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Today’s soundtrack: now I drink from a paper cup

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Today at 11:02pm: losing

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This morning someone threatened to stab me, and by someone I mean a crazy person. He didn’t look crazy--just your average run-of-the-mill thug--but he sure talked crazy. I was on Sixth Ave having a cup of sidewalk coffee with my friend Roger. Ironically enough, we’d just gotten out of our martial arts class, and my master was somewhere nearby getting a cup of coffee as well.

So this guy walks up and asks me for a cigarette. I declined, politely I thought, and he starts talking nuts. Something about how I didn’t know him, and about how everyone in the city was retarded, and I was retarded. Then he says “You don’t know me, and afterwards you might say ‘let’s be friends’ but it’s too late. I’ll stab THE SHIT out of you, motherfucker.” This whole time he’s staring at me (not Roger), like he’s daring me to twitch. I couldn’t tell if he had a knife on him or knot.

He kept on like this for a while, causing Roger and I to do the city thing and put our conversation on hold; when a crazy person accosts you it’s like an ambo driving by with the sirens on--you fall silent in the understanding that in ten seconds this will pass and you can get back to your life.

After his tirade Crazy McNutjob walked about ten feet away, then turned and yelled vague threats at us. I idly wished my master was coming down the block with his coffee that very minute, just to see what he would do, but I know he’d probably ignore the crazy guy too.

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Roger once told me a story about how he ran into a husband-and-wife team of Wing Chun kung fu practitioners. They were bragging about how a wino crossed their path one night, got in the woman’s way and she beat the living shit out of him. Roger just shook his head, saying “The guy’s a fucking wino, he needs help; you could have just walked around him” but the couple went on and on about “honor.” Martial arts attracts more crazy people than the sidewalks of New York do.

But who knows, maybe we were wrong not to do anything? Maybe in a parallel universe I like, totally got stabbed and today was the last day I spent on that alternate Earth.

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On Friday I lost at Lotto. It was up to $220 mil and not a single one of my numbers matched. They say all you need is a dollar and a dream, but there’s more to it than that.

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Tonight I went out to Brooklyn to shoot some stuff for Ishle Park’s new book. I’m really psyched because it’s the first time anyone’s asked and paid me to shoot something for them. Okay so really it’s the second time, but the first time it was also Ishle, and that was just one picture; this is for a series.

Even better, I needed a new camera, and Ish paid up front. The amount of the check almost entirely covered the cost a new Canon SD-30, which I went out and picked up for the project.

I still have my old, fucked-up SD-10 and I’m probably going to give it away, to one of you online people in some kind of random drawing. I lost at Lotto but maybe one of you will win a camera with a damaged sensor, hooray.

None of the shots I’m taking for the book are supposed to have people in them, but in between shooting I fucked around and took some flicks of Ish:

I’m not a very expressive people photographer. My directions are usually “Face away from the camera please” or “Less passion, less passion.”

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While shooting on Ish’s Brooklyn rooftop I accidentally kneeled in some tar. Fuck! This glob of it got stuck on my (favorite pair of) jeans. I couldn’t get it off, and then I decided I don’t care, like maybe it doesn’t matter if the pants I always wear have this shot of black goop on them. So what if I look dirty. I’m trying not to be vain, which, as it turns out, is pretty easy if you’re not really good-looking to begin with.

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After I lost at Friday’s Lotto, the pot went up to 260 mil, and I bought another ticket.

The drawing was tonight. I just checked the results, and whaddaya know, I still ain’t rich; but at least I didn’t get stabbed.

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