Chapter 120 - December 31, 2013 - So long 2013

Hi everybody. Happy New Year's Eve! Another year goes by. I'm gonna get right into it and tell you a couple of Fashion Confessions. Remember, this blog is about now and the past. Mostly about the past because I feel bad about some things, well kind of.

You know, in my business I worked with a lot with art directors. I remember one time, I went up to Germany to show my book around. It was when I was living in Paris. Anyway, I went up to Germany and went on a few appointments. One time I went int o see this art director who was having lunch, Roast Beef and Mayonaise, I can tell that because it was all over my book. Anyway, she started looking at my book and going through the pages very fast. And while she was eating her sandwich she said to me, "I've seen all these pictures before Und der are so many people who can do this. I see nothing new." Then she stopped at a photo I did and said, "Und Dis is YOU. Dis is very personal, und dis is you." And she started pounding on my book. She was crazy, but she was right. It was a test I did for myself. I still remember the image.

Another time, I was in London. I was shooting for a British magazine. I was at the magazine meeting up with a fashion editor. Well, the art department came down to get me. He said, "You have the cover. It looks great. Come by and see a mock up before you leave." So after my meeting with the fashion editor I stopped by the art department. Well sure enough, there was my photo and it was the front cover and two thirds down the front cover it said in big words, "Vaginal Health." I mean, come one, give me a break. How am I supposed to put that in my book without laughing. It was a good shot though.

Another time I was in Italy. I'm going to go off on a tangent here. I just remembered something. My agent there didn't pay me for like two years. I'd done a lot of editorial, but they just took their sweet ass time in paying me, so one day I just sat on the agency couch until they paid me. I sat on that couch from 10 am until 8 pm. The owner finally cut me a check. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I met up with an art department at a magazine I always worked for and on the way out I remember one of the world's top fashion magazines was on the same floor I was on. Well, I went to the reservation person at this top magazine and I said, "I have an appointment with the art department." They looked at me curiously and they said, "Oh really?" and they called the art department. They said, "There is a gentleman here who says he has an appointment." Well, there was a bit of a talk between the art department of this magazine and I said, "Oh! My New York agent must have made the appointment. Either way, I remember you said - no problem." Well, the head of the art department finally said, "OK, OK," and I went down there and saw them. It was a good meeting, but I never saw them again.

You know, I worked with some great art directors. It's amazing when it clicks. 2013 was a good year, but let's toast to 2014. Hope there's a lot more clicking going on. Anyway, have a good night and a good New Year. Love, B. Nice

Chapter 119 - December 18, 2013 - Way Back When

Hi everybody. I'll call this blog, Way Back When. I guess I call this blog way back when, but it kind of applies to how I am now. You see, I've got to adapt. I'll talk about that in a minute.

Let me tell you about a fashion confession first. When I was shooting in Australia, I got a job to shoot on a sailboat. We went to the Wit Sunday Islands, just north of Brisbane. I carefully picked out a crew of people to go on the shoot. I say "carefully" because I had to spend a week with these people on a 31 foot boat. Check all weapons at the door. Anyway, it was a great shoot. We spent a week on the boat. I slept on the deck, under the stars. It was a great shoot. At one point I remember we were trolling for fish. I caught a Spanish Mackerel. We pulled it in, the captain dressed the fish and we cooked it right there on the grill. You can't get fresher than that. Another time, I went scuba diving with the captain. We were scuba diving and spear fishing. I was in charge of all the fish and lobster we caught. The bag of fish I had was on a long tethered line, and I looked back and I saw the blood coming out of the bag and then I saw a big shark following me. Well, I decided to drop the bag. When we got back to the boat, the captain said, "Where's our catch?" I told him what happened and he went back for the catch. Funny, I never did see him again... just kidding. He got back and we had a great meal. Oh yeah, that reminds me. One time I was scuba diving from the boat. I looked down real deep into the abyss and there was some shimmering light coming out of the darkness to me. It must have been a big school of fish angling their bodies to look at me. The sunlight was glimmering off of them. Very cool. 

I guess my shoots always introduce me to some animals at one point. I remember once, I was horseback riding. I got off to have some lunch, sat down on a dead tree and started to have my lunch, and all of a sudden these animals came out of nowhere. Like squirrels, chipmunks, they were all over me. I guess they weren't used to seeing humans. Pretty crazy. I felt like Dr. Doolittle. Another time I was looking for locations and I looked up. There was a bald eagle nest right above me. A feather came down and landed right at my feet. That was pretty cool. Another time I was horseback riding and my horse was really nervous. I looked over to my left and there was a giant bear standing up smelling the air. I got the hell out of there pretty quick. The point is, it always was an adventure shooting. I never knew what to expect.

Before I mentioned about adapting. One time I was on a photo shoot with a famous model and she took a sweet ass time getting ready. Well, by the time she was ready it was dark. So I said, what the hell am I gonna do. I talked to the fashion stylist and she went to look at the clothes. This is when you know you have a good fashion stylist. So check this out. I was supposed to do swimwear on the beach. The stylist changed the whole story real quick. She pulled out all the black swimwear and we went down to the beach and we shot everything at night with a strobe. It looked real cool. So, you see, you can't freak out, you have to adapt.

You know, it's just like what I'm going through now. I just have to adapt, not freak out. Easier said than done, right? Lately I've been kind of depressed. I mean, come on. Who wouldn't be after everything I've gone through? Anyway, I have to remind myself to think about the future and positive things. My friend here who's writing this for me brought over another DVD of images and seeing them makes me happy. They are images from the trip we took. Anyway, this is B. Nice signing off. Have a good week. Love, B. Nice

Chapter 118 - Sunday, November 17, 2013

Hi everybody. My friend here came over to visit so I thought, what the hell, let's do a blog. You know this blog is about the past. I often would think about the past when I was in a bad way. I would often think about stories that happened to me. For example, here's a story about Thanksgiving. I thought I'd do this because Thanksgiving is coming up. My friend in western Australia might remember this one.

I used to live in a suburb of Sydney called Manly. Anyway, the week before Thanksgiving I had a small dinner party. In my drunken stupor I promised my friends I'd have a Thanksgiving dinner. Most Australians didn't know what Thanksgiving was. Anyway, as I woke the next day I remembered I promised I'd make a Thanksgiving dinner. I don't like to go back on my promises so I set out to start my Thanksgiving dinner. But man, in the late '80's it was next to impossible to find a turkey in Sydney. I looked everywhere. I couldn't find a bloody turkey, so I called the US Consulate. They said, "Oy mate, we ordered too many turkeys. There's one extra one in Double Bay if you want to go get that one." I went to the butcher shop. I said, I was there to get the turkey for the US Embassy. I was standing there and I heard a squeaking noise and the sound of a big cooler door opening and closing. The squeaking noise got louder and louder as it got to me. I looked over to my left and it looked like a huge Emu was on a dolly. I said, "That's a turkey?" He said, "Yeah mate. Here's one turkey for you." The thing was huge. It also cost me about $250. Anyway, I managed to get it into my small car. Got it home, looked at the bird and the oven and thought Oh my God. No way is it going to fit. Well, I tied up the legs, took all of the racks out of the oven, got a few bricks, put it in the oven on a tray. The oven wouldn't shut so I went out and bought some tin foil. I roped the door shut and wrapped the whole oven in tin foil. My friends came over and we did something unusual. We started drinking. It was about 6:00 pm. We drank until the bird was done, which was about 2:00 am. Hell, we were so drunk our shoes would have even tasted good. Anyway, we served up the bird and it wasn't bad. I still say it was an emu. Anyway, after we finished what we could, my friends left and I threw the carcass out into the trash. I woke up at about 4:00 am to a bunch of noise. There were tree kangaroos fighting over the turkey carcass. I couldn't really see them so I tried to look out the bedroom window with my hands up against the glass. I heard a noise and I looked up and there was a tree kangaroo against the glass looking at me. I screamed and fell back against the bed. The tree kangaroo screamed and fell out of the tree. The rest of the tree kangaroos grabbed what was left of our Thanksgiving dinner and ran into the woods.

OK, so I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent here. I don't know what made me remember this, but I'll tell you anyway. Maybe it was because my niece had a big send off this weekend, a sendoff for her soccer game. Her team made the finals in the State Tournament. Anyway, way back in the day, I was a pretty good cross country runner. Our team made it to the State finals in Upstate New York. We got there early and started to run the course. A cold front came through and it got really cold. Our coach said we had to wear nylons to stay warm during the race. So after dinner we went to the local Seven Eleven. So imagine this, there were about 6 of us. We went to the counter with a case of cheap beer, six pairs of pantyhose. 3 cherry flavor chapsticks, also a cassette of Led Zeppelin, and that's it. We didn't say anything but just looked at the guy. The guy looked at us and that was that. Anyway, this is B. Nice signing off. I hope you all have a good Thanksgiving. Talk to you later. Love, B. Nice

Chapter 117 - November 13, 2013

Hi you guys, I'm back. Welcome to another week of recovery. If you want to see what's going on, here's the link for the new blog: http://wp.me/p2M6Kl-gY (mypointofviewproject.wordpress.com)

I'm going to name this blog "Women of Power." You know, in my business, there was a lot of exploitation of women. In what business isn't there? Anyway, I saw a lot of exploitation. However, I also saw a lot of women exploit men. I remember there was this one woman who was doing your average "modeling" work. She said to me, "I'm going to get rid of my agent and hire a PR guy." She reinvented herself, and they came up with a plan. She became one of the world's top models. I saw her bring men of power to their knees.

There was another time when I was an assistant photographer. A girl came in with some family polaroids. The guy I was working for recognized her talent and booked her on a big editorial. The guy had an eye for talent, and he was an amazing cook. Sorry, I went off on a bit of a tangent there, but I did learn a lot from him. 

Anyway, back to women of power. There was this one time in Australia I had to shoot a commercial of a girl riding a horse in the ocean. I don't know if you've ever put a horse in the ocean before, but it's not easy. I said to the girl, "Have you ever ridden a horse before?" And she said, "No worries, Mate. What do you want me to do?" I said just ride the horse slowly towards me and I'll get a few shots. She went all the way to the end of the beach and came at me like 40 miles per hour. There was water going everywhere. She scared the shit out of me cause she was heading right towards me. At the last second she turned the horse away from me just by inches. The horses right foot barely missed my right foot. It would have killed me for sure if it had hit me. She stopped the horse. The horse reared up a little, and she said, "Like that mate?" I said, "Oh my god, where are you from?" She said, "Oh, just outback you know. On a sheep farm. I grew up riding." Once again, I checked my shorts.

Another time I was shooting in Miami. My assistant was hungover. Gee, how unusual. Anyway, he left some very expensive equipment on the beach. Some dude in a pick up truck stole all the equipment. Well, the assitant stylist ran down the beach and stole the equipment back. I bought a bottle of champagne and deducted the cost from the assistants day rate. I've got lots of stories like this. The point is, you don't want to mess around with these women. They are pretty powerful.

One of the last shoots I did, I was in Brazil. The woman from the fashion magazine and her assistant had to drive overnight to get a flight. Well, our local guide said, "No way! You can't drive on these roads at night. There are bandits." I was in a bad part of Brazil. She just said, "We'll be all right." And I saw her and her assistant drive off into the night. See what I mean. Don't mess around with these women.

You know, I'd often think about stories like this when I was in a bad way. Hell, I had 4 years to think about things. I just check in once in a while with this blog. It's about stuff from the past. To see the new blog, you know, stuff of the present, click on the link above. It'll take you to the new blog. Talk to you later. Love, B. Nice

Chapter 116 - November 5, 2013

Hi you guys! I'm back. I'm keeping this blog going so I check in once in a while. You know, my fashion career has been amazing. It's brought me from the Vice president's desk (the vice president of the United states - his desk) to Riker's Island, maximum security prison. My personal life has brought me from witnessing my daughter's birth to witnessing my own possible demise (an out of body experience). The point is, I've gone through a lot and I really believe, and I've said this before, I really believe all the things I've gone through have gotten me ready for this event. It all doesn't seem so scary.

Anyway, I'm gonna make a couple of fashion confessions. I guess I do this to get it off my chest. I always feel a little guilty about the things that have happened. Here's an example: OK, so one day I show up at the location van. My assistants are furious. I said, "Hey guys, good morning, what's wrong?" My friend, the French assistant, in a very think French accent said, "They ate all the food. I have nothing but coffee." My other assistant said, "I can't believe you're doing this." I looked at them puzzled. I said to them, "Here hold my stuff. Let me see what's going on." So I walk in the van and the first thing I notice is I'm shooting a plus size catalogue. I look down at breakfast and there is a silver plastic platter, a white doily, some seeds and some saran wrap. That's it. Mind you, the caterers usually don't leave much breakfast, but there was nothing. The models ate everything. I'm surprised the curtains were still there. The platter looked like a small village attacked it. Anyway, at least the girls were happy. Now, I'm not one to pass judgement or make any comments, but believe me, when lunch was served, me and my guys were in the front of the line.

Now, back to Traumatic Brain Injury. I'm just recovering from my road trip. It was good. A big challenge, but I believe it helped me get a little better. One thing it did was it made me realize how messed up I am. I've still got a lot of work to do. Anyway, that's it for now. I'll include a photo from the shoot. Hope you guys have a good week. Love, B. Nice