February 16, 2016

Hi you guys. Welcome to the blog where I talk about the past. I'm gonna talk about my hospital visit. That's the past, right? The recent past. Oh yeah, I forgot. This blog will be called: Going Long, A Scar, and You Animal.

Let's start with the Scar. I was in the hospital right after surgery. You know, the ICU, which is Intensive Care Unit. I woke up to a nurse giving me a sponge bath. She said, "I'm sorry, what's this?" She was pointing to my scar on my stomach (they had to gain access to a main artery). Well, I thought she was talking about my private parts. So, OK, remember, between the brain injury, the operation, and all the drugs, you're a bit out of it. So I said, "That? Oh, that's where my brain is. That's my dick. Apparently, my brain is in my dick based on the girls I dated." Remember, you're totally out of it. She said, "No honey, your brain is up here," and she touched my head. I thought I was being funny. You know, when you're in a serious situation, you'll have different ways of dealing with things. I always joked around.

Actually, I'm not gonna talk about the hospital visits anymore. They're kind of depressing. Let's talk about Going Long. A photographer I worked for in the '80's always shot with long lenses. He had three particular lenses he really liked. Two of them were in big leather cases. The other one was a huge lens, and in was in a metal case. I was in charge of the lens in the metal case. The other assistant was in charge of the leather case lenses. Well, as we were getting off the plane in Africa, my friend, the assistant, grabbed the two leather lenses and stood up. He almost took a kid's head off. I went to grab him and help him and my lens, the one in the metal case, slid off my shoulder and clocked the guy next to me. Remember, I told you, I was the worst assistant. I think I almost killed the guy. I can't begin to describe the sound a metal case makes when it hits a human skull. The guy wasn't happy.

One time I dropped a lens out of a helicopter, but that's a whole other story that no one knows about.

The other thing I wanted to talk about was You Animal You. For some reason, animals are always attracted to me. It can be a bit of a problem when I'm shooting. One time I was photographing a model in the south of France. We were under a big tree. The model was doing a yoga pose. All of a sudden a cat came out of nowhere and started hanging out with the model. I thought it was cute, but then I said, "All right, All right. Move the cat out of the picture." The model then sat down in a Lotus pose. The freaking cat climbed into her lap and went to sleep.

Another time I was shooting on a ranch. The rancher raised Lamas. The damn lamas kept following me around. Have you ever been followed by a pack of lamas? It's kind of weird. Every picture I took, there was a lama in the background staring into the lens. Oh, and by the way, Lamas spit. Did you know that?

But the best animal story of all was my dog Buster and the Harry Winston necklace. I think I told you this story before. The model was wearing a beautiful Harry Winston diamond necklace. The necklace even came with an armed guard. Well the model was proudly wearing the necklace for a cover shot when my dog walked into the photo. I thought, well, let's put the necklace on the dog, and I did. I put the necklace on my dog and that was the cover shot. The model was pissed off. I tried to get my dog to run home real quick and hoped the armed guard wasn't a good shot. (Just kidding.)

That's all for this week. I hope you guys had a good Valentine's Day. Check out my other blog. You know, the blog about the present.

February 9, 2016

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about my past. The blog is good for my memory. While I was in the hospital I would  recall things that I've done in my life.

Let's call this blog "A Volcano; The Coconut Man; Some Curry; and A Breast.

Let's start with the Volcano. You know, when I traveled, I went through some amazing places. One place I really loved was the big island of Hawaii. One of my favorite places was on top of the island. You drive all the way to the top, to an extinct volcano. It was surreal up there. It was kind of cool cause you'd be in this like moon-scape and you would look down at where you were going to surf. It was pretty cool, but I definitely felt the pressure on my brain. When I was going up to the volcano, I felt something strange going on. I didn't know then what I had. So I ignored it and ended up going surfing, thinking that would clear my head.

Now let's talk about the coconut man. In Hawaii, in the lava fields there was this guy they called the coconut man. He was probably a retired ad man from Madison Avenue. He was a guy that, well, totally lost it. This guy, the coconut man, basically lived in the lava fields. He relied on people dropping off food and water to survive. The guy was totally bonkers. I got a photo of him as we drove past. The guy was totally dressed in coconut shells and coconut leaves. Other than that, he looked totally normal. He didn't look like a street person at all.

Now, let's talk about the Curry. When I loved in Australia, Bondi Beach, to be precise, there were some friends who lived above an Indian Spice store. Their whole apartment smelled like curry, but I guess they got used to it. They were kind of nose-blind to the smell. But every time I smell curry now, I think of their apartment. Boy, did we have fun, great dinners. That leads me to my next story. A Breast.

Now, my friend, if you're out there, maybe you can clarify this for me, but I seem to remember having a dinner party. My friend showed up with another couple. We were at the table chatting, the kids were playing, you know normal regular stuff. I started serving the dinner, some pasta, when one of the kids came over and said, "Mom, I'm hungry." Well, Mom, not my friend, but the other woman whipped out her breast and started feeding the kid. Well, I was just having conversation with the kid earlier. I mean, I was about to offer him a beer. I thought to myself, maybe I should skip dinner and offer everyone coffee. I thought the kid was gonna ask me for my car keys. It was all kind of strange and freaked me out.

I'm gonna leave it at that. Have a good week. Love you guys, B. Nice

P.S. Check out my other blog about the Present and see the art there for my daughter.

February 5, 2016

Hi you guys. Welcome to my blog where I talk about the past.

One time I was sitting in a cafe and there was this guy walking across the parking lot toward the cafe. He was all dressed up in, well, I won't go into detail, but I thought to myself, "Look at this guy! He thinks he's a rock star or something." Then he sat down next to me. We started talking, and he was a rock star!

You know, everything I've been through, all the training as an athlete, living in different places, everything, I feel has gotten me ready for all the stuff I've been dealing with. It's been a long time since my initial bleed. It's tough, but everything in my past has helped me get through this. Just have to recognize it.

I'll leave you with a photo. That's all for now though. No other stories. I'll tell you some more stories next week.

Love, B. Nice

Oh, PS, here's the link to my other blog (maybe I'll tell a story over there…)

February 2, 2016

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about the past. As I said before, I used to think about things from the past, things I did. You know, I was on my back in the hospital for a long long time.

I'm gonna call this blog, "Wind River, A Shotgun, and The Pool Shark." Let's start with Wind River:

For many years my father promised me a camping trip. This was since I was about eight years old. He finally came through when I was, well, 48. Better late than never, right? Anyway, we were on a horseback riding trip, a two week trip up into the Wyoming Rockies. We were one week into the trip. We stopped for lunch. I grabbed my lunch and went off to eat on my own. I sat down to eat my sandwich when all of a sudden all these squirrel, chipmunks and birds were surrounding me. I gave them my food. They were totally tame. They weren't scared of me at all. It was pretty cool. I felt like Dr. Doolittle. It was an amazing experience. No one ever goes where we were. Thank God no bear wanted something to eat - Like me!

Now let's talk about the Shotgun: In a previous blog, I think I told you, I ran across the country with eleven other guys. It was a relay run. I was on my leg of the relay, running through the Appalachian mountains. Now imagine this, I was running at about 3:30 in the morning with a flashlight and baton. The van we had was up the road waiting for me. I heard a noise. I looked over my right shoulder. There was a pick up truck with no lights on. The driver had a shot gun cradled in his arms while he was driving. The shotgun was pointed in my general direction. I didn't know what to do. I just said, "Hi! Just running across America." And the guy drove off. That was kind of weird. It was like a scene out of the movie Easy Rider...

And finally, we'll talk about the Pool Shark: As I said before, I've had many ex's, ex-girlfriends, a few ex-wives, a few ex-friends. One of my ex-girlfriends was a pool shark. Now get this, it's about the 70's right? She always wore Frye boots, tight Jordache jeans, a blousey top, bleached blond hair that was frizzy and shoulder length, a pretty girl who was petit, but smoked like a chimney. She smoked Marlboro lights - which I never got. What does that mean? It kills you lightly? Anyway, we would go to a dive and we would put our quarter down on the rail of a pool table, you know a cue line of who plays next. We would put $10 under our quarter, which meant we wanted play against someone for ten bucks. Some guy would always see her putting the $10 down and challenge her. They probably thought she was an easy mark. Well, she would pretty much clear the table on the first go. The guy who played against her never knew what hit him. She would then buy us beers with the money she won. I held her cigarette. Nice date. Right?

That's it for now. Hope you guys have a great week. Love and miss you guys, B. Nice

Also, check out my other blog about the Present.

January 29, 2016

Hi everybody. Welcome to the blog where I talk about the past.

Oh man! Traveling was, well, not so fun. I used to be on the plane almost every week. One time before 9/11, I was in Mexico coming back to New York. I had purchased a gallon of tequila from a local farmer. The security at the airport in Mexico asked me what I was doing with a gallon of liquid. I said it was tequila. They all laughed and said, "OK, drink some." So I proceeded to take a large, fiery gulp. They then said, "Drink some more." They laughed and I took another gulp. They laughed some more and said, "Why don't you take another drink?" I did it. They laughed again and let me through.

Another reason why I say it was a nightmare is because I shot film and they had to inspect each roll. No, they didn't pull apart each roll, but they had to swipe it for explosives. I pulled up a chair and it usually took about two hours to swipe each roll. I had usually around 1500 rolls from a shoot. It was not fun, but they kept us safe so I didn't mind.

One other time I was up against a flight attendant who really had a grudge against photographers. She wouldn't let me on with my camera bag. So I said, "All right. How about if I wear my camera? Is that all right?" she said, "Yeah." So I pulled out all five cameras, put all my lenses on them. I looked like a Japanese tourist. It was probably not very safe, but I checked my empty camera bag to go below. I had a very uncomfortable plane ride home.

I'll leave it at that for now. I did get to see some amazing things. Although, the plane just turned into a, well, bus ride. Not so glamorous, like it used to be. Talk to you next week. Here's my link about the present. Love, B. Nice