The Lure of Your Chemical is All I Can Taste

Q: Does truth matter?

A: I suppose that any image I create is by definition "the truth" but the real truth? Doubtful. What is "truth?" I think of truth more as documentary photography. My work is mostly artifice. A happy artifice, but not so true. Some of it, maybe, but the true part is hard to pinpoint.

- From "Some Of This Is True"
© Luxxus Press

Angels are everywhere. You just have to pay attention and be aware. Hard, I know. But if you do it...you'll be astounded.

Thanks Chip. Thanks John.

Cover Star: Bathroom, Berlin
Headlining Band: My beloved Grifters

I Was a Planet When I Was Smaller

Q: In that old Hollywood pitch fashion, I've sometimes described your work as being a cross between that of Nan Goldin and Cindy Sherman. What do you think?

A: I admire both of these photographers' bodies of work. I think I share certain sensibilities with both, but a hybrid of the two? I don't know. I share Goldin's fascination with the odd, the socially unacceptable, the 'we know about it we just don't want to see it.' I think my work tends to be a little lighter and it's not straight documentary. I create my characters - she photographs actual people. Sherman obviously creates characters, but I'm rarely in my own photographs. It's interesting to me that you chose two really strong female photographers to compare my work to.

- From "Some Of This Is True"
© Luxxus Press

When you said it would be forever, that's the sweetest thing I ever heard.

Cover Star: Hay Dee
Headlining Band: My beloved Grifters

Fixed In The Sky

Q: There are also a lot of "vices" in your photographs. Do you celebrate them? Or are they just props?

A: Vices make people interesting. Everyone has them, and the people that say they don't have them are lying. I do like the image of the classic underbelly dweller, for instance, a prostitute that smokes, drinks, takes speed and curses. The work of The Beats, Lou Reed, Larry Clark, the sort of characters they create or document. To me, vices do represent a certain truth about people. Not necessarily a "pretty" truth, but the truth nonetheless. Personally, I do enjoy a good drink and need to stop smoking...again.

- From "Some Of This Is True"
© Luxxus Press

Oh to be the sunshine on your ass.

Cover Star: sunshine
Headlining Band: My beloved Grifters

Backlash

Q: Your style is often rough-edged, and you talk about seeking surrender and vulnerability, shooting depression and sadness. Yet some of your work is quite romantic. How does that all go together?

A: Perhaps my definition of romanticism is full of surrender and sadness, ultimately, I've been battling with that my entire life - I am drawn to "sad" music and "depressing" films. I don't know, those are just labels. I guess misery loves company, but only to a certain extent. I do appreciate melancholy. I don't necessarily enjoy living through it, but to me those feelings are much more human than happiness. When I see someone who is "happy" all the time, I am immediately suspicious.

- From "Some Of This Is True"
© Luxxus Press

And if God hears all of my questions, how come there's never an answer?

Cover Star: Marie
Headlining Band: Lips

Caligari's Attic

Q: Is there an autobiographical element to your work?

A: Yes. I think that there is an autobiographical element to any artist's work - there has to be - I don't see any way of getting around it. We are. I think that anyone that knows me personally would be able to see that. It might frighten them, but they could see it. With my self-portrait series, I try to turn that convention on its head - it's really not me that you see.

- From "Some Of This Is True"
© Luxxus Press

I just don't want you anymore.

Cover Star: Kelly
Headlining Band: Athens' Finest (demo)

This One Goes Out to The One I've Left Behind

Q: William Burroughs, no stranger to vices, wrote: "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." Does that have resonance for you?

A: Absolutely, in the truest definition of what Burroughs was trying to communicate and also - with many more limitations put upon the statement, which Burroughs would argue kills it outright - how it defines not the art, but an approach to creating art. In my opinion, there should be no subject that is off limits to an artist, but we know that man-made conventions, such as religion, tend to limit what some people will tolerate. And also in the sense that I am creating something. It's not the truth. Every non-documentary photograph I take I make it up. It didn’t exist before, but now it does. Which arguably makes it the truth - or not.

- From "Some Of This Is True"
© Luxxus Press

Monday night in the universe.

Cover Star: fire
Headlining Band: Mono

And Like A Doll That Loses Its Balance

I know a couple or two...

There's a fine line between living and not. There's a fine line between making ends meet and not. There's a fine line between coping and not. There's a fine line between one and one's family. There's a fine line between being fine - and not.

I'm on the other side of the line. The other than not side. Things are happening. Strange things, but things, indeed.

Video documentary. Historic NYC House fashion shoot. Travel.

Indeed.

Note to self:

If it happens, I just might name my daughter "Melody."

It doesn't get any better than this.

Cover Star: The worst peacetime decision ever made
Headlining Band: Serge and his gorgeous strings and other genius things...