Just FYI: Girls Like Cars, and Money

Yesterday Josh came by and gave me tickets to his brothers’ band’s show. Maybe you’ve heard of them… Good Charlotte? No? They’re this tiny little indie band that not a lot of people know about. You kinda have to know someone to get a copy of their albums. Very underground. They’re big in the Philippines. But even I’m big in the Philippines. Anyway, I obliged Josh, and I figured Christian and I would throw him a bone and go see his brothers play at this tiny little hole in the wall. Maybe you’ve heard of it… Roseland Ballroom? Yeah, it’s really grunge and kinda old school, like CBGB used to be before it sold out and got all corporate and started selling Varvatos. I was like, “Good Charlotte at Roseland Ballroom? I have never heard of either of those things ever before in my life, ever!”

So, we went to the show. Met up with Josh and Lisa and Alana and Dimitry. I guess you could say we had a good time. I mean, we were onstage for Good Charlotte’s entire performance. And there was this girl that was there dancing, too. She’s a sort of girl-about-town, an indie film actress, she had an album a little while back that nobody really knew existed. Maybe you’ve heard of her… Paris Hilton? No? Well, anyway. She was there and she was all smiles and singing along because I guess she’s dating one of Josh’s brothers? I don’t really know. Maybe if the paparazzi would snap their photo or the tabloids would write something up sometime I would know about this whole Benji/Paris thing, but really, I guess they’re just destined to forever be nobodies. Christian blew her a kiss and got one back, which I thought was a little weird. Like, why was he hitting on some random chick right in front of me?

Yadda yadda, we were onstage, the band was playing, et cetera. They have this song that they sing, I’m not sure anybody who reads this blog will know it. It’s called “Dance Floor Anthem?” Anyway, they played that song and there’s a part where Joel sings “everybody put up your hands” and Alana and I totally put up our hands!!! OMG can you believe we did that? It was really very cool of us to do that.

Seriously though (take my wife, please!), we walked into the venue and a crowd of approximately ONE BILLION SCREAMING GIRLS wanted to take a picture with Christian. I tried to warn him that the Good Charlotte fan demographic is similar to the Christian Siriano fan demographic and that it might be hell… but Josh swooped in to take us backstage and all was fine. We got to see the whole show from the stage, Paris and her parents were there and dancing and singing along, and then Gurj and Chris Black appeared. Life is good. Got me out of my “I hate New York” funk for a bit.

She Came Directly From Beheading Chickens

Anna was in town for the weekend after spending the summer on a farm in California, so of course we had to do a bunch of photos. Lou is to Edie as Pete is to Kate as Bronques is to Whoever as Brad is to Anna. She wore some of Christian’s older stuff – an early version of the Bluefly gold dress and a gown that was used on Ugly Betty – and we work really well together, so I got lots of good images.

She’s always got a hand in her photos. Kind of a natural accent to her whole “living doll” nightlife persona (Anna Rexia), which I think is perhaps over, or almost. Now she’s just Anna. We went clothes shopping and visited James Pollis, though it rained like it has every single weekend for the last couple months. Sitting around in secondhand designer clothing, drinking Thai iced teas, playing with a camera. I think this is how I would describe Williamsburg to somebody from the moon.

I’m going through a period of hating Brooklyn. I live in Park Slope, which is super suburban, and I am often in Williamsburg (where Christian lives), which is super stupid. I get quickly irritated by most of the people in either place. If I’m not stuck on the overcrowded sidewalk behind three young moms walking side by side with baby strollers talking about how they don’t understand The Hills but watch it everyday and spend way too much money on basic groceries at the Union Market, I’m stuck behind three young girls with five-tone hair walking side by side with a rusty wagon full of sculpture talking about how they don’t understand NPR but listen to it anyway and spend way too much money on basic groceries at the corner bodega. I’m not really loving Manhattan either, though, so maybe I just need to spend more time outside New York. Can’t wait for the weekend.

I Hear Dora’s Pregnant

The weekend getaway was great while it lasted. We only spent Friday night in Philadelphia and we went to an event almost as soon as we got there, but afterward we had some good downtime eating and watching TV in our suite. Jacuzzi, champagne… and mismatched plaids. Kind of perfect for me. The event was a hotel opening and fashion show that Christian was brought in to judge. Some of the clothes and some of the models were impressive! Some were less impressive, but they provided plenty of material for us to re-enact their walks for the rest of the weekend. DJ Jazzy Jeff was spinning, and after our Tatyana Ali run-in last month I think we must be destined to meet Will Smith. Or move to Bel-Air.

Yesterday I shot Steve Burns, former Blue’s Clues Steve, current musician. Really nice guy and has lots of good stories. Christian made him that bowtie in about two minutes.

He pulled up in a big awesome car that was [not intentionally] the color of his animated buddy, and we did some studio portraits, some stuff around the building, and a few outside.

Thursday we had dinner with Sarah and the Twins’n’em, Saturday was Alana’s birthday dinner with everyone lovely, and yesterday I made spaghetti. All notable events!

My haul at Buffalo Exchange this weekend was pretty epic. Less than $150 spent and I came away with a Dior sweater, Dolce & Gabbana shirt, and Marc Jacobs jacket; and some lesser but equally awesome stuff from Diesel, Kenneth Cole, and Zara. Never do I find nearly as much worth buying at Beacon’s Closet as I do at BuffEx! BuffEx. I said BuffEx. Also got a hideous gold Octopus necklace for Christian, which he says he likes but I think maybe he is just appeasing me.

Just got word I am photographing Beth Ostrosky soon! That’s pretty wonderful.

Just One of Those Days

I hate New York today. Everyone’s an asshole and everyone’s in my way. Construction workers rang my doorbell really early this morning to ask if that Honda on the street was mine. No. It’s not. Our trashy next door neighbor told our landlord he was going to punch Kathy in the face, and then tried to get us in trouble by telling the landlord that we have all kinds of cats in the house that he sees every day in our windows. We don’t have any animals. Lucky for me, our landlord believed us when Kathy shouted “I HATE CATS” and gave us a fist-bump, and I get to leave this godforsaken city for a day. Christian and I are going to Philadelphia this afternoon for some hotel opening tonight, and then tomorrow is Alana’s birthday. Sunday I have a shoot I’m excited about, and then the whole New York hatred thing will start all over again on Monday until the following weekend, when we spend three marvelous days away.

That’s a photo of Zane that I didn’t use last time. I’m gonna go eat some food now and then kill someone.

Bucky Kentucky

Going through some more older photos to compile a real portfolio and stuff for the new website, and I found some outtakes/redundancies from some shoots that I prepared for the web at the time (back when I posted them at Junk) but didn’t use. Here’s one I particularly like, of Andrew:

And some of Denis, which we took while there was a party going on downstairs. Denis kinda seems like a Disney star who was famous at 14 but is now 20 and tattooed and trying to break his good boy image, but then he smiles and you’re like… aww, there’s that adorable and sarcastic little high schooler with a hint of psychic power and a multi-platinum selling alternate personality that we all grew to love. Except now he’s in Playgirl.

Speaking of Playgirl, I was sad to hear this week that they are shutting down. My first date with Christian was at a Playgirl party, and they sponsored my very first gallery opening in New York back in March. At that party my darling Melissa mistook one of the Playgirl staff for Kennedy, the MTV personality. Melissa was a cast member on the Real World. You know, on MTV.

Multi-Purpose

I printed out a head shot that I took of Christian so that he could sign it for some of my mom’s friends (which he doesn’t yet know that he’s going to do), but I forgot to resize it for the web before I deleted the image I worked on. So instead of show you the new photo, I’ll give you a close-up of an attempted & failed reclaim scan, which I think looks pretty cool because of the magnified dot print:

The full-body photo (which I will show later if I get my act together) is going to be used for a national chain of salons to print life-size cardboard cut-outs of him for some product line or contest or something that he’s doing. See? He gets a free head shot from me every month and I make him sign some for my mom. Symbiosis.

Last night was Leigh’s birthday, and before we went out I prepared in style at home by drinking vodka shots from a shot glass made out of frozen cranberry juice. Then I ate the glass.

Christian would like the world to know that the duvet on his bed in the background of those photos is the very same one that Big had on his bed in the Sex and the City movie, and that Charlotte later had on her bed. And he had it first. I would like the world to know that he is the kind of person who begins a note to Victoria Beckham with “Hey Diva Tranny!”

Ouroboros

There’s this thing called The Danger: Global Warming Project, “an interactive multimedia creative initiative featuring original images, sound and video material designed to raise awareness of climate change worldwide.” They asked me to contribute a photo; specifically, one using their faux caution tape, and I was thrilled to do it and be in such amazing company. Other contributors include Gus Van Sant, Philippe Starck, Darren Aronofsky, Jonas Akerlund, Gillian Anderson, Casey Affleck, Joe Dallesandro, Jim Jarmusch, and Richard Linklater. This photo is an outtake, just to get the general idea:

That one’s okay, but I’m really happy with the image I gave them. I’ll show it once the project is more together. The model is Brendan, who’s a photographer too. He came over last night and we took some pictures of each other. He’s off to Prague today, so I won’t see myself til who knows when, but here he is, in all his backlit glory.

On the subway today some gorgeous woman who looked like Kyra Sedgwick with dark brown wavy 40s hair was sort of flirting with me from several feet away and it was awesome. If I wasn’t gay and taken, I might currently have a date with someone my mother’s age. Tonight we’re celebrating Leigh’s birthday at the Gramercy Park Hotel, which is one of those places that Geordon says “you don’t need to worry about what to wear” and then you get there and feel like an asshole in jeans and have to get trashed. Thank God for the black cardigan.

Now and Then We Wonder Who the Real Men Are

These are some of the most important guys in my life. They mostly live on shelves in my closets behind hoodies and under dozens of tote bags that nobody’s ever going to use. But here they still are, ever since forever ago.

The one on the left has been mine since I was able to stand on both feet and look him right in the eye. He has never had a name. Everyone’s tried to name him but nothing has stuck. I don’t even remember what some of the proposals were. Littlefoot, on the other hand, came with his name from Grandma Barb on Christmas. He has a hole in his right heel, where I used to hide notes. This was before Livejournal and the concept of “friends only” existed. Before there was such thing as a private Twitter, there were folded notes inside Littlefoot’s little foot.

Bean, which is short for Refried Bean, was a midnight K-mart purchase when I was a bit unstable in 2002 or so. He’s been lots of places with me. Cat in the passenger seat. Travels most everywhere I go, and served as my microphone cover for several years in place of a proper pop guard. All of my songs on iTunes were recorded through Bean. Poe recorded some vocals through him. The owl is much more recent, a gift from Kathy. But he’s the only one that has the privilege of sleeping in bed with me every night. Someone once tried to name him Hootie but I had none of that shit.

And then there are the gossipy gay Totoros. Can’t shut them up long enough to take a decent picture.

This Title Has No Puns

I photographed Marissa Bregman a while back and we’ve since become friends. She’s super nice and it’s always some kind of adventure when we are hanging out. So I was excited to hear recently from a mutual friend that Marissa [edit: is rumored to have been*] cast, in part due to these very photos, as Alice in the Tim Burton adaptation of Alice in Wonderland! Marissa as Alice, Christian in Eloise… next up, I’m going to be playing Rabbit in a live-action Winnie the Pooh.

I’m going through some of my stuff to prepare for the gallery on my new website, and I found the pictures of Stephen and Michael from a few months ago. I really like the ones that they liked most, but I like these ones below more than the backyard poses that they both have been using as promo photos. Maybe because these are closer, personal images; more “them-at-home” than “them-as-hosts.”

*Actually I just read something saying a girl named Mia Wasikowska is going to be Alice, but then the more official thing I read said that she’s still “in talks” for the role. So who knows! I’ll wait to celebrate until Marissa confirms it herself. Either way, I think I’m going to hate Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. He’s just going to be Jack Sparrow/Sweeney Todd/Willy Wonka in a bigger hat.

The Boartoise and the Hair

I’m beginning to think Al Gore was right and Manbearpig is our greatest threat. First there was the pig with a monkey face and now there’s a big lumpy whatsit washing ashore in Montauk. Next comes a human-plant hybrid and the Loch Ness Hamster.

I know I’m behind on this but I finally listened to the Sam Sparro promo I got a while back and recognized “Black and Gold” as the song I heard in some store a few times and liked. I don’t really like much else on the album; he has a great voice but a lot of it is too R&B or Europop for me. I do like “Pocket” and “Sick,” which sort of sound like they could have been on the new Presets album.

Sam Sparro – Black and Gold

BRAD: what if it turns out to really be an experiment
BRAD: at that place [the nearby gov’t animal lab]
BRAD: and they made a weird beaky dogbirdpig with turtle hands and hind legs
BRAD: WHAT WILL YOU DO
KATHY: i will never ever go to the beach again
KATHY: it looks like it was boiled
KATHY: and it looks like its little hand things are tied together
KATHY: which means it was bad and being restrained
KATHY: i need a pencil in that photo for scale.
KATHY: god, it just looks like something that would make you solve a riddle to pass.
KATHY: “what goes on four legs when it’s young, then two legs, then three legs? then washes up on the motherfucking beach in the hamptons looking like a ham with a beak?”

Movies nobody should be watching. I watched one by myself last night that I tried to watch with Christian on Saturday to no avail. After a few minutes he said “what is this” and went directly to sleep. I did, too. But last night I decided to give it another try. It’s called Abigail’s Party, a BBC movie based on a play by Mike Leigh. I’m still not sure if I liked it. I don’t want to try to explain it, but I will say that I have no idea why I ended up loving Tony, nor why I turned around on Demis Roussos.

Demis Roussos – Forever and Ever

We also watched Ever After (still so bad but I like it) and One Missed Call, which proves again that Shannyn Sossamon has all the range of a monkey butt.