November 15, 2023

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

Build a bridge and get over it. That was a pillow my ex-wife gave me when I was building my house. You see, I bought a blank lot in Montauk NY. The only access was where the flagpole would be and it was over a ditch where some wetland plants had grown. It was kind of a nightmare. I bought this land, but the only way to get to it was by building a bridge. And the DEC would not allow you to build a bridge over wetlands. I guess, in hindsight, I should have hired a lawyer, but I resolved this problem for myself. Now, it’s kind of a complicated, but to cut a long story short, I’ll tell you what I did.

I spent a lot of time at the DEC on Long Island. Finally they agreed that I could build a bridge but only twelve feet wide. That was to allow wetland plants to grow. Now, the town said I could build a bridge, but it has to be at least 15 feet wide. I was at an impasse. The DEC and the Town did not like each other. In fact, they would not really communicate. I was going back and forth like a ping pong ball. One day, I thought. OK, that’s it. I can’t build a bridge or build a house. So my solution was to open a bottle of red and finish it. Well, at about 4 in the morning with my head on the table, I woke up and with piece of plain white paper I wrote 12 feet wide. Then I ripped the paper in half vertically, and separated the pieces. I made the piece of paper 15 feet wide. I put a 3 foot gap in between the two pieces of paper. I filled the gap with a grate that would allow daylight to go through. I went to the DEC first thing in the morning, with coffees in hand. I said, I’ve got a solution to our problem. They looked at me like I was an alien, but they said, you know what? That’s a good idea. And they gave it the go-ahead. I think this is one reason my brain exploded. Anyway, I made a pretty awesome bridge. It looked like a Japanese Bow Bridge. It was cool. It was made of steel, hardwood and concrete. It was indestructible. It will be there for thousands of years. Also longer than either of my marriages. It was a great project. I know how to build an awesome bridge now. I was there everyday for the construction. The DEC even uses it as an example of what to build. If anyone’s interested, I’ll give you a free tour. We’ll just have to sneak onto the property. It was expensive though. Man, for the price of that bridge, I could have bought a condo in Colorado,

Love and miss you guys. Love B. Nice

November 7, 2023

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

Oh man, I had a great client. We always shot at great locations. One of my favorite locations was in New Mexico. It was called Ghost Ranch, and it was Georgia O’Keefe’s old house. It was great. I think I went there about 5 times. The light was amazing, and the sky was incredible.

I was pretty lucky to be able to shoot at Ghost Ranch. Georgia O’Keefe was an amazing artist. A lot of her works were done around Ghost Ranch. The only problem was there were a lot of rattle snakes. I thoroughly enjoyed bringing a fake snake with me and hiding it in various locations around the set. The reaction from some people was priceless. And a whole polaroid book of expressions. It was great, but it got me in trouble. My favorite trick was to hide the rubber snake behind a toilet and pull it out on a fishing line I’d tied around its neck. You can only imagine the screams I heard. I believe I told you this before, but I got in trouble with the client because one of the models I scared had a phobia of snakes. She wouldn’t leave the location van nor would she let her feet touch the ground. The other model had to do all the scared model’s shots. Man, I got in trouble on that one.

Santa Fe was beautiful though. Did you know that that area used to be an inland sea? It did remind me of the ocean. I guess it’s all open space, that’s why. I miss it. I can’t go back there because of the elevation. I remember I still have one small malformation of veins within my brain stem. It’s ab inoperable situation. Something I’ll live with. I guess I’m a human altimeter guy because if I get too high in altitude, I start to feel dizzy. It could happen there in Los Alamos which is above Ghost Ranch.

Anyway, I highly recommend you check out that area. It’s beautiful. Some of my friends even moved there.

This one time I had was great. We were shooting in Hawaii, Mexico, New Mexico, Florida. They’re all big trips too, like 14 days. Another one of my favorite locations that we’d go to was Napa Valley. We always stayed at the Sonoma Mission Inn. It was great. We had fireplaces in our rooms. It was actually more like a suite. Also had a great restaurant. Speaking of food. I’m gonna go. I have to make my dinner. I think I’m gonna have an apple tonight. I miss the good old days.

Love and miss you guys. Love, B. Nice

October 31, 2023

Booo! Happy Halloween everybody! My friend here asked me if thre was any halloween that stood out, and my answer is YEs! I remember a halloween quite well.

My first wife and I were on our way to Australia. We had a layover in San Francisco. We decided to extend our layover and stay in San Fran for a day. I had a good friend there. We decided, since it was Halloween to enter a bar costume contest. Well, I was so excited to enter the contest that I forgot I didn’t have a costume. I thought, no problem. I went to the local hardware store and bought a whole bunch of tin foil and duct tape. We wrapped ourselves in tin foil and duct tape and decided we were aliens. And guess what! We won the contest. I don’t remember much, but I had a few drinks, but I do remember, for some reason, no cab would pick us up.

Good times and love, B. Nice

October 17, 2023

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about my past. I’m gonna dedicate this blog to my friend’s friend, Gaby. Happy birthday Gaby.

I love it. My friend here goes through my old camera cases where keep my journals and she pulls out a cartoon I did. The cartoon above was one of many cartoons I did on a camping trip with my father. Ever since I was little, my father promised to take me camping. Well, he finally came through in my early 40’s. It was a cool trip. We rode one week through Montana into Wyoming. All on horseback. It was a great trip. We would fish for our food. Camp out. It was a great trip. Then we rode one week back. Now, the cartoon above documents what happened. Now let me go off on a tangent here. Never, I mean EVER share a tent with your parent. Bring your own tent. Here’s one of many things that happened:

I tend to snore - right? Well, I guess I was snoring pretty heavily and around 3 am my father jumped up and screamed, “Bear! Bear! Bear!” Then he jumped up, grabbed all of his candy bars and started throwing them in the woods. I woke up and said, “Dad, what the hell are you doing?” And I thought it was pretty funny. But there are big brown bear there, so you got to be careful. I said, “Dad, why’d you throw the candy into the woods? I would have eaten it!”

Love and miss you guys.

Love, B. Nice

P.S. It was a great trip. On another note, it was cool when you took out your lunch and went away from everyone, sat under a tree. The animals up there aren’t used to seeing humans, so when you broke out your sandwich, birds would land on you, squirrels would come to you. Chipmunks would come to you - all wanting food. I felt like Dr. Doolittle.

September 26, 2023

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

Above is a drawing I did when I could draw. I love it. My friend here goes to one of my many suitcases and picks one of my many journals and opens it to a page and we blog about the page.

You see, every painting needs a chair. That’s what Van Gogh said. Actually, he said every good painting needs a chair. Now, in this drawing, I’m sans chair. So, therefore, I’m sitting in front of a bad painting. That’s my blog for this week.

You know what? I just thought of something. I’m in a wheelchair. Does that mean that every painting I look at is good? Something to think about, if you’re bored.

Love, B. Nice