Own A Piece Of History

In the continuing spirit of plugging my friends' shit in this blog in the name of goodwill and glomming on to people and personalities who are far more socially advanced than mine, I offer the following news you can use.



This is Ted. This picture of Ted is as old as the ones of Bill and Nick and Dana, so please see the comments on those pictures for timeline information. Also, I don't think this particular picture is very good, though it gets both of us in the time we were in.


THE BIG NEWS:

Ted has been featured in Print Magazine this month, the one with this cover,



As one of their 20 Under 30 profile. I personally think 30 Under 30 has a better ring to it, but that's not the point. Can't be diluting the talent pool, can we? The point is that you, while celebrating the careers of a gaggle of young upstarts, can own an image made by me, Richard Gin. Please see the screen capture, below.



That image is, of course, THIS image,



Only cropped to hell, desaturated and therefore inferior to all the other profile pictures which capture artistic rapscallions at their most gloomy/moody/contrasty/artistic. As you can see, Ted was having two (2) milkshakes before they were popular. Ted chose my picture of him because his mom liked it. I think she said it was one where he didn't look too weird. I am paraphrasing.

Also in this issue and also in this article on dashing young men and demure young ladies are profiles of Phil Lubliner, stand up dude and commissioner of my fantasy baseball team, and Gary Fogelson, man about town and stand up dude. I will not post pictures of them because I have none, nor was I involved in their profiles. Gary and Phil are active dudes, and have various and sundry satellite projects and sub-domains that are worth checking out and are awesome.

The magazine itself is available now at your local magazine deployment concern and you should make it the bestest selling issue of Print Magazine, like, ever.

I HAZ FOUND TWO FWIENDS O_O (Birthday Addendum. I Will Stop Typing Like This Shortly)

Ted and Beth made up for their missed presence on Saturday night with a guest appearance LAST night.



Ted brought Beth, and bought dinner, which was appreciated. I am grateful (see "appreciated").



Beth brought moral support and gazes of appreciative amazement for my work, for which I am grateful.

I CAN HAS ATE FWIENDS? ^_^

According to yesterday's math (December 15th's math -- the day of my portentous birth; to some a day to be scorned) I have eight friends. These are their portraits. If you see them on the street, congratulate them for their wise choice to not alienate me.



Matt brought me artworks in a similar vein to this series, for which I am grateful.



Melissa brought cookies of the homemade variety. They were (emphasis on the past tense. They are with God now) excellent and peanut butter with jelly dollops. I am grateful.



Chuck brought wine, which was a welcome arrival. He also took the time to swing by before band practice. I am grateful.




Gersh brought himself, which is important because we decided we'd known each other for seventeen (17) years. Go figure. I am grateful.



Ally brought Yuengling, which is important because it is nourishing and good for you. I am grateful.



Alex also brought Yuengling. Actually you could parse his arrival in several ways -- You could say that he brought the Yuengling while Ally (see above) brought HIM; You could say that he brought Ross (see below). I am grateful.



Ross arrived and watched Slapshot with us, which is important because it is the finest movie of All Time. I am grateful.

[#8 Removed at #8's request, 9/18/08]

Now, there were MANY others who were invited and did not appear. MANY others. Those... people... will be dealt with in my own time. Their remains will likely be posted here later.

My love to you all. I am now 28. I feel like shit.

Throwback Image Sunday

Bill has been my #1 photographic fallback since college -- good for tips and tricks and moral support -- and we still keep in touch even after he moved to New Mexico and got married. Early on, I stole most of his lighting setups through casual observation and passive aggressive interviewing of the "Oh... hey, I didn't know you were working. Gee, I like your key. Why is it there?" variety. His sense of humor might be dryer than mine, though it's subject to debate amongst no one in particular. He is consistently employed and making a well-deserved living either because of, or in spite of, his choice to move to a shifty market.

He lives on the internets here: billstengel.com

And on Flickr here: xthebillx

Danielle's Gonna Have My Legs Broke For This

D: "...and these are going to all end up on the internet, right?"

R: "Probably."

I'm working on some publicity stills for the Hidden People (see previous entry) and got to bring in Danielle to assist in keeping my head straight, which is as difficult as you can imagine, and to help fly in lights for the location stuff (examples to come). Having someone on set who's better than you but is comfortable in letting you believe the opposite is very, VERY important.

Of course, aside from coffee fetching (not in a subservient way, but in a liberated, choose-to-do-it way), the assistant(s)' primary role is to stand in when the Photographer needs to see how badly he screwed up with the lighting (in this instance, a unit was not turned on). Furthermore, it is a happy coincidence when the Photographer has someone he's never succeeded in photographing assisting him. We've known each other for years and years at this point (it was quite a handshake) and have always seemed to be watching each others' work from parallel paths. Along with Bill Stengel (future Throwback Image Sunday candidate), she's my point person for all my tech talk and gear-head-wonkiness. I claim "Superfan 99" status.

Her home on the Internets is here:

Daniellestingu.com

SAVONAROLA IS BACK FROM THE DEAD

Until Sleater-Kinney gets back together I will have to be happy (and I am, believe me) with the sudden and powerful return of Savonarola, two of my dear dear friends and one of my favorite singer/songwriter duos. I rank them higher than the Lennon and McCartney. I am a contrarian.

They dissolved about a year and a half ago after one self-released album (full disclosure: I produced "Knives" and "People I Don't Like") when Ted had a midlife crisis and ran off to join These Are Powers.

AND NOW THEY ARE BACK. And possibly with another name change, though I'm encouraging them to keep it, and possibly with a stylistic change, which would predicate a name change. In short, they are writing stuff, but I have no idea what it is. They played an acoustic show at Tommy's Tavern (possibly the best they've played) on Sunday on a bill promoted by Anthony Macbain and featuring he, Schwaahed, Ron Wax and MC'd by Oldman Unfamous Jacob.

The images (and there are more here), were my first with my new Pocket Wizards (awesome) and the after-show was my first time DJ-ing (off a borrowed iPod, no less).

A splendid time was had by all.

R.I.P Tonic?

It seems that Tonic is closing and because I'm feeling tired and belligerent I'll write this as an epitaph:

The first time I went to Tonic, I shot some dudes' klezmer band.

A few years later I shot These Are Powers:



Somewhere in between I forgot where Tonic was.

The dudes' whose klezmer band I shot still owe me money.