Over the next few years our paths continued to cross as I worked with them in the studio, on location and on the road with both Sammy and David Lee Roth. All really great, generous guys.

The shoot was never recovered so the only images that survive are about a half-dozen snip-tests from the E-6 lab and a couple of proof sheets from black & white negatives.

Veruschka von Lehndorff had been a top fashion model for several years before appearing in the 1966 film Blow-Up and most recently appeared in the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale.

In an effort to focus on Verne rather than his stature I tried to photograph him on seamless whenever I could to remove him from spacial comparison and make his size irrelevant to the things around him.  

David shared a story about an evening when John Lennon showed up at his house and they proceeded to get drunk and strum Beatle songs all night, which should lend perspective to his level of popularity at the time.

He knew photography was not a fair representation of who he was as he had moved past “fat jokes” and had weaponized his voice to comment on social and political matters.

Over the years I saw important members of the intricate machine that powered Tom’s career come and go, band members leave and return, his family circle grow and his kids mature to start their own families.  I watched Tom battle some demons and saw him grow spiritually but I never considered, not for a second, that we would all wake up one morning and he would be gone.

So now, many years later, I would like to thank a man that I never knew, who is almost certainly dead for a minor act of kindness that has resonated and shaped an important part of my life.  

Today not only marks the day that Glen Campbell passed at the age of 81 but also the day my mother would have turned 83.  

My own personal hell now existed at the nexus of  Fear Factor and “The Junior Mint” episode of Sienfeld. 

Even stranger than paying respects to a Beatle in the land of Nirvana was realizing my mistake and finding an impressive statue of Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin in the land of Microsoft and Amazon.

While not by design, it seems appropriate that on the day the world was reeling with the news of Muhammad Ali’s passing I found myself in front of the infamous Lorraine Motel, the site where Ali’s friend and mentor, Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in 1968.

What could be better than getting hit by arguably the “Greatest of All Time”?

I took the opportunity to show images that were not be likely to be exhibited otherwise.  Other than the fact that these are “found images” that I encountered and made on various occasions they have no specific unifying factor.

Sometimes you have to leave where you are to see where you’ve been so annually we make a road trip to North Dakota to visit my wife’s family.  It’s nice to exchange the congestion of big cities for the little town of Rutland, where lunch is called “dinner”, time passes without being “managed” and our dogs get to romp through fields off-leash.

While I never did get the opportunity to work with Prince, the news of his tragic passing today caused me to reflect on some of the insignificant brushes I had with him over the years.  This entry is about Dale Bozzio but since it’s inspired by Prince’s passing I will indulge myself with a tangential stroll down memory lane.

Cluster: “A group of similar things or people positioned or occurring closely together.”  I admire the implied confidence when an effort that is targeted by critics is entitled in a manner that invites the less-than-inspired pundit to take a cheap shot.  Like naming an album Bad or a band Garbage or an invitational art show made up of divergent talent as a Cluster.  For me this show has special meaning as the “people positioned or occurring closely together” in this case would be Jesse Myers, Myles Pettengill and  myself.

With Halloween upon us I thought it might be a good time to remember the man responsible for the “Mother” of all horror films, Psycho.

In the tradition of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, Shirley Manson, Butch Vig, Duke Erikson and Steve Marker are celebrating that it was 20 years ago that they released their self-titled debut album, Garbage.  Today Garbage will embark on their 20 Years Queer tour where, for the first time, they will perform that first seminal album in it’s entirety.

Where stories are concerned, Tom presents what can best be described as a “target rich environment” so naturally I have a few.  It’s likely I’ll sit down one day and write about the buckets of doll heads, the boat and the flop-house with the invisible cat

Before The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills, Jackie Collins, already a successful writer, gave the world her salacious take on the subject in her best selling book Hollywood Wives

Today is the deadline for submissions for the 27th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival.  The festival was the brainchild of Sonny Bono and continues to thrive today as part of his legacy...

On August 13th CNN is airing Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie.  Before the world ever heard of Jerry Springer, before Maury...

Dolly’s prolific songwriting abilities, sparkling personality, self-effacing humor and, of course, her ability to fill out a sweater managed to seep into pop culture enough to provide markers for...

Drive-by photo of billboard on Sunset Strip.

Original cover for Greatest Hits, this was the very first image I ever digitally manipulated for publication.  In those days it was a trying process, sometimes I still wake up screaming with this image in my head.