Clean & Sober

1987-88 I went cold turkey from drugs and alcohol after seven years of so of heavy drinking everyday. There were some fairly serious symptoms of physical withdrawl during the summer of 1987, but I got through that much on my own without anyone knowing about.

At the time I worked as a supervisor for the United Parcel Service in the personnel department as editor of the local edition of the company magazine. Although it was a part-time gig, I don't think I've had a better paying job since. I was paid $16-20,000 to work 20-25 hours a week during the nearly five years I was there. Unitl recently, I was paid far less than twice that as a public high school teacher. Amazing.

Once sober and removed from my old friends who became addicted to crack I went out and got a new wardrobe as I tried to learn how to dance and went out each weekend to a variety of clubs in Manhattan like the World, and various places along and off of Avenue A and way over on the Westside. All of these places are long gone as is the hair I used to pour globs of goup into.

Looking Back And Comparing, Again

I like to think of it as my 'Lost Summer", 1983. I shopuld have graduated Truman High school in the Bronx but was bounced out in march of that year instead. Things at home weren't going much better.

Between my parents and I we saved about $800 for college tuition. Looking back it's no wonder why my father didn't want to give me $16 to take an SAT exam or $25 for a college application. then again it was confusing to me since they bought a new car that year and were preparing to move from the Bronx to the suburban New Jersey.

I asked my father to change the status of the savings account that he had custody so I could take money out of it; this he did willingly and I spend very quickly. I bought some darkroom equipment, a second used Canon F-1 body and lots of drugs and booze.

Ronald Reagan was president then and the economy was terrible. Scholarship money and grants were drying up and there weren't many jobs to be had either. I had a string of jobs with companies that were already in the process of closing shop. Between march and September that year I might have had a half-dozen different jobs, none lasting more than a few weeks. There was plenty of time to take photographs, smoke pot, drink cheap beer and hang out.

Nearly 25 years later and living a lifestyle that disguises much of the past, my wife and I often compare her difficult transition from her troubled family life to going to college to what I had done. She praises me for getting my stuff together, working my way through college to pay for tuition and ending up with a career that is doing fine by me so far. I on the other hand have a difficult time articulating what I had wanted and what I think I'm missing today.

There were no wild college times, no dorm living, no going away, no globe trotting in my youthful 20s, and there was none of the formal art school training I desired as a teenager.

In my thirties I've run into old classmates and met women I dated who went on to the very schools I wanted to apply to. None of them are photographers today and seem to have instead morphed their trained skills into other areas pulling in six digits designing web sites and such. And again, like many middle class folks, they too have a sphere of people, or a network they rely on from their college days for jobs, apartments, dating and party small talk. It's odd how my atypical upbringing, strange economic status, weird college education and white skin has earned a place for me stand silent with drink in hand adimst those with these networks.

What's most important here is that I was lucky to be able to shoot photographs both then and now. It seems as though it is as much of a coping mechanism then as it is now. So much so that i feel liek running out of the apartment right this instant to take picutres.

Sometimes It Happens

Christmas Eve day was a day I was waiting for. I spent a good part of the day wondering the streets of my neighborhood shopping and taking photos.


My father-in-law also came into town and along with my wife we walked some more and I took more photos. It's taken about two days to sort through the photos I took yesterday and when I took my first look at the image above I lost my breath.

Running Scissors's Atlas

Well now that the transit strike is done I thought it would be good to look at where I've been.

Oh, It's the Holidays Again

The Holidays are here again and it's hard not to laugh. Cheer and big fat kool-aid like smiles are to be found in lots of places. I'm one of those people that have a difficult time with this time of year. The memories aren't grand and it's often too easy to feel out of place and uncomfortable. I am learning to keep it bottled up as to not to ruin anyone else's good time.

Last year my wife insisted that I light a Menorah for Hanukkah. I really didn't want to but she explained it was important to her. Then came the first night of the Holiday and she pulled me away from whatever it was I was doing because hours had passed since sundown when the candles are to be lit. Without emotion I went out to the dining area, loaded the Menorah with two candles. My wife questioned if I was placing them correctly and I said something about reading right to left as an answer. I lit a match, said the prayer quickly from memory and handed the lit candle to my wife so she could light the first night's candle; "Aren't you going put some pants on?" she said to me as I stood there with nothing but a t-shirt on. "Hurry up and take the candle, they don't stay lit for long", I replied.

The best part of the Holiday is cooking and eating. I don't think we enjoyed too much of that as kids. My father would always complain about whatever my mother cooked and Hanukah was no exception. I learned later on in life, maybe in my early 30s' that Hanukah food is supposed to be fried. I love fried foods and I've deviated from my mother's latka recipe just enough to make lots of goyim happy. No one yells and complains. The goyim ask about other Hanukah traditions that were carried out in my childhood. I don't think they take me seriously as they laugh about how lousy the Holiday was for me.

There were never eight gifts of any sort. My sister and I would beg for things we wanted but were always disappointed by ill fitting and not in fashion clothing. I remember in my mid-twenties when I was trying to create an adult-like relationship with my parents I brought my first wife to their home in New Jersey for the first night of Hanukah. My mother was excited because she had gone out earlier that day to get a gift for me. She was usually relieved when I came over because that meant someone was there to yell back at my father when he yelled at her or better still, if it meant I would take over in the kitchen.

I opened my mother's gift to see our family tradition played out; a pair of denim overalls. I smiled and said thank you. My parents insisted that I go to the bathroom and try them on. My ex-wife looked on in horror. She's Puerto Rican and her family holiday traditions were much different that ours. I came out of the bathroom and returned to the living room to show off the garment that was to be worn just this one time. My ex-wife looked like she was going to explode. My parents were relieved the overalls fit. Searching my mind for something good to say was difficult, I couldn't figure out when in the world I'd wear them again or why. I changed and my wife had a conversation with my mother. The next day they went out shopping and exchanged the overalls for something I was more likely to wear.

Although something seemed to be repaired, I'm not sure my ex-wife never forgave my mother for this fax pax. She'd always try to bring it up... guess that explains the "ex" part of the story.

Anyway, I think the Holidays do look good from afar. Pretty lights, the idea that people are being made happy in the company of those they love and getting to eat lots of fried foods is pleasing to me.

I hope my wife will let me make batter fried chicken this year.


Happy Holidays!

A Christmas That Wasn't

It was all part of a scheme to get laid. Heck what else was it supposed to be? I was 18.


I think it was mostly my idea. I went out to Flushing, Queens and rented the Santa suit for like $12 for the day, got the film, made the calls and spoke to the girls. Yeah, the girls. Christine and her friend whose name I can't remember. I was into the friend for sure.

The day started out all wrong. I had to wake Gordon up and get him out of the house and head downtown to meet the girls. The girls were hours late. It was very hot; it was August in New York City. The sun was too bright and it was getting to be fairly late in the day when I needed to do most of the shooting. The images would turn out to be fairly crappy.

We got on the PATH train to Kearny, New Jersey - - the northern point of the nation's rust belt. It was already a decaying industrial town that saw its heights and better times in an epoch long ago. We went there. I shot there.

The idea was I’d get the perfect shot of two sexy, well sluty looking girls with a black Santa hanging out with a black limo. I thought it was an original idea good enough to print out on postcards that could be sold later. Yeah right.

We did the shoot as best we could. I was running out of film, Gordon was tired of carrying the huge Bogen tripod across state lines, the girls were hot and not so bothered. It was decided we couldn't go to Gordon's house for some reason and we ended up at mine. We smoked more hash and drank more too and processed the film in a hurry because they begged for it and was begging for attention too.

I got the film done and things started happening in my room. Suddenly I was getting a little massage of the shoulders and then suddenly - - MOM CAME HOME!

Not only can't a remember the girl's name but the truth is she was seeing some older rich guy who was taking her out to Atlantic City that weekend. Later, phone calls went unanswered and postcards were never printed.


Enjoy the pictures and the Holidays!

To be dressed, or not...

...waiting with baited breath to see if there would be a transit worker strike this morning.


I was sort of hoping there would be so i could take photos of lots of people coping with the difficult commute. Oh well.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go....

Down Deep

Maybe it's because there might be a transit worker strike tonight that made think of this: The subway is underground and is often foul.


And for all the recent efforts to tile over concrete platforms and install panels over walls, it's a relief at times to be reminded of what's really going on - - you're underground where water and soil meet and seep through from above into whatever cavern can be found, or made.

A friend at my old job understands this well. She refuses to leave the crappy place for an assignment in Manhattan because she doesn't like the subway. The bus is her preferred method of transportation.

But think of all she misses out on; the filth, grime, the foresaken, the noice, the vermen and some fat butt hairy freak like me to push her around when she's in MY way.

It's worth the price admission.

Working Up The Nerve

I ask myself each morning, I'm I ready to take the BIG camera out and randomly shoot people in New York City?

When I was a teenager growing upin New York City I never had a problem taking what i thought were expensive lenses and fancy Canon F-1 cameras into the subway, walk up and into people's faces and release a shutter. Strange what age will do.

I took the image above while pretending to play with my camera's buttons, holding the camera on my knee and pointing. I took three shots in all.

The woman on the left caught my attention when she came onto the subway car - - I mean look at all the colors she has on! She boards the train and swings those neon blue plastic bags onto the seat hitting the woman on the right. No words are exchanged. The woman on the rights looks up once and quickly looks the other way as the other just stares her down - - maybe it was that exhange that made me reluctant to put a Canon D10 digital SLR to my face.

It's not easy teaching myself how to run with scissors again.

Getting Going

Creating something new is never easy. And the questions always seem to linger, "Is this something worth doing?", "Who is this being done for?", "Why bother?".

The process can be like stripping everything bare and turning things up side down and wait to see what happens.

Careful What You Do

Welcome to yet another place on the web to look over my images and those created by others that are on my mind.