Debbie Harry of popular punk rock group, Blondie, performs in the Lower East Side on March 13, 2009.

Debbie Harry of popular punk rock group, Blondie, performs in the Lower East Side on March 13, 2009.

Debbie Harry of popular punk rock group, Blondie, performs in the Lower East Side on March 13, 2009.

David Bryan (center) of Bon Jovi recording tracks for the new musical The Toxic Avenger at Avatar Recording Studios in New York.

A walk from SoHo to the Financial District a few nights ago prompted my brain to run a frequently traveled course in discerning next move from same place. Not really in terms of physical move or career move, but more of a personal shift.

I was walking slower than normal, despite the cold, because my desire to wander the streets, learning what the city looked like with no people and no daylight, was innately stronger than the wind that caused me to deeply bury my face into the softness of the alpaca scarf knotted around my neck. Lightly gripping my camera bag to prevent its swing on the side of my tweed coat, my feet kept moving, but my mind was still stuck on the thought I had on corner of Church and Chambers - about the roots of the very nature of my being on the corner of Church and Chambers and of course, my perspective du jour.

When I say "roots of the moment" I mean the thing that made you reevaluate, well, anything really. Choice words? Seeing/hearing a piece of art? Being away from everything you've grown accustomed to? Something so awful I wouldn't dare give an example?

As I didn't dare to think of an example, I passed this eerily lit cross built from beams and scraps of the World Trade Center. And there you have it. An example. Something so catastrophic that it didn't only change personal views, but global views. Global views about everything.

Why is it frequently catastrophe that makes people realign priorities? Why can't beautiful things ever carry the weight that horrible things do?

I have a theory that beautiful things just become accepted as how things are. And because they happen every-god-damn-day, they lose their value. Shouldn't that be an even better reason to be stoked about life? Media analysts always talk about the effect of desensitization in regard to war and violence, but what about the desensitization to just being happy and appreciating all that you have?

Why do we always take great things and with time, seem to only pay attention to problems? Problems, problems, problems. Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly guilty too, but I'm very tired of awful things being the catalyst for change.

Ok.

You say, "well if everything is beautiful, why would it have to change?" Bingo. And the million-dollar prize goes to you Skippy - thanks for the insight.

People constantly talk about hindsight as something soley of the past, when really, all hindsight is is the ability to change your perspective in the present. None of this, "I should have done this"/"I didn't do this"/"I wanted to do this, but..." All right, you didn't do it or you might do it again and really, you can say those phrases all you want, but it doesn't alter a damn thing until you do something about it.

Oh, wait, Skippy? What's that? You'd really like me to take a stab at answering the question?

Ok. Pardon the capslock, but: IT WOULDN'T. YOU ALREADY HAVE IT. But let me ask you this: do you really want to wait for a catastrophe to realize that? Real or not, it took a cyclone and a strange land with little people, talking inanimates and snazzy shoes to make Dorothy Gale come to grips, so if that's what it takes, that's what it takes.

(Cue trite ending now)

I can tell you this though, Skippy, I sure as heck don't. I don't want a natural disaster and a fictional land to make me believe that life is beautiful. So, I'm going to take in a breath of my quaint, but glorious Manhattan apartment, love it and get excited about tomorrow.

A piece from Jeremy Kost's Polaroid-based exhibition, "After the Party," premiering at the Dactyle Foundation in New York on March 3, 2009.

Faith is a funny thing. You can look at something and just know that it's right, even if it doesn't seem to be at first glance. Now, sometimes, motivation for keeping that faith is found in the most obvious, but happenstance places. In my case? It's been a few things: people, music, photos. I've had a song on repeat for the last 45 minutes and can't help but smile and shake my head at the decimal-point miscalculations I've made. Hey, don't judge, I was never very good with numbers.

I have the lightest feeling in the world, like falling in love all over again, but with something that I've had all along. It's a well-known fact that I frequently reside in my own world, causing me to sometimes not pay so much attention to what people are trying to tell me. What? Me? Not listening?

You're shocked. I know.

You can't put a measurement, a time limit on things of extraordinary value. There's no time bomb, there's no expiration date, and for that matter, there's no expectation. I wrote most of this late last night, but there was no deadline on the posting of this either. Good idea? Bad idea? Whatever. I don't really care. You can't demand things. People make mistakes and I made a pretty huge one. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do to take that back, but it was me who was wrong. Thank God I'm neurotic enough to have kept words I said tucked away, or I don't know that I would have been smart enough to figure this out.

Catching your faith waver is quite scary, but putting it back where it should be is strangely comforting. I don't even care what happens next; I just finally listened to the words being said over and over to me and took notice at how boldly I had ignored them - out of interest in my own, trivial agenda.

If all that I gain out of this piece is to cognitively have the ability to re-align faith, then that's great. If all that you gain out of this piece is to know that it truly is possible to re-align faith, that's great.

As this song continues on repeat, I laugh at myself for being such an idiot. With another smile and shake of my head, I still will say that I've never had more faith in my life.

Photo: One of my random, solo walks through the streets of New York - the birds perching on the left creating a stationary frame, blending with the buildings, for the ones already taking flight in a brightly urban winter sky.

Sophia Bush.

Sophia Bush.

Heather Coleman, Oxfam's Senior Climate Change Policy Advisor, presents at a Cosmopolitan event held in the penthouse of 6 Columbus on Tuesday.

A piece from Joseph Altuzarra's line, showcased at his private event during the Mercedes-Benz Fall 2009 Fashion Week in New York.

A piece from Joseph Altuzarra's private event during the Mercedes-Benz Fall 2009 Fashion Week in New York.

Photo: One of many Barbies on display at Bloomingdale's on 59th and Lexington in celebration of Barbie's 50th birthday.

Just as a heads-up folks, many images in the future will not be accompanied by words/stories. So, if you like any of the images without my written anecdotes and silly ramblings, please just ask me about it and I will be more than thrilled to tell you.

Photo: An early Barbie displayed at Bloomingdale's on 59th and Lexington in celebration of Barbie's 50th birthday.

Annd Stump wins the show!! Woooo!

The next morning, this dog had more appearances than most A-list celebrities. Basically, every network or publication that covers news and/or fluff was at the Westminster Dog Show. I was actually blown away by how many damn cameras there were... and I'm part of the media!

Will continue notes on the dog show at a later date...

Oh Stump. If you only had known what you were getting yourself into as a pup when you walked up to the lady in pearls with a checkbook in one hand and a dog treat in the other.

Happy trails to you, my friend... may your fine genetics earn your owners wads of money for years to come.

Photo: Handler, Scott Summer with Stump, the Sussex Spaniel who won the hearts of the Westminster judges.

(my favorite photograph of the show)

Your Excellency,

I'm very sorry I cut off your fingers in this shot. I was nervous. I promise it won't ever happen again.

Sincerely,

The photographer with the sparkling ballet flats.


Photo: President of the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly and former Nicaraguan foreign minister, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann (left) during a leisurely visit with Logan, a friendly Labrador backstage at the 133rd Westminster Dog Show.

I tried to interview a dog once too.

Photo: Backstage at the 133rd Westminster Dog Show, held annually at Madison Square Garden.

Ma'am, are you aware your dust mop has eyes?

Photo: Backstage at the 133rd Westminster Dog Show, held annually at Madison Square Garden.

Not posting a wide shot of this event would have just been stupid... so here ya go.

Keep in mind, that the FDR Highway is on the left side of the ramp and the East River is on the right. Craziness.

Premiere of the Red Bull Snowscrapers event in NYC

Only the fine people at Red Bull would say, "Hey...You know what would be f'n rad? An urban snowboarding competition... in NYC and you know, we'll call it Snowscrapers, cuz like New York has a lot of skyscrapers and snow starts with S, just like sky, and it's a winter sport in the city... so like... yeah... right on!"

And God Bless each and every one of them. This event was totally rad.

What better marketing plan can you have than to building a frozen nine-story ramp at a 40 degree angle on the eastern bank of Manhattan and catapult the world's 16 best riders down it. I mean, really! What demographic doesn't want to see that? Those that wish to not stand on the bank of the East River when it's 10 degrees out? Haha, nice try, but false.

Usually I'm in aforementioned demographic, so I rationalize shooting this event by thinking that my fingers almost froze off for this shot. Good God was it cold, but worth every shake and shiver. This is New York! You get a sweet gig, you take it! You hear of a stellar event, you don't think about it, you just go!

Unfortunately, I had another gig to run off to, so I didn't actually shoot the competition, but the light was just where I wanted it to be for the practice runs, so I wasn't too bummed. Besides, if you didn't get a chance to go down and check it out*, Red Bull Snowscapers airs on both NBC and MSGTV on Sunday, February 15th at 5 p.m. EST.

*One of the funniest/coolest things about NYC is that I bet 7/8 of the population had no idea this event was occuring. On that same note, the West Side Highway could have been hosting a chorus line of tap-dancing elephants and none of us on the East Side at this event would have known about it either! Well, that's a lie... I obviously would have known about that, but you get my point. What a frickin' cool place.

Note: This shot also looks way cooler with the proper color read. Sorry about that guys!

Some sick air.

Reminds me of a scarecrow.

I could think of things I never thunk before.
And then I'd sit, and think some more.

Seriously Firefox? One day I'll fix your RGB profile... Just in case anyone was wondering, this pic is sick in full color.

But hey, whatever. Riddde the wave and gooo with the flooowww.

Del Cheetah of the Sex Slaves being awesome with the assistance of his height and that burning ball of gas* positioned right behind him, mid-head-bang.

*Just because I've had a few questions about this: it is NOT in fact a burning ball of gas, but Del Cheetah's blonde hair catching the color of a pretty hot light, producing said effect.

Oh Hi Baby!

Eric13, my favorite of the Sex Slaves. Their full out rock show is outrageously fun, but I will say that I'm quite glad that I had the great and unexpected pleasure of hearing them acoustic last weekend. It's kinda the same idea as KISS: Unplugged, but BETTER.

Super fun guys.

If you've been with this blog before, I'm generally all about the hands. For some reason, I prefer this shot without.

Del Cheetah of the Sex Slaves last night at Webster Hall.

"Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for the rock star bullshit. None of the techs backstage care if you're David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave, tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs." - Henry Rollins

There have been a lot of true words spoken about the cogs and the sprockets of live music, but those above? Uber true. Close to the heart and it couldn't make me more excited. Those words were handed to me on a piece of paper last Thursday night in the arena production office of Madison Square Garden by a well-known NYC promoter.

"Make a copy. Keep it."

To set the scene, Kings of Leon were in town and Bowery Presents had just released 1,000 more seats to the public for the growing band from Tennessee... to open the stage past 270 degrees. And if the band didn't have so much A/V in their show? It would have been a group of brothers + 1 from Tenne-frickin-see selling out their first Garden gig at 360 degrees.

Aforementioned promoter then sat at his desk and just kept saying, "Who the fuck are the Kings of Leon?"

For starters? Sold. Out. That's who they are.

Being a fan, but nowhere near obsessed, I went out on the floor, mid-set, to see if I could figure this out.Who the fuck were the Kings of Leon? A trend or finally a band that will have some popular longevity? Standing 20 feet away from the stage, amidst a sea of enthusiastic, but harldly melodic fans, I found out the somewhat anti-climactic answer. The Kings of Leon are simply a rock band.

Now don't undercut the word "simply," but don't discount it either. I still had chills running up and down my spine ("Closer" is a stellar live song). The Kings of Leon are a rock band that might not be Zeppelin, but who sure can put on a show that's been missing from our music scene for years, save about 3 other bands grossing enough to sell out venues like MSG. And per the usual at the Garden, I desired to be nowhere else, but in that moment. For all of you Atlas Shrugged fans out there, this is my version of Dagny Taggart's railroad.

I've been fortunate enough to have nature show me some of the most stunning things I've ever seen, but to watch something purely man-made, built by you and your friends, that stops your heart and holds in your breath is equally as awesome. You want to be as close to that feeling, that moment as you possibly can, so much so that when you let that one breath that's so tightly locked in your lungs go, your heart resumes at 10 times its original rate. To call it sexy would be true, but the greatest understatement that could possibly exist, well, in my reality at least. I don't even have a word to describe how deeply I wanted to be closer to that moment. When you feel like this toward a person, your desire is to make love to them, but with moments? These moments are intangible, unless of course 1) you share those moments with someone who sees it the same way or 2) you are a band-aid (no, not groupie).

Neither of those two things were true Thursday night, so all I could do was look around and wrap myself up in thousands of fan faces, lighting design and a solid live show pumping through the speakers. Without standing with them, I saw the stagehands, the promoters, the electricians, the caterers, the teamsters and a group of 4 dudes up there making the arena floor shake. All of them with the power to elicit such deep emotions in the even the most reserved types of people.

I know a lot of them don't see it like that, particularly not many hands, but I do.

So my idea of wild success, Tim Parsaca, is to be able to produce environments that make people feel as I did on Thursday night. And as you always say, "We break the first commandment here every night." It's a wonderful feeling, isn't it?

Working this show was the beginning of 43 straight hours of being awake. 26 of them being some of the best hours I've ever had. If it's possible to be subtly hit with a ton of bricks, well that's what happened. If I start talking about why, this entry won't ever end, so if you want to hear a good story sometime, ask me about my first 43-hour experience.

Skies are beneath me
I see a storm bubbling up from the sea
And it's coming closer

"Closer"- Kings of Leon

Daisy Lowe, daughter of Gavin Rossdale and step-daughter of Gwen Stefani, djs in NYC last Saturday. Pretty solid party. When not shooting, I spent my time in the kitchen talking about the Steelers and trading, uh, interesting stories about Plaxico Burress with some sweet dudes/employees. Haha, figures.

Now here's a group of funny guys.

Covering Saturday's events of the New York Times Arts and Leisure Weekend, I was super stoked to hang at the Times Center all day to shoot and hear interviews from Tavis Smiley, Keith Olbermann, Vampire Weekend and Lewis Black.

Keith was pretty funny and Lewis Black is hard to beat in any comedic realm, but naturally, Vampire Weekend stole the show for me... even though Ben Sisario spent half the sesh talking about Paul Simon and the other half about the origin of madras. I guess that's what makes good music journalism these days ... good God Lester, Hunter, where are you when we need you??

These guys stylistically have somehow perfectly written lyrics to match their fascinating arrangements of underrated instruments, such as the cello and the harpsichord. And come on! No one's rocked out on harpsichord like this since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, so you've got to at least give them credit for that. However, as intriguing as their sound is, you really can't ignore the pretentious drips of prep/ivy undertones, but really, it's ok. For once, the marketing overkill on image is actually who these dudes are. They are preppy, they did go to an Ivy League and they are attempting to set a tone for a genre. Now, Ben! Shut up about Graceland already!

One of my favorite lines is from the song One (Blake's Got a New Face) off of their self-titled freshmen album. It goes as follows: "English Breakfast tastes like Darjeeling, but she's too cute to even ask..."

Not the cute part, but a line I can obviously love and relate to. And guess what, I'm not a prep and I went to a state school! And come to think of it, Ben, I DO love Paul Simon!

This image is one of those "ride the flash" moments, as Roger Kisby would say, and I think the light from the right totally adds to this particular moment with the boys of Vampire Weekend.

It's 4 a.m. on a Wednesday morning and this face believes in love. Eyes wide open, with much to lose. Experience has taught her that it's quite easy to be independent, but extraordinarily difficult to be in love. Difficult, wondrously difficult, in recognizing the responsibility of holding another on the same plane as you hold yourself. But she doesn't forget that she can't force the simple to be hard.

This smile knows that love is seemingly the swiftest, but is the slowest of all growths. Perhaps she's read too much Twain (if there is such a thing), but perhaps just notes the words of observers past. Her notions of love spill out of the trillions of re-printed copies of history's most cherished authors, those whose works eventually deteriorated many years of arrogant walls and watchtowers. With her generally impenetrable exteriors broken down, kindness and understanding seep up from an often deliberately, hidden core.

Through those eyes, she knows that she was offered the world, right at her finger tips, but it meant nothing without other life. Though she will always be fascinated by the majesty of the universe through her eyes alone, without a human to ever tell and touch, she unknowingly would decrease that experience's value. A stark realization that other lives, many lives, gave her life purpose in the most beautiful way imaginable.

That smile, those eyes, her face believe in love.

Rock. Out.

This dude represents what having fans is all about.

I forgot to post this one with the rest of the IPS images from last Thursday. Different file folder means different brain to me.

Bull-riding load-in! Yeeeeehaaww!

I know we are a bit out of event order here, as I already mentioned the bull-riding competition, but I think this experience deserves its own image.

There's a lot of things as equally entertaining as watching a rock band load into the arena, but not many things quite as "once in a lifetime" as watching sixty bulls run up the Garden's ramp. I really wish the light would have been better at the top of the ramp to show the "around the bend" shot, but well, it wasn't.

After I posted on Friday, I did go upstairs to catch a bit of said event. Just in case you were wondering, it really was quite silly, but at the same time, fascinating. Cowboys in the middle of New York City? I think I like the event for that reason alone. Simply the fact that it can happen. I mean, these fellas drew a substantial audience too!

On another note, the event was nationally broadcast by Versus, possibly the worst sports network in the history of television. I have a serious vendetta against them for 1) their selection of reporters/commentators and 2) not broadcasting the NHL playoffs in HD.

Uhh eh hehh...

I 've been meaning to get my mini-statement about Versus on my blog for a while now, and bull-riding gave me a way to do that. So thanks Professional Bull Riders Inc.!

Haha anywho, I feel like a good way to end this entry is:

LET'S GO PENS!

Patrick Nissley, lead vocals for Innerpartysystem.

Jared Piccone, drummer for Innerpartysystem.

Sonny with Innerpartysystem Thursday night at Mercury Lounge in NYC.

I took some artistic liberties with these photos as it was a trance/pop electronica show.

It's Friday night and I'm in one of my favorite places in the entire world. I sit here on this Friday evening in Madison Square Garden's production office. My co-workers have gone home, the union-workers have obviously gone home, my boss has gone home and I have absolutely no desire to leave.

To most, the idea of lingering in one's work place beyond the required amount of time is undesirable and often in conflict with the ideas of serenity, fun and excitement. I find myself most excited, as well as calm, when in this venue. In this city, it's in this room that I feel most comfortable. Some may consider it sad, but I consider this small office quite grand.

Although this office is but one tiny room in the alpha-venue that is Madison Square Garden, the number of things that have altered my life here over the past four months is astounding. Not only that, but it's unusual to see a day of work where most of us aren't shedding tears in laughter. It's hard for me to say that I love things, but this... I truly love. I love the people, I love the place, I love the production.

With Cirque's Wintuk wrapped and the cast and crew having all gone back to their respective sectors of the globe, it's nice to just sit here and take in the silence of a season past. You don't ever quite know when you will see any of these people again, if ever, but such is the nature of this business. I get selectively attached, then realize that with the next production, hopefully, comes more great times and more interesting people.

Speaking of interesting people, we have some professional bull riders, a lot of dirt and some pretty feisty bulls putting on an 8-second show upstairs, so I'm going to pack up my things and go check it out. Even if I had seen such a spectacle a thousand times before, the fact that the arena was transformed into a bull-riding pen from a hockey rink, more or less overnight, will never cease to amaze me. To sit and take in this place with each different event has certainly become one of my favorite things to do in New York City. I am extraordinarily fortunate that I can say such a thing.

"My, people come and go so quickly around here!" - Wizard of Oz (1939)


Photo: Taken last night at the Sonny/Innerpartysystem show at Mercury Lounge. Obviously, the photo has very little to do with my ramblings, but you do find brilliance, in shape and color, in the tiniest items on stage. Same idea with this little office in a enormous venue.

What an entrepreneur. I hear he's hiring.

Photo: Perez Hilton displaying his new book, Red Carpet Suicide.

I could be completely wrong, but it seems to me that people who are either in the profession of entertaining or saving lives, most often don't spend holidays with friends and/or families. I'm sure there are many professions that fall outside of both realms that are bound to work these days as well, but for the sake of analysis, let's just run with this. Not that stepping outside of your usual social circles is a bad thing, in fact I'm quite the advocate of such things, but I find the conflicting necessities of each "industry" pretty interesting. I certainly would never argue that they are equally important, but you have one side pleasing the masses and the other taking care of a comparatively smaller group. One group exists to fulfill desires, the other to fulfill needs. Entertaining, saving lives, entertaining, saving lives. Not to tangent, but what's really fun is when the two intersect. I mean if this was ER, we'd be watching a holiday montage, cutting back and forth between a surgeon running with a gurney and the happy nuclear family of a secondary character on either Christmas or NYE. Although those of us in entertainment are certainly not running with gurneys and trying to resuscitate people, we still are creating an experience that I still would deem necessary.

By default, of course, when creating a world for someone else, you are creating your own as well. I love working holidays. That's not to say I don't enjoy familiar company, but I really like seeing how other people spend these days. You become a stranger's friend for a few brief hours, a short lapse in time that perhaps they and you will remember all of your life. Will you ever see them again? Probably not, but it's quite perfect that way. You learn just enough, but never too much.


Photo: Rad Electric Violinist at Nikki Midtown on the first morning of 2009 in NYC. I like to call this shot: New Years Eve, Asian with a Violin, Take 2. I think I've just started a new tradition in my 12/31 shoots. See: New Years Eve, Asian with a Violin, Take 1.

Having worked on Cirque du Soleil's Wintuk, my wonderful, wonderful production friends with both Cirque and Madison Square Garden allowed me to shoot the company's winter show.

My favorite part of the show?

Simply the fact that you must put yourself in the mindframe of a child in order for this to make any sense whatsoever. Not following? Well, let's take into consideration that this is a show geared toward children. It's not Alegria, O or Dralion. It's an adventure story about a little dude who wants to find some snow.

Simple? Simple. Now, this kid needs to go through some pretty complicated things to get to aforementioned snow. You know, singing street lamps, ice giants, ridiculously large birds, bendy hula-hoop ice princesses, tumbling tribesman and a pair of ambiguously homosexual robbers. I think somewhere in there, adults get lost:

"Seems like a lot of work for some frozen precipitation."
"What do you mean, Honey?"
"Battling ice giants for some snow?"
"Wait, what ice giants?"
"Those big lantern-like rock things with the strobes?"
"Those were ice giants?"
"I guess."

When you see Wintuk, you have to watch it as you would watch The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. You have to appreciate Wintuk's characters as you would the Rockettes - for what they are, rather than for what they're not. In the Rockette's case, if you try to place the creme de la creme of entertainment in the 1930s in 2008, you end up wondering why you just spent 200 bucks per seat to see a bunch of skinny girls with pretty teeth and long legs tap and kick their little hearts out to basically the same routines for 90 minutes... with no intermission.

Watching the Rockettes, however, as a historic look back to what once was a fabulously grand spectacle is a totally different experience. I've seen it twice and done it both ways. First time? Bored out of my mind. Second time? Had a ball. It's as simple as a tiny change in perspective. You still might not be ok with the price on the ticket, but you can now pleasantly cross it off your "To Do" list. Or if you're me, cross off the "change attitude on Rockettes" line.

Wintuk is the same. Through the eyes of a kid, the show is cool. Through the eyes of an adult, it's a confusing labrynth of storyline holes, physical tricks and special effects. If adults can avoid being adults through the duration of the show, therein should lie the entertainment value. I guess my point is to flick off your "you" switch every once in awhile and have the will to suspend your disbelief in entertainment, or like I do every day, for better or for worse. That's the trick to living a cinematic reality, I think. Life is just as much about perspectives and illusions as theater is, be it acting like a kid to enjoy Wintuk, or hopping back to 1937 to catch the hottest show in the town, oorrrr being a popstar every Saturday night, live in New York City.

If someone tries to tell you that you can't live your life that way, just say, "Try it sometime," faintly smile and hope for the best. For them and for you.

I also fully recognize that anyone who may be reading this at any point probably thinks I'm nuts, but all I have to say is, "Try it sometime."

And umm, now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go look for some snow.

I would be inclined to say that there are very few people who would appreciate the above as much as I do, with the exception of the fact that I took this picture last year, on a ship, off an incredibly remote Thai island after baking over 2000 Christmas cookies for all of us who couldn't spend the holiday with family. Either it really is an international classic, or somebody up there really loves me.

White Christmas (1954), one of my favorite films ever, with Thai subtitles? What are the odds? Furthermore, what are the odds that someone had it on while we loaded the speed boats with equipment for the day's shoot?

This scene plays out as follows:

Betty (Rosemary Clooney): Look, Mr. Wallace, before you go any further, I must tell you - you were brought here tonight under false pretenses. Benny didn't write the letter, my sister did.

Bob (Bing Crosby): Judy?

Betty: Yeah, she figured you'd never come to see us if we asked you and you might if Benny did. It's as simple as that.

Bob: How do you like that, even little Judy there's got an angle goin', huh?

Betty: She didn't mean anything by it, she just-

Bob: You don't have to apologize, everybody's got an angle.

Betty: That's a pretty cynical point of view...

Bob: Oh come, come now Ms. Haynes. Surely you knew that everybody's got a little larceny operating in them, didn't you know that?

Betty: Well, just for the record, I want you to know that my sister and I don't play angles.

Bob: Well, if that letter wasn't an angle, I don't know what it was.

Betty: I don't like your inferences.

Bob: I've got no squawks, no beefs - the kid played a percentage, it worked and we're here. Let's not make a whole big mish mosh out of it... All I'm saying is when you've been around show business for as long as I have, you just get used to people working angles, that's all.

Betty: Mr. Wallace, since the chance of our seeing each other again is extremely remote, I don't think it's important to go on arguing.

Bob: I'll drink to that!

Betty: Be my guest.


Not to ruin the film or anything, but they obviously fall in love. I adore cinema.

Story to come.

Photo: Jamie Foxx jammin' out at Mansion on W. 28th on 12/16/08.

Rolling Stone!!

Sometimes last minute assignments are the best assignments- now if I can only get this in print...

Photo: Bruce Springsteen and fam.

Once upon a time, I went to Mexico and woke up next to Viggo Mortensen.

Ok, so that's not totally true, but I did go to Mexico and meet a Viggo look-a-like who owned a very nice amber shop. That was in my LOTR-loving days, which I am proud to admit, are still running strong. In case you were wondering, a piece of amber was indeed purchased.

Ohhhh Dreamboat Central. Darling... where is your beard, cloak, sword and irresistible perseverance/strength/courage/million other traits that don't actually exist in most men?

Anyhow, tonight I learned that it's really hard to gawk at the film love-of-your-life when you are shooting next to a bunch of dudes all over the age of 35, buuuttt I did anyway. They all just laughed at me. I was ok with it.

What did I have to lose? I had my new hat on and I was feelin' spiffy despite the crummy weather.

Sad to say, no marriage proposals this time, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Photo: New York Premiere of Good, Mortensen's newest film.

So as you may have noticed, this image doesn't have my obnoxious watermark on it. Reason, you ask? This is the first image in a long time that I've taken off-assignment. It's been weird to not shoot things that I love (I mean not that it wasn't exciting to shoot God, er I mean Oprah) and I don't quite know what's been amiss lately. As some of you may also have noticed, this blog has been boorrrrrrrrinng or rather, as Jen Bilec described it with a subtle downward motion of her hand, "downhill."

Well Jen, I couldn't agree more. So now that I'm sure I lost half of my readership, we're going to get this little cupcake back on the plate.

Believe it or not, I've never shot the tree in Rockefeller Center, so I figured, by accident really (a big thank you Bruce Springsteen, his wife and his daughter), that this image would be a festive way to renew. Even in the crappiest of moments, you can't help but be joyous to be where you are when you look at that tree. Not that it's any sort of beacon of hope or something of similar dramatic nature, but it's just a twinkling reminder that things aren't so bad. Not that it's the tree alone, but that it is an icon of a season in New York City.

A symbol of the grandeur, friends, stories, competition and history, reminding you that there is no other place on Earth that could deliver such an energy - if you choose to feel it.

And dudes, I am totally feelin' that vibe.

I really like this picture. Not a bad image for being part of the media circus.

Image: Susan Taylor, editor of Essence, and Oprah Winfrey on 12/2/08.