September 7, 2022

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about the past. I’m gonna dedicate this blog to my daughter cause she is awesome.

Now, I’m gonna tell you a story that I’ve told you before, but I love telling it. It’s kind of why I developed a bad-boy image.

When I moved back to New York from Paris, I was lucky enough to start working right away. One of my main clients, someone I worked for every month, was a very famous store based in New York City. I did everything for them from their holiday books to their newsprint advertising. They were a good client and a lot of fun. Anyway, I was in the location van downstairs from the creative department waiting to go out on a photo shoot. The creative director called me up to the advertising department to discuss the day’s shoot. After our meeting, the creative director handed me two envelopes. One was for the art director and one was for me. I ran downstairs because we were running late. I jumped into the location van and handed the art director her envelope. Well, the art director opened the envelop, looked at me, and said, “I don’t think I was supposed to see this.” It was my envelope. It was the art director’s surprise birthday party. It was my invitation. I felt like throwing up. Her birthday party was supposed to be a surprise.

Now, fast forward to the surprise birthday party. The creative director told all 150 people to hide and turned off all the lights. We were in a fancy loft down in soho. It was all decorated with balloons, etc. Well I felt like permanently hiding. The creative director said, “Now, when the art director opens the door, everyone yell ‘Surprise.’” Well, we did. When the art director came in we yelled “Surprise.” The art director should have been an actor cause she did good, and said, “Oh man, you guys got me,” and she winked at me. I thought I was gonna pass out. After a lot of tequila, I met up with the creative director, the art director and a bunch of friends. The creative director said, “I worked on organizing this for months. If anyone ever leaked this out, I would have killed them.” Funny, I never did work for them again, after that night.

I later spoke with the art director. She said she was thankful I revealed the surprise party to her. She hated surprise parties.

Next time, I’ll tell you about the time I surprised my girlfriend. In short, I came home early to surprise her. Well, to MY surprise, I found my next door neighbor in bed with her. I think I went to that movie Outland with Sean Connery starring in it. I think I watched that movie 4 times, crying the whole time. I cry every time I see Sean Connery.

Love, B. Nice

August 24, 2022

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

Everything will be all right in the end. And if it’s not all right, it’s not the end. That’s a bit of a cliche but I used to say it to myself all the time when I was lying in bed in the hospital. You’ll find if you’re in a bad way, in the hospital, little things like this old saying will help you get through some tough stuff. I also would do things like change lyrics to songs. Remember I couldn’t move at all. I was basically trapped in my own body. It was kind of a nightmare. The only thing that worked on me was my hearing. I used to listen to songs and change the lyrics. Here’s two examples:

Get up Stand up! Stand up for your life! Get up Stand up don’t give up the fight.

Send me an angel that flies from my darkness, send me an angel that flies from my darkness I’ll make you a photo of an old rodeo

Just had my daughter who I hold on to. This way of living is a hard way to go.

Stuff like that helps you get through the rough stuff, It’s kind of corny but it works.

That’s about all for now. Next week I’ll tell you about the time I handed an art director the wrong envelope and spoiled her surprise birthday party. There were only 150 people at the surprise party. If they only knew I was the spoiler alert. I drank a lot of tequila that night.

Love and miss you guys. Love, B. Nice

July 27, 2022

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about my past. At least the things I can tell you..

We traveled all over the place. We, meaning fashion magazines and fashion shoots. Many times we went to places where foreigners were definitely not welcomed. A few places that I specifically remember are Guam, New Caledonia, and Tunisia.

Now, Guam is a bizarre place. It is pretty much cut in half. One half is the US military base. The other half is the indigenous people. Now, being on a fashion shoot, we all piled in the van and went to the indigenous people’s side. When we got there, oh man, the vibe was not good for us. We only stayed for a short time. Guam is a surreal place. Now a lot of Japanese honeymooners go there. On the main strip there’s all these signs of Japanese girls in bikinis with an M-16 on their hip. You can shoot an M-16 automatic assault rifle for a dollar a bullet. Totally normal right?

Oh, the other place was New Caledonia, (Nouméa). I think I told you this before, but I wanted to shoot on the beach, but the fashion editor insisted on shooting in the rain forest. Well, I didn’t argue. We all got in the location van and drove up to the rain forest. We got up into the mountains and were stopped by some Kanack rebels. They had a World War II 50 caliber machine gun trained on me. After I nervously told them what I was doing, we both agreed it would be best if I went back to the hotel with everyone else, of course.

Oh! and the last one was Tunisia. I told you already, I think, but everyone kept asking me if there were any American's on my crew. You see, I was shooting for Elle Québèc (Canadian Elle). Well, I was playing a video game at a bar with our driver. He stopped the game, looked at me, and looked at the game and looked at me again and said, and said, “Are you sure you’re not American? You kill everything like an American does.” I nervously said, “No mate! I’m from Australia.” Anyway, I’ve got lots of other stories. It’s sad we have to lie about where we come from, but that’s the way it is out there.

Next time I’ll tell you about my pleasant visit to Iran, South America, and, believe it or not, Canada, where they held me at Customs and made me write and essay about why I was a bad boy. That’s another story.

Talk to you next week. Love, B. Nice

May 18, 2022

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

Above is a cartoon I did about coffee. Man, I loved coffee, and I still do to this day. I often think about the awesome places I’ve had coffee. London, Paris, New York, Sydney, Tokyo, Hawaii, Malaysia, just to name a few. And believe it or not, you know what’s the strongest coffee? Miami. Can you believe it? Cuban coffee in Miami is like jet fuel. I used to have a couple of coffees in the morning there before shooting. I felt like I could run back to New York, carrying a port-o-potty on my back, of course.

That’s all for this week. There’s a lot going on at present, but I’ll blog about it later, in my blog about the present.

Love and miss you guys.

Love, B. Nice

May 11, 2022

Hi everybody. Welcome to the blog where I talk about the past. I’m gonna dedicate this blog to my friend here who’s writing this for me. She’s a big help, and believe me, I need all the help I can get.

OK, so I’m gonna share with you one other relationship story.

I was dating this young woman who was with one of New York City’s premier modeling agencies. The agency was having a big event and we were invited. We sat at a table with another photographer I knew. I was talking to my girlfriend. All of a sudden, she got hit on the head with something. Whatever hit her on the head landed on the table. I picked up whatever hit her on the head. It was heavy man. It was a battery pack from a video camera, and it was covered in blood. I looked at my girlfriend. She looked like she was in shock, and then all of a sudden, it looked like something out of a horror movie. Blood started pouring out of her hairline, all over her face. It was crazy. 911 was called and we rushed out to the front. It was total chaos. For whatever reason, the bouncer grabbed me. A bit of argument between me and him ensued and my girlfriend said, “No, he’s with me.” We jumped into the ambulance and sped off to the nearest ER. (Most ambulances will take you to the closest ER.) Anyway, the ER we went to was a strange ER. It was a weird hospital. We were in the ER and apparently, someone left a door open on the psych ward which was a few floors above us. Anyway, one of the psych patients, for whatever reason, found her way to our room. The patient thought I was a doctor, and that my name was Luke, from the 1980 soap “General Hospital.” (That was an interesting conversation.) Anyway, someone came and got her. They did some scans on my girlfriend and patched her up. She was OK. We decided to get a bite to eat, so we went to a local diner I knew. I still remember the name of it. It was the Empire Diner. Anyway, there were a few party goers in there. It must have been about 5 in the morning. It was a real editorial sight, I’m sure. We were both all dressed up. She looked beautiful but covered in dried blood. I wish I had my camera. It would have been an awesome shot.

Here we go with the thought of the nervous tick again. And you wonder why I’ve been married so many times. Anyway, I’m gonna try to go make some emails. Talk to you guys soon. Love and miss you all.

Love, B. Nice