It Has Been A Wild Ride

Please join me for the solo exhibition of Down These Mean Streets. Some how I made it through all this. When I got the phone call early one morning last year and the voice on the other end said congrats you won the Tierney Fellowship this year, I was like, "Shit, I can't believe they gave it to me, they must be as crazy as I am!" Then I thought, ahhh, what a gift, this is going to be a great fucking year." It's been a long wild ride and I must say I am pretty fucking proud of the images that will be on those walls, my heart and soul and everything I got is on that wall. Come on out and have a beer with me.


Opening Reception Thursday June 4th, 6-8pm

Gulf & Western Gallery
New York University
721 Broadway
NYC

Opening Night (My Favorite Cassavetes Flick)

Some flicks from the Tierney show hanging courtesy of my intern Davis. Opening is tonight.

Thursday May 14, 5-7pm
The Tobacco Warehouse
26 New Dock Street
Dumbo, Brooklyn

My Mug Shot Collection

The night I was almost murdered, many years back, after the guys left the store and I was able to free myself and call the cops I then spent the night at the police station looking through mug shots on the police computer in hopes that the guys had priors. I didn't see the guys in the computer mug shots but I did see many people I knew and many guys I knew from the neighborhood. They looked a lot meaner and tougher in those mug shots than on the street as I knew them. Somehow those mugshots made them inhuman and cruel, the guys I knew had smiles on their face and always said what up with a hand shake. For the next couple months I became obsessed with the mug shot as a form of portrait and began collecting mug shots. Here are a sample of some mug shots from my collection.

New York Photo Festival

A selection of images from Down These Mean Streets will be up at New York Photo Festival as part of the Tierney Fellows Exhibition. The opening reception is:

Thursday May 14, 5-7pm
The Tobacco Warehouse
26 New Dock Street
Dumbo, Brooklyn




I am on the final lap of this work. Once the arm heals, one or two more cities need some walking. This project has worn me down and at times I have felt so broken down. After each trip I am not just physically exhausted, but mentally and spiritually, at times I question how I can go on. It's been hard on the soul. I have never been more alone. The killers, hustlers, prostitutes, homeless, insane, addicts, the bad dreams. Before I went out each night, I stood in the mirror, looked myself in the eye, asked myself how bad I want it, then punched myself in the face repeatedly to get hype, every night was a title fight, every night alone in the streets. But I'm grinding till I die. Why haven't you taken my life yet? I got a stone where my heart should be.

"Down these mean streets must walk a man who is not himself mean, who is untarnished and unafraid"
- Raymond Chandler, "The Simple Art of Murder"

Sidelined With A Broken Arm

Yup. I'll be watching from the sidelines for the next couple weeks with a broken arm. So I spent Wednesday in the emergency room with what I assumed was a broken arm given that I was in excruciating pain and couldn't move my arm. I waited hours in the packed waiting room watching the paranoid New Yorkers who all thought they had the swine flu. Half of them had masks and the other half who didnt wouldnt go near them, one big game of keep away, shirts vs skins. I eventually grew bored of this and then remembered that several months ago I sat in this very same seat in the wee hours of the morning with my face mangled and covered in blood after being on the losing end of a bar fight. I have health insurance and pay a shit load each month for it, yet for some reason I have recently been getting bills from creditors wanting hundreds of dollars for the "surgery" I had....funny I thought the doctor called them stitches when she was putting my face back together. Hospital bills? aint no need for that, my insurance handles that...or so I thought. Anyway. Eventually my name is called, I walk through some doors so I can wait some more in a new seat before getting an X-Ray. I get one, eventually, and then eventually the doc has a look. As she looked over my X-Rays I asked what the deal with this swine flu was and is everyone just paranoid? Yes, she told me and that they havent seen a single case at the hospital (Beth Israel). Oh my paranoid New Yorkers I love thee. Maybe the swine flu is some conspiracy connected to the Mexican drug wars and an attempt to cut off ties to Mexico and fed to the Fox News types who have spun this into a spiraling out of control case of contagious fear? Hahaha. But this same doc also told me my arm wasn't broken, gave me a sling, a script for vicodin and sent me on my way. Only to get a call 3 hours later from her saying upon review it appears that, yes, in fact, my arm is broken and that I should see a specialist, thank you, goodbye, click, dial tone. Hey doc you there? Dial tone. Hmm, so then does that mean maybe everyone does have the swine flu?


Swine flu or not, here are some more recent interviews to check out, topics include Detroit, my new project Down These Mean Streets and how I fell in love with the game:

-In(side) The Loop

-Slow Century Magazine

Thank you Courtney and Janna!