The Sounds I Hear At Night

Every night like clockwork I hear these sounds:

Midnight- A rusty metal storefront gate coming down slowly
1am-4am-Reckless cabbies driving too fast over the huge sunken pot hole and scraping the manhole cover at the end of it
4am-Motor City pulling down their rusty metal gates quickly
6am- My neighbor slamming his door shut on his way to work and who always seems to forget something and then re-slams the door



Listening

It was a night like all the others. Empty
of everything save memory. He thought
he'd go to the other side of things.
But he hadn't. He read a little
and listened to the radio. Looked out the window
for a while. Then went upstairs. In bed
realized he'd left the radio on.
But closed his eyes anyway. Inside the deep night,
as the houses sailed west, he'd woke up
to hear voices murmuring. And froze.
Then understood it was only the radio.
He got up and went downstairs. He had
to pee anyway. A little rain
that hadn't been there before was
falling outside. The voices
on the radio faded and then came back
as if from a long way. It wasn't
the same station an longer. A man's voice
said something about Borodin,
and his opera Prince Igor. The woman
he said this to agreed, and laughed.
Began to tell a little of the story.
The man's hand drew back from the switch.
Once more he found himself in the presence
of mystery. Rain. Laughter. History.
Art. The hegemony of death.
He stood there, listening.

-Raymond Carver

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.

Cold Sweats. From Bad Dreams.

Every night in Detroit mad dudes up in my face. Mad aggressive. I held that wrench so tight. Just waiting. Waiting for good to go bad in that unpredictable split second that it always does. I'm still here, still standing tall, still riding hard.

Recent Observations

-Don't know why it made me happy, perhaps a rememberance of my own childhood, but walking down the street yesterday afternoon a big group of kids on 6th Ave. were throwing ice chunks at cabs and running down the street when one guy got out to chase them. Ahhh those were the days.


-It's been a couple years since I have seen this guy around, but for all my New Yorkers-remember the guy with short dreads and a jean jacket who would come up all quick in your face and say, "Got a quarter?" I could never figure out exactly what that guy's deal was but something was off with that dude, like was he some annoying NYU Tisch actor kid or just some schizo? Anyway. He's back.


-From Sean Penn's "The Pledge." Hmmm, where have I seen this image before?



In case you didn't know, now you do, one of the more famous photographs of the 20th Century:


By Robert Frank

Sounds That Eventually Turned Into Words

Lately I have really been feeling Sasha Frere-Jones' music reviews in The New Yorker. Whether it is a profile onLil Wayne or Bon Iver, Frere-Jones makes me interested and gives me reason to keep reading, I trust him and will follow him down whatever path he leads. This is good writing. From his recent profile on Bon Iver:

"It is easy to believe that his lyrics are 'sounds that eventually turned into words,' as Vernon once told an interviewer. In 'Flume,' the language works best as sound-I listened to the album a dozen times before I looked up the words. Among other things, the chorus contains the sequence 'only love is all maroon, lapping lakes like leery loons, leaving rope burns-reddish ruse.' Starting the album with some word salad turns out to work just fine, as it gives you time to adjust to the power of the singing."

I am dyslexic and hearing and listening (among many other things) have been a challenge my whole life. From listening to my mother's rules which I could never seem to get right, to all the voices all speaking at the same time at the art openings I can barely make out what the person next to me is saying into my ear: it is all just one big blur. Music has always been this way for me, one sound, and it takes great focus for me to listen to the lyrics, but when I do I hear that voice, it becomes the most intimate experience.

The Eye Of The Prostitute And The Photographer

After shooting all night in Atlantic City I would go to the bar in one of the casinos. I would sit there and watch the prostitutes with their hawk eyes waiting for the recent winners to come get a drink to celebrate. Everyone is after something here. One night I sat behind a woman who at first gave me the up and down, sizing me up, but she knew I wasn't game. I didn't look like everyone else there, out to have a good time: I had dirt under my fingernails, my moustache was really grown out and I hadn't shaved in days, nor had I showered, I've decided that while making the night walk photographs it's better to be down than up. This woman probably figured I was there to rob the winners or I had just gambled away my paycheck and was having a cold one as I tried to figure out what I was going to tell the old lady. But I sat there drinking and watched her work. As each new man came up to the bar, her eyes would meet his, then slide down to his cock, on to his shoes, then back up to his eyes again. But this was for show, it was part of her game, she had already sized him up before he even got to the bar. She would glance over to me every once in a while, in a checking up on the competition way, aware of every detail. To me, this prostitute was the most beautiful woman in the bar. Her dark eye makeup, the bags under her eyes which must come from the stress and sleepless nights, her uniform of cheap tight clothing and her worn out body intrigued me. I was curious, I wanted to sit there, drink beer and trade stories with her for the rest of night. But instead I just sat there, admiring that eye of hers. She gave off the appearance that she was slightly tipsy and a flirt, but she was on point and just as sharp as I was. I learned a lot from watching her, watching the hustlers and prostitutes at work, watching their eyes, watching how they react, seeing what they see.

The Jumper

I saw a dead body tonight. I was the second one on the scene. I have seen a couple dead bodies before but never a jumper. This guy jumped from the roof of the Taj Mahal casino parking garage and hit a light post before landing on the sidewalk. Half his clothes were ripped off and his arms and legs were twisted around and bent up in the wrong direction. At first I thought it was just some junkie passed out but when I took a second look, no body could contort into those positions. Mike and Valerie who saw it happen said the sound of his body hitting the cement sounded like a car accident. It's weird sometimes to see the dead when the death is fresh but the body is still warm and there are still traces of life. While death is natural, the bodies I've seen haven't been by natural causes and instead by the violence and horror of man.

Laughing And Crying

It is weird how sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between laughing and crying. And sometimes the two are the same.

Madness. It Just Makes No Sense At All

Noel's frustration about the Magnum photographers' advice to young photographers collected by Alec for the Magnum blog has gotten me thinking. First off, I should be packing, I have to be out of my apt at the end of the month, but I am a procrastinator, so fuck it. Second off, no disrespect, no beef, I have no intentions of offending anyone or starting some photo blog blah blah gossip. With that said, Alec is one of the most generous and caring real deal guys in the game today and he must receive a ton of emails from young photographers seeking advice. I know, because several years ago, I was one of those young photographers writing him for advice. To this day Alec's advice has stuck with me over the years and through the challenges. Now I get emails from young guns asking me for the same advice. To be perfectly honest, those feelings of anxiety and uncertainty that are the theme in these emails, never go away, they just evolve and over time you become used to them. Whether trying to find photographers to assist for so you can pay your rent or feeling unsure how the critics are going to respond to your next solo show or trying to find new clients so you can pay the office space, assistants, retouchers, printers, etc; it never really ends no matter what level you are at, over the years I have discovered that is the one true solid thing about the game. Perhaps that is why there were so many vague answers, we are all always trying to answer the same big question in one form or another and we never really know what is next. As you climb the ladder, challenges don't somehow magically sort themselves out, in fact, Biggie's words couldnt be more true: "More money, more problems." That is the gift and curse of this life we have chosen, there will always be details to figure out along the journey. And of course there is the fear we all have (my greatest fear)....what if one day I just can't hack it anymore, the talent dries up and no matter how hard I try all I can come up with is just crap. It happened to Papa Hem and he put a shotgun to his head because he couldn't take it anymore. And speaking of Hem, this gets me back to where I started. Advice for young photographers.





And so I ask, what happened to the tough guy artists? Guys like Mailer stabbing people in bars, Buk drinking 5 bottles of wine during a poetry reading, De Kooning sleeping in the gutters, crazy Hem stepping into the ring with a bull thinking he was a matador and Hunter's days with the Hell's Angels. These guys are my heros. In my eyes the most important thing about being an artist is living. I wish I could go back to school now and read all the books all over again, listen to the lectures again, take Intro to Photo with Phil Perkis again, having lived and experienced what I have in the last 5 years. It would all make sense. But maybe the Gods made it this way and this is what keeps things interesting. And so I say: live every fucking second to the absolute extreme. These guys were brave and fearless and their approach to life was so vulnerably evident in their work. I tell the photographers who write me to live their lives, do as many drugs as possible, drink as much as you can, fall in love, have your heart broken, get into a fight, go to the hospital, take that trip to where ever it is that curiosity is leading you, make it happen, sacrifice everything you have to do it, jump off that cliff, don't look back, if you don't take that leap and risk falling (failing) you will never know what could be. Somehow I have been lucky and something has always caught me, and something will catch you too as it has caught the ones before us and will catch the ones after us. When Scorsesse made Raging Bull, he said he filmed everyday as if it was his last day and he would never shoot again. Those are great words, allow that to happen. I am a fuck up and I could never hack a 9-5 job for the rest of my life, I just can't, I am not built that way. And so I drift, I live this life as an artist, I get stressed the fuck out and most days I am hustling nonstop working my ass off, but everyday is a true gift, everyday I get to jump off that cliff. I figure the details out on my way down, the greatest line Jay-Z ever had was, "Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week." You must give yourself to this life. And really it is all the same thing, my life is my love is my art. All of the times I have had my heart broken by the woman I love, the fights and the beatings I have taken in the bars, somehow just making rent on the last day of the month, waking up last New Years Day in an alley on top of a steam vent in New Orleans and then barging into the wrong hotel and kicking down the door of the room I thought was mine, almost being murdered, losing countless women and friends because of this thing inside me that has taken over me, this burning addiction to create, to do my art, whatever it is, let it happen. So my friends, young and old, the rookies and the seasoned veterans, the nobodies and the stars, I will see you all on the way down, and I will look you in the eye and smile because we know what it feels like to fly through that air...it is the greatest feeling in the world.


above pic-me in the emergency room getting things stitched up after a recent bar fight

The Ocean's Waves

The smooth fluidity with which a piano player's fingers roll on and off the piano keys.

Bobby And My Mom

I recently reviewed Paul Fusco's RFK (Aperture) for photo-eye magazine and it is now online. When I first came across this book, I immediately thought of my mother. She was 20 years old in 1968 and was very much involved with the political and social events of those times. My mother is a good story teller, so before I wrote this review I called her up and asked her if she could tell me about Bobby and the events surrounding his death. We spoke for over an hour, my mother repeatedly broke into tears as she remembered those times. Here is a sample from my conversation with my mother:

When I asked her what Bobby’s death felt like, she told me, “You know how it feels when you really, really want something? Well I really wanted in 1968 for the country to change. I wanted equality and improvement in education, housing and jobs for African Americans, because even though there were these laws there was still tremendous inequity. I wanted the war to end, I wanted the country to come together and move forward in a positive way and Bobby Kennedy meant that could happen, he was the hope, he was the key, he was it, and when he died those hopes were dashed. And on the heels of MLK’s death weeks before it felt like the country was falling apart. Everything was falling apart.”

Read the complete review and many other interesting articles and interviews over at photo-eye magazine.

I could understand some of those tears. Because, right now, I have never cared more about an election in all my life. It has never mattered more to me and my generation, than right now. And, it is as if good were running against evil, and part of me that is so scared that our country might fuck it all up, because, after all, we are human and it is our nature.

Images That Have Been Stuck In My Head All Afternoon

Last week I saw three different people on three different occasions walking down the street with trophies in their hands. Last night walking home I watched an old man with a white beard and worn out boots kick an empty pack of cigarettes down the street. This morning on my way to get coffee a man was playing some notes on a trumpet that went high and then low and then he stopped and put the trumpet in its case.

The Lost Generation

Next month will mark the 51st Anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On The Road. On The Road marks such a signifigant American right of passage, the journey, the road trip, the lustful addiction to wandering. But the journey represents so much more than the mere trip to explore the country and along the way loosing part of yourself as you discover a new you, blah blah blah. It's about having the heart and balls in the first place to just pick up and leave, to really be ready and able to go forward without looking back, devoted and, oh, so loyal to the curiosity, lost doesnt even exist because you have no plans, no set destination, falling in love with the thrill and spontaneity of ending up where you end up. Where has the bravery and love gone? It seems like my generation is broken down on an abandoned highway. Besides the ridiculous notion of the "road trip" between college semesters, the journey along with everything that went along with it have been lost. My generation seems to care more about SAT scores, the name of the college you went to, having a job, being finiacially secure, safe, finding the right girlfriend/boyfriend, getting married, buying a condo, having two kids in a good school.....ugh. I never thought I would say this, but the spirit of my parents generation, the real On The Road guts, the heart and passion and commitment to a life that was everyday, not just let loose on the weekends, shit, man, they had it. They invented the protest, the stood up for what they believed in, they lived, they felt, fought, loved and cried, they didn't give a fuck what happened tomorrow because today was happening right now! Why is my generation too afraid to speak up, fight back, to live and love? Their whole lives have been planned out in some excel spread sheet and they start to sweat when in year 26 the chart says they are supposed to figure out what they what to do with their life, but, red alert red alert, they have no clue. The fact that Bush was even re-elected and everyone just rolls their eyes and talks about the ignornance and long term effects of his mistakes, what we have allowed this government to get away with, and no one does anything, no one is committed to actually making change makes me sick. You think waiting till next election is enough, to choose some canidate who is going to cowardly and strategicaly try to appeal to both the liberals in New York and California and the Evangelicals and those who believe in homeland security that rule those red states. Oh you mean the canidate who is smiling his or her way into the cockpit of the next departing kamikazee plane. Yes, the modern day protest is a police escorted and controlled flag waiving cliche screaming fiesta in which afterwards you can have a drink with your buddies and fake a sense of rebellious accomplishment, but that all changes when you walk into the office Monday morning. Is my generation ultimately content with trading in a life of emptiness and rules, with no real idea who they even are, no idea what it means to fight for something, to chase a dream, to even have a dream, to really feel and understand life's experiences for money, a car with leather interrior, the new fall season must have hand bag, to sit around on the weekend and drink light beer and talk about sports and politics and whatever other shit one can read in the newspaper because you dont have any of your own experiences or ideas to share, to wake up everyday and want to kill yourself on your way to work and come home every night and talk about nothing over diner as your third glass of wine begins to numb everything and perhaps even once a week you will get to fuck the same boring beautiful blond woman you thought you loved in the same four positions, over and over, until you just wish it was....DONE. Where has my generation drifted off to? Has the iphone, the new exclusive dunks, the new retro prohibition era themed bar with $15 drinks, myspace, the job your lifestyle and bank love but your soul despises killed us? Lets wake the fuck up, lets feel and live and act on impulse, do not think, think not repeat, lets move forward and make changes for us, lets get back on the road, lets believe in hope and change and do this together.

Jesus.

Well, folks, on that note I will be on the road for the next month or so and I will be taking a break from the blog. With internet access will come a post or two I suppose. All these blogs lately seem to be a lot of recycled shit, people copying each other, everyone talking about the same shit, doing things one way. Turn off the computer, stop reading the blogs for a minute (its making you stupid) and read a book, live your life, go to the bar and get a drink, start a fight, go pick up some chicks, flirt with some guys, take the train to a part of town you have never been before, stay up all night, try some new drugs, put down the camera and pick up a paint brush or write a story, have some fun and then report back in Sept. with some good stories.

The Man Outside My Window

Last night I made my first walk, from La Guardia Airport to my apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, roughly 15 miles, the streets were mine last night. As I wandered down empty streets and peered into the windows with lights on I saw many people adjusting their air conditioners, turning off their TVs before bed or staring out the window with the final thought of the day. I, however, am not always the one out the window. There is a man who sits outside my street everyday who seems to be in his last days. Whenever I pass him on the street there is this blank deadpan stare in his eyes, like he is somewhere else. For the past several years he always sat in front of the laundromat, hot or cold, rain or shine. But since this spring he has become a wanderer. He has been moving from corner to corner and usually doesnt stay too long in one place before he gets up and sits somewhere new. Perhaps he is getting curious and wild as children do when they first learn to walk, discovering his world all over again.

Is It Just Me, Or Does Every Other Chick I See Downtown On The Weekend Have That Fake Tan Orange Glow?

In yesterday's New York Times Play Magazine there is a wonderful article by Michael Kimmelman about the current state of bullfighting in Spain. Bullfighting, similar to boxing in America, is a dying art. The best in each field performed decades ago, Robinson, Marciano, Belmonte, Joselito, and each faces opposition to concerns about safety and is viewed as barbaric. Papa Hem, perhaps a romantic like myself, perhaps an outsider (also like myself) or perhaps just a racist, wrote about the machismo of Spaniards in his bullfighting bible, Death In The Afternoon, and described a culture, or at least 50+ years ago, that did not fear death, instead death was a part of life. With this understanding and celebration of life and death, one is willing to do what most will not with their life.



Several years ago I travelled Spain. One rainy night I sat in the back of a taxi stuck in traffic and watched one of the most brutal beat downs I have ever seen. These two skinny little teenagers, I assume who had been kicked out of this club, would charge the four or five humongous bouncers (as they always seem to be...) screaming and swinging their fists into where ever they would land, usually the bouncer's chest or hands, and the bouncers would pick them up and throw them into the street followed by some kicks and punches, shoo fly, shoo fly. But these kids kept picking themselves up and charging the bouncers. It was like some sort of game. And every time the bouncers got rougher, punching and kicking harder and longer. It got pretty tough to watch at a certain point. My hat is off to these kids, heart and balls all day, maybe they were drunk, but as we all know the taste of blood in your mouth can sober you up pretty quick.

This has turned into a rambler...but it has almost been a year since I have had this blog and I'd say that a good third of these posts explore death. The experiences I have had flirting with death have impacted me in a tremendous way and influenced my work a great deal. Death is something I think about a lot, it is how I understand life.



Torero (Matador) Ceyetano Rivera tells Kimmelman:

"For years I stayed away from it: I went to school in Switzerland, focused on television and cinema, lived in Los Angeles. But increasingly I wondered what my father and grandfather felt so passionately about they they would risk their lives. So I became a torero several years ago, late compared to others. And I discovered what a powerful feeling it is when you are so close to death. It is something so real and strong and addictive. It is indescribabale."

"It's like what my grandfather told my my brother, 'Some bullfights are so important that your life doesn't matter.' And it sometimes happen when you are completely given over to the moment in the ring that you really don't care, you just forget about your body. And it's incredible."

Thanks Kevin for the vintage flea market photos.

The Blueprint, No, Reasonable Doubt.

The first construction job I ever had was tearing down the Philadelphia Civic Center. We were doing 10s tearing down the roof and at the end of each day I was covered in dirt and mud head to toe. I was usually too busy working to notice that my face would also be covered in dirt and mud. One day as we were finishing up and putting our tools away Freddy looked down at me and started screaming in my face, "What's up nigga?! What's up nigga?! Nigga! Nigga! How does it feel! Look at you! You're a nigga!" I guess I thought Freddy was joking around as he always did until I looked around and saw everyones face, no one was laughing. I was the only white guy on that roof. I assume someone snitched (maybe they were looking out for me) to the bosses about what happened and the next morning they took me off the roof and had me working with an Engineer picking rebar out of a Bobcat. I hated that shit, I belonged on the roof. So I went up to the foreman who assigned me the job and told him that shit was easy. After lunch I was I told to get back on that roof. Me and Freddy ended up being best friends on the job that summer, we would talk about anything and everything as we worked, but we probably argued more about things, like which Jay-Z album was better or which Frosted Flakes Tony The Tiger commercial was better, and then we just laughed it off. Freddy saved my life once when I was dangling from a drain pipe Sawzalling an electrical line that was not turned off and sparks went shooting everywhere as the line raced around and I hung upside down with my legs wrapped around the pipe. I miss the job site.

Drops Of Piss On The Toilet Seat

There was this guy who I went to college with from Atlantic City and we all called him T-Bone. He was a smart dude and just like the next man he enjoyed his drink and getting high. Well, now that I think about it, he was usually drunk or high or both. One night he came into my room and needed to use my printer so he could mail some poems into a poetry contest he was entering. He said he used to write a lot, so I said spit me something. T-Bone told me about a time when he was young and missed his older sister who had gone away to college. Every once in a while he would pull the seat down on the toilet they once shared and sprinkle some drops of piss on the seat because it always used to drive her crazy.

All That Is Left Of You

We have had the talk.
I gathered up all your things,
put them in a bag and
gave them back to you.
But every once in a while,
I will find one of your hairs on the floor,
in-between the mattress and the wall,
sometimes on the clothes
that I have not washed in a while.
Even in the magazines in the bathroom
I still find those long brown hairs.

And that is all that is left of you.

A Contagious Laugh

The other day I was walking down Bowery and this beautiful woman dressed in all black was walking my way. Right before we were about to cross paths she tripped on the sidewalk and immediately starting laughing. I stopped, couldn't help myself, and started laughing too. We stood there looking at each other, laughing.

Holiday Lint

Today I scraped the lint from the dryer that had built up after many loads and mixed in were an assortment of threads, all different colors. I held the flimsy sheet of lint in my hands and lifted it up to the late afternoon sun and let the yellow light illuminate this delicate mash of lint and thread. It made me smile, this was my holiday decoration lighting. I stood there alone for several minutes watching the light burst through this lint.