By God! You're right! I DO love steak!!

So... I've photographed these guys before and holy cow how they have changed! I was definitely not impressed with their live presence about two years ago, but this is a band that has grown into a sound that they clearly love to play. Their sound has moved away from the poppy stuff and more into the blues/rock genre (hip hip hooooray!). I think that's why I was so impressed, to be honest.

I will say though, that Tim's (above) vocals have always been something that I've been drawn to. He's got some pretty real lyrics runnin' through his brain, as well, which counts for major points in my book. If you can get through some of the pop melodies and listen to what he's saying, you know this kid might be one of the brightest crayons in the box.

Check them out, make your own decision and if they come through your town, get off the internet and go see a good live show:

The Alternate Routes

Also, if you ever find yourself in NYC and craving some good jams at stellar venues 1) ask me oorrr 2) just go to the Highline Ballroom's schedule and you probably won't be disappointed.

Ya know when you really dig a band, then you go see them oh, say five years later and they sound nothing like they used to?

If you don't know this feeling, I feel either very fortunate for you or very sad that you've perhaps never been in love with a band enough to experience said emotion. Granted, some bands never go south, so it's possible that you are in the very lucky minority.

In lieu of naming the band, I'm just going keep playing their old tracks over and over on my ipod. I know that doesn't help you with the story behind the photo, but it helps me.

NOTE: Not the same feeling as having a follow-up album suck - that's a whole other, less tragic, barrel of monkeys.

Although success is a relative term, there is something about this city that just makes you want to be every inch alive as the very essence of the domain in which you live. I can't say for sure what it is, but the wealth of opportunity here is nothing short of empowering. On every corner, you meet someone with some kind of a dream, some kind of will to make their lives extraordinary. It takes some skill and a whole lotta luck, but New York is every bit as conquerable as you had imagined. So what if there are millions of other people with your dream. To you, it doesn't matter... or rather, it shouldn't matter, because your art is your own, your path is your own and when the time comes, you will be dealt a winning hand. You are always in the game and folding really isn't an option.

Man is prone to acting out of self-interest, and this city is one that both understands and respects that notion. That's not to say that it's devoid of compassion, in fact, it's quite the opposite. When self-interest thrives, passion is unavoidable. The price you do pay, however, is that you must expect to survive on your own, with dependence on nothing but your own blind faith in what you need to do to reach difficult, but 100% achievable goals. You will be vastly underrated, and occasionally overestimated. There will be many people who help along the way and you will help others along the way too, but you are your own reliability.

But the key to all this?

Always, always, always keep that heart open when kicking butt. Sometimes proportionately, sometimes not so much.

Even if your hands are shaking, and your faith is broken,
Even as the eyes are closing, do it with a heart wide open...

always, always, always...

go after what you want.

Brendan James at the Canal Room last week. Words to come tomorrow. However, my roommate just made me laugh, so I'm going to post the quote:

"I'm so confused... like you... when you're ordering a sandwich!"

When it comes to immediate culinary choices, I am one of the most indecisive people on the planet.

New York City and it's wealth of opportunity is just lovely. I think that's actually all I'm going to say about this for now... well that and the photo above is of Jason Reeves, a fellow vagabond and new-found friend in the music world.

Although our weather wasn't ideal and it was decided that "yinzerworks" truly do kick some butt, celebrating the 4th of July in NYC was fabulous. Committing to waking early to snag a good spot to watch Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, three of us made the trek down to Coney Island to witness the annual New York spectacle.

As if watching people shovel an incomprehensible amount of hot dogs into their traps at ridiculous speeds wasn't enough, little did we know we were about to witness history. Tied at 59 hot dogs in 10 minutes, contestants Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi were forced into a 5-dog-speed-eating competition - oh yes, thats right... sudden death! And craziness!

In the end, Chestnut was declared the winner, Luke took better shots than me, all of us rode the famous Wonder Wheel and I received a warm invitation to the Coney Island Polar Bear Club USA, Inc.

All that followed by fireworks from the rooftop of our Brooklyn abode - pretty wonderful.

Oh and I neglected to mention above that I ate a hot dog. Figuring that my usual "um... ick" to the American standard 1. wasn't going to hold any water with that crowd and 2. made absolutely no sense being that I digested an innumerable amount of odd things in Asia, I snarfed that sucker in a pathetic 5 minutes and 18 seconds.

"Look Ma! I'm on camera!"

Sorry Dude, but contrary to popular belief, a dancing hot dog is only funny for exactly 3 minutes and 34 seconds.

More notably though, I gave Luke 5 years to make enough connections to land the coveted "Doofus" (pictured right) job. We'll see if he's up to the challenge.

More on Nathan's

Although Brooklyn offers an ecclectic array of photo opportunities, I've decided to take this first week to strictly observe, which means Baby has remained in the bag since I arrived.

In addendum to this camera T-O, I decided to dig up a photo from an Attack Theatre shoot I did last summer. The purpose behind the session was to come up with a promotional concept for their show Someplace, Not Here (pretty poignant title if you ask me) without really knowing much about the production.

So I had to come up with a photograph, purely by observation of their movements, that would embody that deceivingly simple phrase.

The treasure in this image is the idea of condensed cinema - one, or perhaps many stories in a single image.

All of my images have stories, but most of them are recorded truths, things that have actually occurred. It's not often that a project requires me to create a story, but I think it's incredibly cool to outline characters and then have the viewer color them in. There are no words, there is no diegetic or non-diegetic sound, just one frame and an infinite number of possibilities and perspectives.

I don't know the exact story behind these people, same as you. I don't know where they came from and I don't know where they are going. The truth of the matter is that the art in this photo is not that one storyline exists, but that many are possible. And as all great literature and cinema, the subjects are not as fictional as the word "character" may suggest.