Chapter 127 - March 18, 2014

Hi everybody. Welcome to stories from the past. They're stories I used to think about when I was lying on my back for years and years.

One time I got done shooting and I went to my friend's house for dinner. Dinner turned into drinks. Time got long. And next think you know, it's like 1 am, and I was very drunk. It was a time in my life when I was also very poor so I decided to take the bus home. Mind you, I lived in a suburb just outside of Sydney Australia. The bus was the last bus and it made all the local stops all the way to Manly. It took a good 2 hours. Anyway, at each stop the people that got on seemed to be drunker and drunker. Next thing you know, people were taking turns getting up and singing. They were all singing bar songs and cheering along. A cheerful bunch. Anyway, they were giving some guy at the front of the bus a hard time and finally he stood up and bellowed out a ballad that was unreal. The guy must have been a professional singer. The girls were at the edge of their seats in awe. The guys were watching him, all quiet, with their mouths open. The bus came to a stop and he got off. The guys on the bus went, "Yeah, yeah, he was all right. He was good." It was a great scene.

I used to love living over there in Manly. I used to take a ferry to get there. It was just outside of Sydney. What a great place. I would shoot there as often as I could. Australia was a great place to start out in photography. I did about 2 editorial shoots a week. In New York, everything became commercial. You used to work your ass off just to pay the bills. Remember, if you're a young photographer, it's important to keep up the editorial and the commercial.

Not much else to say. I'll include some photos of the trip I did across the country and a link to the other blog about the present. It was tough man. I'll tell you. I could barely lift the camera. My friends did a documentary of the trip. I'll share with you soon. Hope you have a good week. Love, B. Nice

Chapter 126 - March 15, 2014

Hey everybody. Welcome to stories from the past. I write about things that happened to me when I was a fashion photographer. Oh man, one time I was flying back to Australia. The day before my departure a model I knew gave me 2 sleeping pills for the flight. She said, "Take one pill only. They're very strong." And like a young idiot, I accepted the pills and carried them with me on the flight. Well, halfway through the flight I took one sleeping pill. An hour went by and nothing happened so I thought, she's just messing with me, but just to be safe I cut the other pill in half and took it. Nothing happened so I ordered a cognac. Drank it down and nothing happened. I ordered another cognac. I drank it. Next thing you know, I woke up to half a glass of cognac poured into my lap. I was still holding an empty glass. There was a flight attendant coming down the walkway with water. I was extremely thirsty and I held up my hand, but my arms were asleep. I couldn't talk. I had fallen asleep with my arms across my chest. I was leaning against the window with my mouth open. I sounded like a  mummy, a resurrected mummy. I tried to say "water" but nothing but a groan came out of my mouth. She was frightened and ran off. The guy next to me said, "Mate! I thought you were dead. I checked your pulse on your neck." I fell asleep for 10 hours straight. We left LA, I was in Sydney. It felt like a couple of minutes went by. Now that's a strong sleeping pill. I've never taken them since.

All of these stories I'm telling are random stories from the past. There was one resort south of Miami. It was in the keys actually. I used to always go there to shoot. It was a great spot for a photographic shoot. Anyway, the guy that owned the resort said, "You look so tired. Take break." So I thought, You know what, I've got a week off. I'll stay here is that cool. he said yeah, no problem. Satay here. I thought, well, since I'm staying here, I'll get a massage. He recommended somebody. I called him up and they came to my cabin and it all seemed good. And then the woman said, There's not enough room in your cabin to do a massage. Why don't we go outside under the palm trees. Mind you I'm completely naked except for my boxer shorts so I said, "Do you mind if I wear my boxers at least?" She said yeah, no problem. She set up the massage table under a coconut tree. I was lying on my back with a towel over me. Mind you, what I'm about to describe happened in less than a minute. She said, "We gotta lose the shorts. They're a distraction." So she whipped off my shorts. So I look up and there are a bunch of coconuts above me and there was a photo crew next to me making all sorts of comments and then the wind blew my towel off. So there I was, naked with the other crew laughing and my masseuse running after my towel. Relaxing, right?

Oh man, there was this one time… oh, I can't tell you that story. Let's go on to the next paragraph.

Actually, I'm gonna end it there. My friend here will include some photos I did on my trip across America. I hope you have a good week. Love, B. Nice

Oh, here's a link to the other website in case you want to check it out.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Hi you guys. Welcome once again to the past. Remember, the other blog I do is about the present. This one is about the past. I think about the past a lot when I'm lying on my back. You know, sometimes I can't sleep at night so I think about things I've gone through. You know, well, some confessions. For example: One time, my friend was over my house. Mind you, I was a little kid. The guy cutting the lawn started sinking into the lawn. My friend and I ran out to help him pull the tractor out. We cleared away the sod and we noticed he was stuck in a door in the lawn. We cleared away more sod and noticed there was a big big door there. Remember, the house I'm in was built around 1800. So my friend and I were excited over the prospect of finding something from the Revolutionary War. Anyway, we opened the door and there was a pit of brick that went down about 14 feet. We lowered a ladder down, and my friend wanted to go down and be the first to check things out. He found another door and I lowered a crowbar to him. He forced the door open. I heard gas escaping and a large scream. The next thing I know is there's a geyser of shit and toilet paper coming up. My friend was racing up the ladder screaming. We had hit the main septic line. He was covered in shit. He dove onto the lawn. My father came running out. The whole pit started filling up with raw sewage. My father was not happy. We all stood around praying it wouldn't escape onto the whole yard. After staring at a bunch of turds for a while, my friend said, "Hey! what's that?" and he picked up a shovel and picked up a condom. My dad looked at me and just rolled his eyes and walked away. I think I told you that story before, but it sounds good again. You know, my life was full of little adventures like that.

When I was little, my parents rented a small shack in the south of France. This was before it became trendy. When I mean shack, I mean shack. This place had a hand pump for water in the kitchen, an outhouse for a bathroom. It was cool though. We had a big field. I would lie in the field and look at the clouds. There was a big cherry tree there. I would sit there and eat cherries. Sometimes the farmer down the street would come over and recruit us to do some work. It was a good life. Never a dull moment.

I have lots of stories to tell you, but I have to look back and make sure I don't repeat myself. I'm gonna leave it at that. I hope you guys have a good week. My friend here will include some photos I did on my journey. We went coast to coast. Not an easy thing to do when you're like this, you know, traumatic brain injury. See you next week. Love, B. Nice

Chapter 124 - February 26, 2014

Hi everybody. Welcome to the past again. I'm coming over from the blog where I talk about the Present. I'll have my friend here leave you the link. Anyway, I'll tell you a couple confessions.

You know when you lie on your back for so long it's good to think about things from the past. One thing I'm not so proud of, I was, well, I was the worst photo assistant you could imagine. A photographer I worked for reminded me of this. He said I was the worst assistant, but I turned out to be a good photographer. You know, I guess I'm hard on my assistants now because I was a bad assistant. Some of the things I did I'll just tell you real quick. I'll throw a few words out there because all of the things I did could make a whole other chapter! Let's see. I almost backed a car into a harbor. I tried to… Oh! skip that, I can't tell you that story. I had another car crash. (It was a rental.) I left 2000 rolls of shot film in a bar. A whole job. I dropped a lens out of a helicopter. It was only a $3000 lens. What's the big deal? We had insurance. Another story I can't tell you. Let's see… There's another helicoptor ride where we landed the helicopter on the front lawn of the hotel in the morning. Totally illegal. 

One time, a photographer threw a camera at my head. Almost took my head off. His wife had to separate us because we were involved in a fist fight. Another car crash. When you take a meter reading, when you're shooting film, you have to be very very particular. One time I was chatting up the model and not paying attention to what I was doing. I basically took a meter reading of the sky. The film was so dense the photographer had to make a 4 stop adjustment. In other words, it wasn't good. Anyway, I could go on and on and tell you stories, but I guess I learned at other people's expense. Sorry you guys. There's probably a wanted poster for me up in some lab somewhere.

I keep thinking about the time I lived in Australia. It was great. What a great place to live. One of my favorite places was Western Australia. Just below Perth there is an area called Margaret River. It's a great wave for surfing. Great wine. The area had great white wine. It was beautiful down there. No one there too. If you ever get a chance to go to Australia, go to that area. Mind you, from here it's the furthest place on Earth you can get to. But it's worth it.

I'm feeling kind of melancholy right now, so I'm gonna leave it at that. I hope you guys have a good one. Oh, I just found out, it's gonna snow again! How unusual. Oh my god. It snowed here like 3 days out of the week for months. It's crazy. At least my daughter likes the snow. It'll make her happy to see it. She's gonna be here in a week. How cool is that. Anyway, talk to you guys later. Love, B. Nice

Chapter 123 - February 11, 2014

Hi everybody. Welcome to the blog where I talk about the past. You know, thinking about the past has got me through the present. At the present I'm messed up.

An old friend emailed me the other day. An art director. I used to do great shoots with her. I was lucky. I had a lot of great friends I used to work with. I'm going to go off on a tangent here. One time I was shooting and I saw the one and only art director I didn't get along with. I was on another job and this art director I didn't like was on another job. So what did I do? I went in my mobile home and dressed as best I could. I dressed up as a homeless man. I saw the art director I didn't like getting some coffee so I went outside, I rolled around in the dirt and went over to the coffee shop she went into. I reached into my pocket, put some change in my hand and when she came out, I pulled my hood over my head and hunched over, growled at her. I held out my hand of change and leaned in on her. She screamed, "Get away from me!" and I chased her all the way back to her location van. She kept screaming something about a freak. I thought it was pretty funny. She never knew it was me. I went back to my van laughing.

Anyway, I didn't like her and she didn't like me, but other than that one person, I liked everyone I worked with.

I'll get back on the subject of my friend that emailed me the other day. People often ask me what was my favorite location. One of the best spots that I ever went to was in Cabo San Lucas. It was great. Basically it was a hotel the brat pack went to all the time. It hadn't been renovated since then. It was like going back in time. I had my own house with it's own swimming pool and steps that went down to a private beach. The house was amazing. It had a wooden bar and it was made of wood and stone. We all had villas like this. What a great spot. The main hotel had very tall ceilings. It was also make of exotic woods and stone. It was on the peninsula that overlooked the ocean. The main restaurant was like a giant lanai, open to the ocean. The bar was beautiful exotic woods. The whole place was amazing and like going back in time to the 50's. You expected James Dean to walk in at any moment. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention the gift shop. It was surreal. All the items there were from the 50's, including the woman at the register. My friend here asked me how long I stayed there, and I usually stayed there for 10 days to 2 weeks and if the timing was right, we got to see the big whales that came right in front of the hotel. But I heard they tore the whole thing down. There is a new hotel there now. Too bad. Oh yeah! I forgot to mention, there was an airstrip right by the hotel, so members of the brat pack would fly in from LA or Vegas and then cross the street, check in at the hotel. What a great life.

Where was I, oh yeah, anyway, that was one of my favorite spots. It was also right near one of my favorite surfing spots so overall, it was a great place to shoot.

One other thing I want to mention, my friend asked me to set her daughter up in modeling. The girl's pretty, but I strongly discouraged it. You see, it's a tough business. Often the girls end up uneducated and getting little work. You see, the models start when they are like 15. You know, the time when you really need to be educated. And it's very competitive. There's a lot of people trying to do the one thing. If you do make it, you're career span is very short. So, overall, it's not worth it. Here I am saying that after saying chase your dreams. But it's just my observation. You know, I've been in this business since 1984. And it's rare that you become very successful. You're better off with a good education and being just a pretty woman. That's my opinion anyway. I don't know what the solution would be if you wanted to try. I just hate to see uneducated people. It's a dead end street in this business.

Well, it's Valentine's Day coming up. Have a good one you guys. I'll talk to you next week. Love, B. Nice