what a chunk o' chocolate

Arnold Stang, NYC 1987

I ran into Arnold Stang out on the streets of New York back in 1987. He must have been on his way to do a voice over for a Honey Nut Cheerios commercial. But to me, he was the voice of the Chunky Chocolate commercial in the 1950's, with the infamous line that's still ringing in my head when I look at that candy bar - "What a Chunk o' chocolate!" He was a riot as the nerdy gas station attendant in 'It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World'. Played next to Frank Sinatra in 'The Man With the Golden Arm'. And speaking (ha) of voiceovers, he was the voice of Top Cat.

He was a little comic genius. Here's a brief clip for those unfamiliar.

R.I.P. Arnold Stang.

You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude!

Jeff Bridges, NYC 2010

The Dude came to town Saturday night.  Jeff Bridges was up at the Walter Reade Theater for a Film Society of Lincoln Center special evening of clips and conversation, followed by a screening of one of my favorite films 'The Last Picture Show' (hey, not a bad title for a photo exhibition, now that I think of it).

So I ran uptown with my camera on a very cold New York city winter night to get a few pix of his dudeness. The man was so cool and obliging. The Dude abides. 'Nuff said.

Jeff Bridges, NYC January 2010

Where I was at: 11.14.09 Clic Gallery NYC

Billy Name, NYC November 2009

Did you read the incredible story in this weekend's NY Times about the amazing Warhol Factory photographer Billy Name? How his valuable negatives have gone missing for years now in a maze of photography agents, art dealers, and unnamed sources? I'm not even going to try to explain this ongoing tale of shady art business shenanigans. You've got to read it yourself here. Sadly there are echoes of the tale of lost Diane Arbus prints dramatized last year so well in Hubert's Freaks by Gregory Gibson. Pray for the quick return of this holy grail.

I shot this photo of Billy Name at the November opening for the not to be missed exhibition - Bande A Part: New York Underground 60's 70's 80's on right now at the Clic Gallery 424 Broome Street in Soho NYC. It's only up one more week - extended until January 17th - so hurry up and get down there. There's so many good photographs by Roberta Bayley, Leee Black Childers, Marcia Resnick, Danny Fields, Bobby Grossman, Anton Perich, Stephanie Cherinikowski, Billy Name.  And yeah I know, I'm in the show too, so this is a bit of self-promotion.

And what if you're not in NYC this week? Well then get online and order the exhibition catalog of the same name published this past fall by GINGKO Press. You won't regret it. Cover photograph by the great Billy Name.

Where I was at: Bowery Ballroom 12.30.09

so here's the setlist from Patti Smith's Bowery Ballroom show on her birthday - December 30th, 2009 - the lucky recipient kindly held it up for my camera. The show was excellent, as expected. Right out of the box with 'Land', 'Ask the Angels', and 'Privilege'. A ton of well chosen cover songs too. Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean', George Harrison's 'Within You Without You', Buddy Holly's 'Not Fade Away.' The band with Lenny singing (minus Patti) did two Jim Carroll songs including a knockout 'People Who Died.'

Patti's always been great over the years with her choice of live cover songs. Like a good DJ, she always seems to pull them right out of a hat. Back in the day, one of my favorites was her cover of Debby 'Boone's You Light Up My Life', which I excerpt below from - really - Kids Are People Too.  I can't overestimate the impact at the time of the ironic crossover beauty of a NYC punk poet singing a top 40 megahit by Pat Boone's daughter (I remember her at a record store signing in Times Square telling all her fans not to waste money on the album - "buy the single").

But her best cover song at this year's show was her encore - Patti and the band doing the O'Jays 'Love Train'. Such a feelgood song - I still can't get it out of my head. And so. as much for myself as everyone else, I provide a link to the O'Jays doing Love Train on Letterman (search out the Soul Train Line Dance version from 1973 yourself).

Also for your viewing pleasure, a few choice pix of Patti onstage at the Bowery Ballroom.  "People round the world, join in..."

patti smith time : December 29-30-31

ok so you've had yourself a merry little xmas, but you're not really ready for a rockin' new years eve.
well i haven't been going out on new years eve for many a year. but on december 30th - that's when I venture out to celebrate the end of the old year down at NY's Bowery Ballroom.
It's Patti Smith's birthday show - the second night of her annual 3 night new years' run. Tickets are hard to get these days. Once upon a time I used to wander down to the Mercury Lounge in early december to get my ticket without ticketmonger fees. But you gotta be on top of things early these days, as these 3 nights are the best shows in town - and word's gotten around.  Last year I had to go on craig's list to get myself a ticket.

So if you've got a ticket - i'll see you there. And if you don't, mark it down in your calendar now for next year. Nothing goes on forever.
In the meantime, you can spend her birthday watching the recent documentary she and Steven Sebring made - Dream of Life -  which will be showing on PBS that night.

read about it in the NY Times here:   ny times

But there's really nothing like seeing Patti Smith do a live show. So here's a little xmas present for you: her encore from last year's birthday show - doing the Four Tops "Reach Out - I'll be There".  I can't wait to see what's coming this end of the decade year.

Happy Birthday Patti!

xmas leftovers - blasts from the past

xmas 1996

and here we go again. another year and another xmas picture. Every year - shooting and picking another new gem. But this year, I'm taking some time off to find some old gems from the archives. Some vintage black and white pix shot on my good old Leica. Yeah - a nice relaxing xmas eve thumbing through my negatives, while everyone else frets about wrapping their presents.

My presents this year are my past...

xmas 1979

xmas 1997

xmas 1993

ok just a few more...

"but I heard him exclaim,

ere he drove out of sight,

merry christmas to all,

and to all... a gezundtheit"

So Un-American: End of the Innocence

OK - more Robert Frank. Now this is interesting. Many years ago in 1989, ex-voice of the Eagles, Don Henley had a big hit on MTV with his song 'End of the Innocence'. While watching the video late one night, thinking something looked all too familiar, I taped it and re-watched it closely. It didn't take too long to separate the video from the noxious music, and realize that the whole thing was totally based on images from The Americans. I can imagine someone handing a copy of the book to the director, saying remake these photographs as a video - and by the way, do it in black and white. Of course there was no credit to Robert Frank. Not even a nod to the original source material, by way of perhaps someone carrying around a copy of the book itself. Leading me to wonder about who cleared what with whom. I couldn't really imagine that Robert Frank would allow Don Henley to remake his masterpiece into a rock video to sell records on MTV. Especially given what had happened between him and the Rolling Stones over Cocksucker Blues. Something didn't seem right. I eventually had the opportunity to ask Robert Frank about whether he ok'd the usage, and the answer was no. That it was in the hands of the lawyers. This was back in 1989 or 1990.

So I present here the Don Henley video. And a clip I compiled with Robert Frank's photographs from The Americans, and they're re-appearance in the video. I'm sure there are even more than I've pointed out. Check 'em out yourself. The audio I've laid underneath it is of Robert Frank speaking at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. last year with the exhibition's curator Sarah Greenough. It's a fabulous interview and you can listen to the whole piece here:

http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/frankinfo.shtm

Oh, one more thing. I've recently found out that this video was made by David Fincher, director of Fight Club and Zodiac. I've got to think about that one...

Robert Frank pix vs. Henley video:

all photographs © Robert Frank - video © someone

American Beauty

So speaking of Robert Frank, there is a must see exhibition of all the prints from his photographic masterpiece "The Americans" at the Metropolitan Museum here in NYC . If you haven't been there yet, you only have a few weeks to catch the subway uptown to see it, because the show is closing on January 3rd - and you know that's coming up fast. You better not miss this one!

I drove myself down to Washington D.C. last year when this exhibition appropriately debuted at the National Gallery of Art. Robert Frank himself drove all over the country to take these infamous photographs in 1956. And his little book The Americans changed the whole game of photography. In 1956, there was Elvis, and there was Robert Frank. That's all you need to know.

At the time, Robert Frank was exorcised for taking out of focus, grainy, tilted ugly photographs. What he was in fact doing, was breaking the rules and changing the whole concept of what a photograph was. While Elvis was doing the same thing with "That's Alright Mama at Sun Studios, Robert Frank, as Jack Kerouac says in the intro to The Americans, "sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film".

There is an immense catalog of the exhibition compiled by curator Sarah Greenough, which includes the contact sheets from every photograph (be sure to get the hardcover edition!). It is almost encyclopedic in it's coverage of the little LP of a book that The Americans is - 83 photographs that tell the compact story of America in 1956. Tell someone you love that this is what you want for Chanukah.

Robert Frank, NYC 1980

the darkroom of his mind

There's a line on Bob Dylan's 2001 CD 'Love & Theft' - it kind of sneaks right up on you - "Big Joe Turner looking east and west from the darkroom of his mind." It's a photography reference sure enough - right there at the opening of the song 'Highwater (for Charlie Patton)'.

What's up with Bob Dylan and photography? Just recently he's put out 2 CD's with photography illustrated covers. Not pictures of himself. Just cool photographs picked out by himself? When the CD 'Modern Times', came out in 2006 - I immediately recognized the cover photo. A beautiful black and white shot by Ted Croner - 'Taxi, New York at Night, 1947' - which I had seen, and ogled over, many times at the Museum of Modern Art. And on this year's CD 'Together Through Life' there is a cover photograph from Bruce Davidson's 1959 teenage gang essay, and a back cover photograph from Josef Koudelka's book on Gypsies. Both great black & white photographers themselves. Now I also happen to know that there was almost a photograph by Andre Kertesz on the cover of his recent book 'Chronicles'. So there's obviously something happening here.

Bob Dylan's always been involved with the photographers that shoot his covers. There are the great middle sixties shots done by Daniel Kramer (Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited), Jerry Schatzberg (Blonde on Blonde), and Barry Feinstein (Times They Are a Changin' + the No Direction Home DVD). All are collaborations with the photographer. The dangling camera on the cover of Highway 61 - truly a visual non-sequitor - is in itself a nod to the presence of the photographer, prominently placed within the portrait of the artist as a young motorcycle rider. And recently it's been revealed by Schatzberg that it was Dylan's decision to use the slightly out of focus shot for the cover of Blonde on Blonde.

What I find truly interesting, is that Bob Dylan goes not just to great musicians to record his music, but he goes to great photographers to capture his image. Most recently, the cover portrait of 'Tell Tale Signs' last year, was shot by William Claxton - noted for his fashion and jazz photography. While the inner sleeve of 'Love and Theft' has a portrait by David Gahr - he had shot Dylan as far back as the village and Newport Folk Festival days. And these many years later in 2007, known to be in ill health, Dylan seeks him out to shoot his portrait. Both David Gahr and William Claxton died in 2008.

One last storyline here, about photographer/musician/filmmaker John Cohen, who is name-checked in the liner notes for Highway 61 Revisited:

"You are right john cohen, quazimodo was right...there is no eye...i cannot say the word eye anymore...your rooftop - if you don't already know - has been demolished."

It was John Cohen who shot the first film footage of a pre-signed Bob Dylan on his 3rd Avenue rooftop - you can see it in the Scorsese doc 'No Direction Home'. John Cohen, by the way, shot stills on the set of the Robert Frank/Jack Kerouac film 'Pull My Daisy'. Cohen and Frank were neighbors on lower Third Avenue, when Dylan dropped by there in 1961. And many years later, in 1970, the very reclusive Bob Dylan would call in John Cohen again to shoot pictures on his very own MacDougal street rooftop for the LP 'Self-Portrait'. Dylan doesn't live there anymore, and John Cohen's 3rd Avenue loft was indeed demolished to make way for a building that Joey Ramone would eventually live in.

The last lines of the Highway 61 Revisited liner notes are to John Cohen: "you are lucky - you don't have to think about such things as eye & rooftops & quazimodo".

talking pictures

Ray Davies, NYC 1977

Have you heard the Kinks song "there's too much on my mind"? Well it seems I've been keeping it all well hidden lately. I'm all photography all the time. But lately I think I've got myself a case of the "Not talking enough photography blues". Been neglecting my duties. Taking too much time off. Now I'm back with a vengeance.

Speaking of the Kinks, have you heard their song "Picture Book"? I love that one. It didn't even bother me to see it in an HP advert a few years back - that song deserved the big replay. But how did HP not follow it up with "People Take Pictures of Each Other" (...just to prove that they really existed!) from the same great LP Village Green Preservation Society?? Ray Davies - he should really be doing the Nikon ads instead of Ashton Kutcher.

And then there's my other crazy photo centric favorite Bob Dylan. "Big Joe Turner looking east and west from the darkroom of his mind". I've got way too much to say about Dylan and photography, so I'm going to save that for the next post.

In the meantime, I've included the photo I took of Mr. Ray Davies on August 16, 1977, on the upper west side of New York City, the day Elvis Presley died. There was definitely too much on all our minds that day.

opening day

St.Patrick's day has come and gone - unofficial Opening Day of the Street Photography season. March 17th is usually a cold and dreary day - leave it to the Irish to tough it out in the first Fifth Avenue parade of the year. They lay it right out there, come hell or high water.

All the better for Street Photography batting practice -Erin Go Bragh is the umpire's signal to "play ball". Grab your Leica, and warm up your shooting hand. Whether you're shooting the color green, or black & white. Digital or point and shoot. Gloved or barehanded. Take the field.

This year it was bright sunny green all over. Even the Hassids in the diamond district turned out on their lunch break.




But wait, in this crazy calendar year the Easter Parade, another Street Photog ritual, arrived extra early - within days of St.Pats. And so it was a two for one week. Like a double header. Get yourself up to shutter speed for the boys of summer.

don't judge a book by it's cover

Go see this new animated film Persepolis - you probably won't be drawn in by the title - unless you're a fan of the "graphic novel" by Majane Satrapi, who by the way directed this film. It was the closing night film at this year's New York Film Festival, which is a big deal - that's Marjane and her co-director Vincent Parannoud in the photo below on opening night. The picture above from the film is Marjane as a kid trying to go out and buy rock music illegally on the streets of Iran -and I don't mean RIAA "don't steal music" illegally - this is post-revolutionary Iran. Funniest scene is Marjane doing kung fu to her illegal copy of "Eye of the Tiger". This is a humorous coming of age movie about a kid in the middle of a historic political mess. The voices are done by Catherine Deneuve and her daughter Chiara Mastroianni (her father was Marcello). And word is that Iggy Pop was going to do the english dubbing for the DVD release. Catch it on the big screen where you can really see it - Persepolis.

fairytale of new york

This is Matt Dillon visiting Shane MacGowan backstage after a Pogues show at a club called The World in NYC in 1986. The World used to be down near Houston and Avenue C, and many a video was shot there in the 80's, including Talking Heads "Burning Down the House." But when the Xmas season rolls around, it's the Pogues 1987 video - Fairytale of New York - that tops the charts. Right up there with hearing John Lennon or Phil Spector. And so enjoy your xmas and say a prayer for the great Kirsty MacColl.

it's a wonderful life - xmas 2007 in florida

that was then & this is now...i gotta say i was running out of ideas for xmas pictures in new york city - who how where when? then it came - an invitation to florida for christmas - no snow, no cold weather, no cleaning off the windshield, no shoveling snow. a serious no brainer.

so here i stand, head in hand - cool calm collected - with a ton of great xmas pictures laid out right in front of me - look out & say cheese...

gone fishing

this is my friend mitch's mom's gefilte fish. you see this stuff, it means the jewish holidays are here.

what holiday? new year's 5758. how did they do that? i don't know - i was wondering how heinz ketchup didn't take more advantage of last year being 5757.

everyone in New York loves the jewish holidays. Schools out, alternate side parking is cancelled - i.e. you can park for free - the streets are quiet, there's no road traffic, no standing on lines, empty seats on the subways, and if your boss is jewish, he ain't at work.

but check out the gefilte fish - this is the real thing. Not from the jar - made by hand, by mitch's mom Helene. And you gotta love the way it's laid out on the plate. Look at all those plates. You make this stuff by hand, you bet you're inviting lots of people over.

And if one of those people is a photographer - a jewish photographer (is there any other kind?) - you can bet he's gonna photograph them fish.

9_11

NYC 1999

In 2001, I was living down near the world trade center, just a few blocks east on Maiden Lane - had been living there since 1995. I was knee deep in a project to photograph the downtown area at night - based on the template of the old New Amsterdam, when New York City was under Dutch rule. Same area photographed by Berenice Abbott in the 1930's.

I was busy trying to get pictures of old buildings around the financial district and the seaport that I figured would soon be gone. In the process, I tended to avoid the World Trade Center - it was the place I went on hot summer days to get good air conditioning, but I didn't think it was something I would have to make top priority on my soon to be gone list.

Who knew??

this year's model

While it still feels like summer, one more look at the july 4th girl of 1909


Here are a few more pix of her that I found at the same flea market. This girl really had it - coulda been a star.


This is her again. Same room. I'm guessing she's on her father's lap - is she relaxed or what? This little model should have hooked up with Lartigue.


And here's my favorite of the bunch - same room - the piano, the wallpaper - this must be mom - reading the newspaper. The question is - did she take this - and all the others? I think so.

Last Days

With the end of summer, I present this found at a flea market photo from someone's July 4th in 1909.

R.I.P. Hilly Kristal

Hilly was our Dad. He landed on the Bowery, set up shop, and let us all hang out in his house. Whatever we wanted to create, as long as we played by his rules - and there weren't many - was ours to create. It was like going over to your friend's house - the one with the good parents - and being able for the first time to really be yourself. Full out. Nobody watching. Nobody commenting.

That's how the New York punk scene happened, right there in his backyard. Just a bunch of dumb letters that sounded like chord changes and would eventually, beyond anyone's expectations land on t-shirts, and symbolise more than they were ever intended to be. Hilly was our protector. He was our enabler. There's not enough that can be said about him. And not that much you need to say.

Ultimately undone by the forces of NYC real estate and an organization ironically called the Bowery Residents Committee. Hilly was the original Bowery Resident. His spirit will live forever on that boulevard he called home.

camels in new jersey

ok, so it's the end of the summer, and i'm out in new jersey driving the back roads to ikea when i pass upon this scene - 2 camels in a parking lot. bingo - camera time. lady next to me is groaning - i shoulda brought my camera - she's not yet in the 21st century my cell phone's got a camera mode, so she just looks.

shooting is looking and showing everyone else you're looking. szarkowski called it pointing and saying look at that!

so here's my return to the blog - did i tell you i saw two camels in new jersey last weekend?