Birthday Gift

The most-coveted and wildly renegged on (Chris Bush!) Polaroid 180.

With the portrait and close-up lenses, which make all the difference in the world.

Thank you very much, Michael.

I'll do you proud, I promise.

You rock, as long as you continue to LISTEN TO BLACK SABBATH!

Self portrait with Evelyn standing on a chair in the background...

Hilly Kristal, CBGB Founder, Dies at 75

(From The New York Times)

"Hilly Kristal, who founded CBGB, the Bowery bar that became the cradle of punk and art-rock in New York in the 1970s and served as the inspiration for musician-friendly rock dives throughout the world, died in Manhattan on Tuesday. He was 75.

From its opening in late 1973, when Mr. Kristal, a lover of acoustic music, gave the club its name, an abbreviation of the kinds of music he originally intended to feature there — country, bluegrass and blues — until a dispute with its landlord forced the club to close last October, CBGB presented thousands of bands within its eternally crumbling, flyer-encrusted walls.

Most famously, it served as the incubator for the diverse underground scene of New York in the 1970s and early ’80s, with acts like the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads and Sonic Youth playing some of their earliest and most important concerts there, at a time when there were few outlets in the city for innovative rock music.

“There was no real venue in 1973 for people like us,” Ms. Smith said today. “We didn’t fit into the cabarets or the folk clubs. Hilly wanted the people that nobody else wanted. He wanted us.”

Besides his son, Mr. Kristal is survived by a daughter, Lisa Kristal Burgman, and two grandchildren."

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I once rented CBGB Pizza (next door) as a location for a short 35mm film I made starring Richard Hell. Hilly was quite the gentlemen, taking my $300 for the day and letting us have the joint from 10am to 6pm. So we hauled all the shit in - Arriflex camera, dolly with tracks, hair, MU, actors, fucking Richard Hell and started shooting. At about 4:30pm, he came in and started screaming that we had to leave due to a sound check. I paid him another $100 and we stayed until 6pm. Awesome.

I used to see him in the East Village all the time leaving CBGB with the money bag and always wondered if he was able to make ends meet...

...today, CBGB just sits there with a "For Rent" sign on it. I hope his family takes that shit to Vegas and makes a fortune...

New Naama Scan vs. "Everybody Knows This is Nowhere"

This is a picture that I took a long time ago, newly scanned for my book with the playing cards in her panties newly visable.

That's what I saw tonight.

These are the lytics to a song that Neil Young wrote.

That's what I heard tonight.

"I think I'd like to go
back home
And take it easy
There's a woman that
I'd like to get to know
Living there

Everybody seems to wonder
What it's like down here
I gotta get away
from this day-to-day
running around,
Everybody knows
this is nowhere.

Everybody, everybody knows
Everybody knows.

Every time I think about
back home
It's cool and breezy
I wish that I could be there
right now
Just passing time.

Everybody seems to wonder
What it's like down here
I gotta get away
from this day-to-day
running around,
Everybody knows
this is nowhere.

Everybody, everybody knows
Everybody knows."

Older now.

Got a haircut.
Got to see "Sunshine."
Got tickets to FARM AID.
Got a steak.
Got to see a Black Sabbath cover band.
Got a Polaroid 180.
Got a bunch of free drinks.

Got to feel made special by a bunch of folks.
Really special.

42 down...

Off to the lab.

My Book

I am finishing up the almost impossible task of putting together my "portrait" book for the first time. A necessary nightmare of over-thinking and prioritizing that I must live through. Must...live...through...

With an eye towards picking and sequencing between 20-30 shots, I chose 65 from the archives, which in and of itself was an interesting experience. For that I just relied on my "gut" instinct to say "I like that one."

And that was the end of my ability to move any further.

So off I went to Mustang Sally's to meet my mentor, Rich, so he could do the dirty work and pick the first edit. My criteria were only that I wanted the shots to be perceived as "portraits" and since this was going to be a commercial book, I wanted to limit the inclusion of too much nudity.

It was fascinating watching him go through the shots like he was dealing cards - a yes pile, a no pile and a maybe pile. Then from the yes pile we started to sequence them, adding shots as needed from the maybe pile and occasionally the no pile...

We tried to get a rhythm going from shot to shot and also within the two shots together when any given page was open. Two furniture shots together - too much? At first no, but then after looking at it for another hour - yes. Two many "headshots" together? Yes.

So we got it like we liked it after I added some shots back in (more color!) and rearranged some couplets, which Rich promptly re-rearranged.

Then the lovely and talented Ms. Anouk Morgan showed up and I let her pick as well. I ALWAYS respect a woman's opinion, and with Anouk, I got the double bonus of a young woman's opinion. She went for the core images that Rich had chosen, but her fringe images were more controversial, more odd and with more nudity.

Quite the evening seeing your life's work bandied about like pick-up-sticks, and very, very liberating in an ego-less way.

Thanks Rich and Anouk!

By the way, I changed everything back to the way I wanted it in the first place...

Off to the lab.

What Would You Rather Be Right Now?

My answer:

Drunk.

I'm not a lot, if you consider the hours of the day, but I am sometimes, too.

My answer emanates from the sober me.

If you are contemplating this question and you ARE drunk, you obviously cannot agree with my answer.

There is a remedy. One way OR the other...

The photo is of me. Not so sober.

A long time ago. With Bonnie. At her birthday party. Neither one of us remember much about this. Other than the evidence that Christopher Bush acquired.

Shown here. Thanks, Chris.

T-Shirt

I don't really wear T-shirts.

I just don't really feel comfortable in them. Never have. Except when I'm painting a house or working out or just being lazy. My "house shirts" - the ones I wear around the house whilst "bumming around" are always button downs with the sleeves rolled up. The elbows may be worn through, but the sleeves are rolled up. Always.

I don't like slogans or labels or advertisements on my body either, and they seem to find their way onto T-shirts more often than not. So that's a reason too.

But I do see T-shirts sometimes and do I say to myself, "I'd wear that - that's a cool T-shirt."

I saw one about two years ago like that. Some dude in the East Village (or somewhere casual, i.e. NOT at a rock concert) and it said "LISTEN TO BLACK SABBATH" in white block letters on black fabric.

I told everyone I knew about it and the general consensus was "That's cool!" or "Figures you'd like that, James."

Black Sabbath isn’t even close to being my favorite band or anything, although, who can deny the absolute crushing mighty thunder and mystical heaviness of pre-1976 Osbourne, Butler, Iommi and Ward? Who? Who?? Who???

No one.

That's who.

And I like the gonzo-ness of it - the "why would anyone have a shirt that says that-ness" of it...

And the fact that it is a direct fucking order.

Last week I remembered the shirt in a fit of absolute corporate boredom and perhaps as an early birthday present to myself, or just a punk-rock reaction to what I was being paid to do, I Googled it.

"Listen to Black Sabbath"

It showed up today, and it kicks ass on me. It loves me WAY more than that dude that I saw in the East Village.

Because right now, I AM listening to Black Sabbath, recorded live in Asbury Park 20 days before my birthday, 1975.

Sweet.