FLAK ANDY

Andy Adams sure did get around last week. I love when someone comes in from out of town, just has an allotted amount of time to see people.... and off they go. Andy is the creator of FlakPhoto, where he designed a terrific Blog on photography. To call Flak a blog is a disservice to the Site as Andy is far more advanced in the tech dept. than most of us photo bloggers. The site Curates an image a day as well features on individual, group shows, and in Print books. He coraled not only myself, but Amy Stein, Andrew Hetherington, Jonathan Larson, Joshua Lutz to name few. He was all inquiries on how the business model is working for us and how can we move forward in the new tech /photo age, and brought and outsiders opinion to our struggle, which is always eyeopening. He also likes a little Jameson which endears him to almost everyone. Hope to see him for the photo festival in May

GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK

So after forty four years the curtain is finally coming down. The Stadium that William Shea built to bring National league baseball back to NYC will close its doors for good. Shea Stadium along with Yankee Stadium will both be demolished at the end of the season, to make way for gleaming new/old ball parks. As a Metropolitan fan since arriving here from Ireland, obviously Shea's ending has a far more personal effect on me than the decrepit place in the South Bronx. Actually many times I prayed that the Babe's house would implode all on its own, but I digress. After spending many a night out in Flushing I went on Sunday, probably for the last time. The auld joint was buzzing, the game was great, but I found myself reminiscing, to myself and anyone else who would listen, about specific nights that had Shea as its backdrop. All were baseball related but not all the stories were between the lines, like the night after too much crap beer I fell asleep on the subway and woke up in Coney Island, fell back to sleep and woke up in the last stop in Queens, and, you guessed it all the way back again. The night I was chased all the way around the upper level by Cardinal fans after I called Terry Pendleton something reminesent to McCains wife name calling. The night I saw Ronnie Darling pitch a complete game to win the pennant. The day I tried to figure out when they would clinch the pennant, I had a rain delayed ticket, only to be off by a day. I show up for the day game anyway with 5,000 other poor souls, watching the triple A team play in a cow patch. The sod had been dug the night before by the rampaging fans, BG, before Giuliani, when you were aloud to invade the field to show you gratitude for 14 seasons of ineptitude. The night I took James Doyle to his first game, we got stoned and couldn't find the car in the parking lot. To this day I think he holds it against me for introducing him to the blue and orange instead of pinstripes, as he has wallowed in the many years of woe along with me. My favorite players, Doc, Lenny, Wally, Coney, Piazza, Mex, Seaver #41 the Franchise, Mook. The craziness from the '86 team - Ojeada and the hand, Hernandez and Stawberry throwin punches. "The worst team money could buy" in the '90s. The bad trades - Lenny for Juan Samuel, I almost cried in the car when I heard it, my brother on vacation from Ireland howling with laughter at me - Nolan Ryan for Jim Fragosi, Cone for Ryan (5 tool,tool is right) Thompson and Jeff Kent, the worst trade in Met history. And of course we don't mention last year, never mention last year. Shea was the first stadium I entered in the US, its colors so vibrant, its size immense, I had never seen anything like it and yet I felt like I had been coming here all my life. But for all its pennant futility it still gives me the greatest of pleasure to say I'm a Met fan. To put the radio on in the middle of a summer night and hear Howie Rose float faintly across the airwaves could not make me happier. Goodnight Bob Murphy and Gill Hodges, Hello Citi Field.
Click on image for enlargement.

BLURB & SLEEPING GIANT

The self publishing Giant Blurb have decided to have a competition for all the newly pubbed photographers, that's insider publishing talk. Yours truly has entered Sleeping Giant, and many counterparts have also put their wares for judgement. Blurb has also added a peoples choice award, where one can go to the web site, here, and vote for your favorite. If your reading this blog you may then want to go and vote for me. Pure shill, so what, well were all sick and tired of trying to be coy. Go vote. I don't know what the award is but it will be coming to me, so there.

GOODFELLAS AND SLEEPING GIANT

Henry Hill and Juniors!!!!! Yes indeed, the leading figure in the tell all mobster tale Goodfellas is a devotee of Juniors restarurant. Now many people may think that its the Juniors diner chain that have been dotted around Manhattan for years, but one would be wrong. Chris McLallen pointed this out to me as he noticed, while scouring the BBC, that it was the little family owned, heavy on Italian joint, in Long Island City. He remembered the shot from my project SLEEPING GIANT. I have looked at that building many different ways while working on SG, trying to find my quintessential angle, but could never get over the fact that here was a restaurant with silos emerging from its roof. I read the book Goodfellas long before the movie came out and Henry Hill was so clear and concise in his retelling of the crimes and there proximity to where I lived, I felt as if they happened just down the street. Well I'm sure some of them did. Now that Signora Hill is apart of the local lore, that image takes a slightly different tone for me. Listen to the interview, don't know if its just bravado or lunacy but that guy is still not someone to mess with. And of course look for the shoot of him outside Juniors