emilie who I shot in Portland in 2005. As far as I know, she's still around. For Portland detictive work's sake, let's hope so...

Listen.

"Start stop and start
Stupid acting smart
Flirting with the flicks
You say it's just for kicks
You'll be the victim of your own dirty tricks
You got yourself to tease and displease

Doors swinging wide
You walked in to hide
Looking at your feet
Failures complete
Saw you and me on the coin-op TV
Frozen in fear every time we appear

I'm not surprised at all
And really, why should I be?
See nothing wrong
See nothing wrong

So sick and tired of
All these pictures of me
Completely wrong
Totally wrong

Go walking by
Here come another guy
Jailer who sells
Personal hells
Who'd like to see me down on my fucking knees
Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Im not surprised at all
And really, why should I be?
See nothing wrong
See nothing wrong

So sick and tired of
All these pictures of me
Completely wrong
Totally wrong

Im not surprised at all
And really, why should I be?
See nothing wrong
See nothing wrong

So sick and tired of
all these pictures of me
Oh everybody's dying just to get the disease
Everybody's dying just to get the disease
Everybody's dying just to get the disease"

---

EDIT: An apology to the good Policepeople of Portland.
Elliott "died" in Los Angeles. And I don't have to say anything about the cops there...

Vanity Thought Out, Planned and Executed III

Me and Isabella.

From Tuesday evening at The Chelsea Hotel.

I have way better shots of her.

You know, just by herself.

She is changing her name to Argyle.

Hey, you heard it here first...

Visitation Part II

My blog was recently visited by a fellow by the name of Christian (I love the irony) who runs a blog-catcher called "Univers d'Artistes." In it, as near as I can tell, he just posts shots from photography blogs that he likes, mostly naked chicks, and links back to the photographer's blog.

Some photographer friends of mine are outraged by this. Ask Marko about his "Turkish thing" the next time you get a chance.

I welcome it, and here's why:

Sure, I protect my image. Sure, I build my cult. But in the long run, and in the day and age we live in information dissipation-wise, the more people that I can expose to my work the better. I'm gonna find a fan somewhere even if they come from a porn site, an architecture site, or just a blog-catcher site. My numbers prove it.

And fans kick ass. Patrons kick EVEN more ass.

And anyway, I like Christian's taste. He steals Don Nelson's stuff too.

So I've agreed to do an interview for him sometime this week. I’ll link back to it when I do.

Here's what he posted on his site in regards to this blog:

"Daily, I visit at least 50 blogs and sites... Yes. At least... It's a real work, but I love that. It's my passion !

Today I want to talk you about a nice photoblog runned from July 2006 by James M. Graham, photographer from Brooklyn, New York, United States.

His writing is smart, fine, always happy, not too long, not too short, with many informations about him, his life and moods, his models. In fact, he's writing about everything we like to read in a true blog, telling us us the stories about his shots, many good advices on his work, or the computers, and never forget to make us smile...

So, dear art lover and reader, go and visit him daily, you'll love him too !

Did you read that? "SMART, FINE AND ALWAYS HAPPY" !!!

Hell yeah!

It’s so goddamn sweet!

So here's a photo just for Christian. It's Evelyn. Smart, fine and I hope, always happy...

Visitation

My sister is visiting from out of town, so we are busy, busy, busy running around town.

This is not her.

This is Jessica, who should visit more often!

I'll be back soon...

Before I Go, I'm Hangin' a Cross on a Nail

I'm listening to the new Soulsavers album featuring Mark Lanegan on vocals.

My god, the funeral dirge gospel-ness of it.

The originals are stunning and they cover Neil Young ("Through My Sails"), the fucking Stones ("No Expectations"), and even Mark Lanegan ("Kingdoms of Rain")!!!???

Which is all good. Even the Lanegan covering Lanegan cover. All good.

At 46:30, it is about 10 times too short. I would buy a boxed set of this. Meaning, that this is officially the #1 best record of 2007, narrowly bumping PJ Harvey, who is now THE strong 2nd.

Mark has always been one of my favorites and one of the few that I can actually say I prefer his later solo work WAY over the work with his seminal band, in this case The Screaming Trees. And he has notoriously cancelled almost every East Coast appearance since 1997, when last I saw him at a Sub-Pop showcase at The Westbeth. He didn't make it through more than 4 songs...

Not that I hated The Trees, but man, Mark is more and more like punk rock molasses. He sticks to you and gets better and better with each recording even though he clearly has no aim.

Appreciate me for what I do, for one day I may be gone.

That's Mark, from my perspective. They are playing here on the 27th. We'll see if he shows...

I shot my friend James today (see link to the right) for my portfolio and hopefully for his upcoming Off-Broadway show in the new year. We met about 15 years ago and have always enjoyed hanging out and it was good to see him tonight. Long time coming.

Friday I'm shooting the next self-portrait shot with Vivian. There's a bedpan involved.

This Soulsavers record is killing me. And it's dark and cold (finally) here in Brooklyn.

Here's another photo of Shien, getting ready for the last one.

Fitting.

Computer Games

Well, I finally did it. I finally bought and configured my (for now) perfect computer system.

The G5 came with a 400G drive and about a year ago I added another 500G internal to hold my photography and then bought an external 500G for backing up to nightly.

Well, they're full.

So, recently, after much thought, I figured out what I wanted. Problem was, it really didn’t exist, albeit in an incredibly cost-prohibitive build-it-yourself from kind of way. I've been spying on the external hard drive manufacturers and they've seemed on the brink of releasing what I was after, and this week they finally did. Well, at least Western Digital did.

The 2T external with RAID1 capability, which is to say that it can be formatted to operate as a 1T redundant drive.

Here's my reasoning: I don't ever want to pay for data retrieval. I've done that professionally through companies that I produced through and it's a total racquet. I want a 1T drive that mirrors itself, so that if one drive fails, I can yank it out and replace it without losing a byte. Key to this is being able to open the enclosure. LaCie does not allow for this as is the case with most third party external drive enclosures. Western Digital does.

Also:

When the damn apartment catches on fire, I want to be able to grab something and save my life's work.

I've been speaking to my computer genius friend Lawrence about building an external to this spec and we priced it out (at www.newegg.com) at around $600 and change...

I walked into J&R downtown on Wednesday, and there was the brand new 2T Western Digital drives for $649.99 RAID1-able.

Seemed like the thing to do. A Halloween present to myself.

Easy set-up and configuration and here it sits, holding 500G of photographs, mirrored.

The current configuration consists of applications only on the 400G internal, documents and photos in progress on the 500G internal (a workstation, if you will) which is backed up nightly to the external 500G. The Western Digital only holds finished, archived photos, which I place on there manually after they are done.

So, technically two things to grab in the fire, unless you count the girl, the cat and my complete collection of Famous Monsters magazines. And the three Trevor Brown paintings...

Shit.

Next step - figuring out how to get a copy of everything "off-site" - 'cause I probably won't be here when the crazy bitch downstairs sets the building on fire...

This is Shien. I just finished her shots last night on my sleek, shiny, new system.

Vanity Thought Out, Planned and Executed II

The model is Ruth. She's awesome. But I still ain't smiling.

Big stuff coming up, "Self"-wise (that's my working title for these things). A Thanksgiving visit from Erin and maybe Sarah, a bedpan and Miss Vivian. And some other stuff too.

Kudos to my pal Aeric, who at lunch this week sat there and listened while I vocalized for the first time everything that was going through my head in regards to this series. Thanks, man. Check his link to the right.

There is no irony lost on me that I'm always the worse thing about them.

The funny thing is on the shoot the other day for the third one, I caught myself wearing the same shirt as this one...