Prince Tribute On Prince Street

Last night after Spike Lee’s Prince block party I headed down to the Lower East Side to see if I could find some people celebrating Prince.

My friends Ky and Jeremy were DJing Jarome’s and spinning Prince all night so I stopped in there first. Apparently I got there too early because it was a bit slow. I heard it got crazy a few hours later.

I decided to just walk around lower Manhattan. I heard their was a Prince tribute at the Prince Street Subway station so I figured if I just started walking that way I might run into something. I figure I would just walk down Prince Street as far as I could and hopefully find something to photograph.

I saw some mylar balloons hanging on a traffic light and when I looked carefully I realized they spelled Prince. They were all jumbled together so I didn’t even take out my camera. I just took a photo for my Snapchat. But as I walked down the street I came to another street light covered in balloons but this time it was a work in process.

I pulled out my camera and started shooting the small group of people trying to throw these weighted balloons up onto the street light. It took some doing and as they continued a slightly bigger crowd gathered. Someone had a boom box and started blasting Prince. I started talking to the artists who were creating this helium memorial and they told me they were headed to the New Museum next. They handed me an I balloon and we headed to the next stop.

When we got to the New Museum they spelled out Prince in front of the museum in balloons and then spread glitter everywhere. More people gathered as as they worked. They started spraying Prince stencils everywhere with chalk paint. By the time they were finished the New Museum had become a dance party.

I took a group photo and then everyone split up and I continued on to the Prince Street Subway where I found a couple tributes to Prince. By that time it was 2 or 3 am and I figured it was time to call it a night.

It’s a tragedy that Prince died but it was a really inspiring night and to see so many people come together is kinda wonderful. So instead of mourning Prince let’s all party like it’s 1999.

Click here to see the Prince tributes on Prince Street.

Ps. These photos are mildly NSFW cause someone pulled out their dick in the background of the group portraits because of course they did.

Prince Tribute On Prince Street

Prince Tribute On Prince Street

Prince Tribute On Prince Street

Prince Tribute On Prince Street

Prince Tribute On Prince Street

Prince Tribute On Prince Street

Prince Tribute On Prince Street

 

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Spike Lee’s Prince Block Party – 4.21.16

So another musical legend died yesterday and the world lost it’s mind again. Prince is a little bit different though. Not since maybe Michael Jackson have we lost a musician that is so universal. I mean I am a bigger Motorhead fan than I am a Prince fan and I know a billion people who were devastated by the death of David Bowie but a love for Prince seems to unite everyone.

I went down to Spike Lee’s 40 Acres building in Brooklyn last night and there were thousands of people of every age and ethnicity all dancing in the street to Prince. It was a really magical moment.

I put a small video clip of it on my Instagram and I had so many people contact me saying how much they wished they could be there. I am really glad I was able to be a part of it. (Also, weirdly enough, that video ended up on the Today Show (at the 1:12 mark))

The block party was supposed to end right at 10pm and at 10 some cops showed up ready to shut it down. Spike pleaded with them saying it was the last song and then everyone would go home. The cops gave him 10 more minutes and the crowd went nuts cheering. I even saw the cops singing along to Purple Rain. The whole thing was just really emotional and amazing.

After the block party I went home for a bit and then went to the Lower East Side looking for more Prince tributes but I have to go to the dentist so the rest of the photos from last night will have to wait until I get back.

Click here to see the photos from Spike Lee’s Prince block party at 40 Acres.

Spike Lee's Prince Block Party

Spike Lee's Prince Block Party

Spike Lee's Prince Block Party

Spike Lee's Prince Block Party

Spike Lee's Prince Block Party

Spike Lee's Prince Block Party

Sway

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Sorry, But Here Is Another Post About Sports

Here’s one of those posts where I talk about sports and no one cares because no one comes to this website to read about sports. But at least try to make it through the third paragraph because I am trying to help raise some money for a good cause. As you may know I am a big fan of two professional sports teams. I am both a big Miami Dolphins football fan and a Washington Capitals hockey fan. Currently the hockey playoffs are upon us and that means two things — 1) I ignore nearly everything else in my life and 2) I take part in a superstition that nearly guarantees I won’t have sex for a while: The playoff beard.

The idea behind the playoff beard is that it’s good luck to not shave during the playoffs. I realize that a fans superstition will not actually impact the game but I have been wearing the same socks during three consecutive Caps games and the are 3-0 so you can’t possibly argue with that.

Anyway, me and three hockey watching friends of mine are growing our beards as part of Beard-A-Thon in order to raise money for USA Warriors Ice Hockey. They are an organization that helps rehabilitate wounded veterans though hockey. It’s a really great cause and we are trying to raise $400 for it and we are almost there already. With your help we can blow past our goal.

Playoff Beards

Aside from raising money we also started a weird blog for our weird NYC Caps Crew. So far the site features articles from me, my friend Fatou who names her “Bae of the Game” and a game day journal from a stuffed bear that happens to be owned by our resident DJ Ky. There’s gonna be a lot of stuff over there soon but you don’t really care so I am just gonna stop talking about it.

Also, in hockey news today is the one year anniversary of that time that my friend’s car got fucked up at a hockey game and I wrote about it and then we ended up becoming a national news story. Yikes.

End of sports post. Will try and not post one of these for a bit but if the Caps keep winning* I may not be able to help myself.

*Don’t worry. The Capitals will no doubt crush me as they have done every year of my life.

NYC Caps Crew

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The Worst Day Of My Life Was One Year Ago Today

Hurray! Today is the one year anniversary of the worst day of my life so I feel like we should write about it as some sort of therapeutic exercise and then maybe I can move or something like that. Maybe I should just write this and delete it but I won’t because I have dedicated the last 15 years of my life to oversharing… why stop now?

One year ago today was the memorial service for my good friend DJ Jess. He was one of the first people to hire me as a photographer in New York and had such a huge impact on my life that I could never fully express it. You can read this thing I wrote about him last year if you want to see me try.

I wanted everyone to know about his memorial service so I posted on Twitter that it was going to be at Webster Hall and that I would be there. This might have been a mistake because as I was walking into the club a woman tapped me on the shoulder. She said “Are you Nate Igor Smith?” I told her I was and she said “I am a huge fan of your website.  I have something for you…. You’ve been served.” She handed me a stack of papers and then ran full speed away from me.

Before I even could comprehend what happened a sheriff  tapped me on the other shoulder and told me I had to sign something saying I received the notice that I had been sued. The whole thing was like a scene in a move. I asked the sheriff “Who the fuck serves someone at a funeral?” and he was actually weirdly apologetic.

So I go inside Webster and I start reading this lawsuit. I am not really going to talk about the details of it but basically I was being sued by a former client and another person for something that I had almost nothing to do with. I spent the entire memorial service going back and forth between trying to mourn my lost friend and thinking about how fucked up this law suit was. I don’t think I ever really had the opportunity to mourn Jess but it was one of the most painful hours of my life.

From Webster a bunch of us went over to Beauty Bar for a drink and then eventually we ended up at another bar. When I decided I had to go home I mentioned that I had to go to my girlfriend’s apartment and move my car over to my place. My friend told me to be careful because he thought I was drinking. I explained that I was totally sober and my girlfriend lived walking distance from my place I just mostly needed to move the car across the street so it wouldn’t get towed.

(Quick sidebar about the car… I didn’t actually own a car. It was my parents car that I borrowed because they were moving and I had to get a ton of stuff out of their basement. The car was still half filled with boxes of stuff from my childhood.)

As I was parking the car a man who had stolen a SUV was being chased by the cops. He tried to make it around me but he hit an idling car bounced off it and crashed into the driver side rear of my car. It turned the wheel 90 degrees and snapped the axel in two. He then proceeded to hit several more cars before being caught by the cops a few blocks a way.

The side air bag was the worst part. It felt like I had been punched in the head. I couldn’t hear out of my right ear and I don’t think I noticed how bad the whiplash was. I wouldn’t notice that until three days later when I couldn’t get out of bed. After the ambulance came and the police came I had to get the boxes out of the car before it could be towed. Right as I started getting the boxes out it started pouring rain. I actually started laughing which confused the hell out of the cops.

Two days later I was feeling pretty shitty but I had playoff hockey tickets and a bunch of friends and I went out to Long Island to see our Washington Capitals take on the Islanders. We lost the game in overtime which was pretty awful but we had an even worse experience. I wrote about our shitty treatment at the game and sent it to a few friends and within 45 minutes it had gone viral. ESPN, Sports Illustrated and every local outlet picked up the story. I was getting, no joke, over 100 Tweets a minute at some point that very night. I got death threats and people talking shit to me non stop for a week.

The next morning I woke up and my back had completely locked up. I couldn’t really move. I was supposed to work that night but I had to cancel. I just stayed in bed. Luckily my hockey team was winning so I had a reason to suck up the pain and go watch with my friends.

Less than two weeks later my girlfriend broke up with me via text.

A few days later the Capitals lost in overtime of game 7 against the other local team the New York Rangers.

I am a pretty passionate sports fan, but with everything in my life going so horribly wrong the hockey playoffs were the only thing I had that was positive in my life. When they lost it hit me like no other sports moment ever had. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back and I no longer had a reason to get out of bed.

I spent the next six weeks or so barely leaving the house. Between my back and my depression and the looming lawsuit I sunk into the worst depression of my adult life. Coincidentally that time period was also really slow for work and I wasn’t exactly making an effort to find any new jobs. I gained probably 15lbs and I never really dealt with any of the shit I was going through. I didn’t really have anyone to talk to. I am still not sure I ever got over my ex. We are friendly but to this day we have never really had a real life conversation about the break up.

Now it’s a year later and my life is finally back on track. It took over 100 hours of billable legal hours but I got out of a lawsuit that the judge agreed I had at worst “minimal liability”. 2015 was the worst year of my life financially but 2016 has been a lot better. I just this week paid off my credit card debt that had climbed close to $10,000. I am still in a wild amount of debt from my lawsuit but that is manageable. My hockey team is in the playoffs again and while it will be disappointing if they don’t win all the games, I think I will be able to function as a human if they don’t. I lost most of that weight, I joined a new band, my last zine did really well and I am pretty sure Donald Trump isn’t actually going to be our next president.

So yeah, happy anniversary worst day of my life. Here’s hoping today is a good one.

 

 

 

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Gabriella Paltrova

Girls of Driven By Boredom had another sale today and that means I have to post some sexy photos in order to best promote that sale. And I can’t just post any gallery, I needed a good one and I had just the set in mind.

My last trip to LA was a fairly unproductive one photo wise. I was there for a wedding and only photographed two girls fortunately for everyone one of those girls was Gabriella Paltrova.

Gabi pretty much instantly became one of my new favorite models. I don’t really know what else to say but she is fantastic and you guys are gonna love these photos. Also at the end she asked me to take a bunch of photos of her with a fucking giant sword she just casually had in her on hand.

So did I mention Girls of DBB was having a sale? Yeah, new year long subscriptions are 20% off using the coupon code “dbb”. You can find this whole set in high resolution on there and there is a ton of extra photos too because Gabi’s butt rules and I took a bunch of photos of it that you might wanna look at if you are into that sort of thing. Girls of DBB always has a ton of exclusive content the shots are usually up at least a day before they go up on this site. Just saying.

Anyway, I am starting to plan my next LA trip and Gabi will be one of the first people I text when I get there. Cannot wait to shoot her again.

Now click here to look at these NSFW photos of Gabriella Paltrova!

Gabriella Paltrova

Gabriella Paltrova

Gabriella Paltrova

Gabriella Paltrova

Gabriella Paltrova

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Jeanette Hayes Paradise?? Opening – 4.7.16

Last night I went down to the Lower East Side’s Castor Gallery to check out Jeanette Hayes‘ show ‘Paradise??’. She combines classical painting with “futuristic” holograms (that were popular 20 years ago) to create a feeling that you might get if you were to walk into The Met 200 years in the future when .gifs and bedazzled MySpace pages stand next to Greek statues and Renaissance paintings.

In Nothing But Flowers the Talking Heads once sang “If this is paradise, I’m gonna need a lawn mower.” Well if this is Paradise, I’m gonna need a new Tumblr.

Aside from the wild art it was an awesome chance to see a lot of people I used to hang out with in night clubs when I first moved to NYC. Turns out all those people are still here, they just happen to be in their 30s and going to art shows instead of dance parties. Oh, and there were a lot of puppies for some reason. Puppies are very important in the New York art world.

The show is going to be up all month so make sure you get a chance to check it out. And go down stairs where there is a video installation and drawings (Plus National Geographic holograms!). And thanks a bunch to Jeanette and Castor for having me out last night. I had a blast.

Click here to see photos from the opening of Jeanette Hayes’ ‘Paradise’ at Castor Gallery.

Jeanette Hayes - Paradise??

Jeanette Hayes - Paradise??

Jeanette Hayes - Paradise??

Jeanette Hayes - Paradise??

Jeanette Hayes - Paradise??

Jeanette Hayes - Paradise??

Jeanette Hayes & Chloe Sevigny

 

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Meet Lil’ Brown Eyes

Back in January I was in LA for my friend’s wedding. When it ended I drove across town to some house party to see the band Ho99o9 play. I was still wearing a suit and pretty much destroyed the only pair of dress shoes I own in the mosh pit. It was a good time.

After the show I met a girl named Skuzi aka Lil’ Brown Eyes. It came up that I was going to the AVN Awards and she happened to be going too. She was doing make up for a bunch of the girls and she asked me if I knew who Ryan Gosling was. “Yes, I am aware of Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Gosling.” “No, not Ryan Gosling… Bryan Gozzling!” I had no idea what the fuck she was talking about but apparently she was in some sort of wild daddy/baby relationship with a new male porn dude named Bryan Gozzling. She then proceeded to show me all sorts of insanely fucked up photos of them on her Twitter.

A couple days later as I was checking into the Hard Rock in Vegas I saw them again. I sort of pointed over to them and showed the people I was with the crazy shit that they were all about on their Twitter. Even porn people thought it was nuts. Most of the weekend Bryan walked her around on a leash and they were sort of all anyone could talk about.

I ended up hanging out with them a lot that week and I am sort of a huge fan of  both of them and am totally intrigued by their next level relationship. Psyched for the next time that I get to hang out with these two…

The night before the AVN Awards I ended up photographing Lil’ Brown Eyes in their hotel bathroom and then afterwards I took some insane photos of Bryan tying her up and basically torturing her until she squirted all over the floor. It was both horrifying and completely adorable. I really only planned on posting the set of Skuzi and I just sent them the other photos but I decided maybe I should put up as an exclusive Girls of Driven By Boredom gallery. I figured maybe some people would pay $5.99 or however much Girls of DBB costs to see them.

So yeah, there are two sets. One terribly light balanced but pretty awesome set of Lil’ Brown Eyes in her hotel bathroom and then another, much larger set of her getting tied up on Girls of DBB. There’s also a handful of extras from the bathroom set on Girls of DBB too. I gotta keep my subscribers happy somehow…

So click here to see the NSFW bathroom photos of Lil’ Brown Eyes and then go to Girls of DBB for the insane set of her and Bryan Gozzling!

Lil' Brown Eyes

Lil' Brown Eyes

Lil' Brown Eyes

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Jeremyville Pop-Up Gallery Opening – 3.31.16

Last night I went down to the Original Penguin shop on Broadway for a pop-up gallery opening from artist Jeremyville. He has done a few collaborations with Penguin and they did a book giveaway and sold prints and he signed stuff and there was a bunch of free chicken on sticks which is really important because chicken is delicious. I also Buff Monster there and in one week I am getting a drawing he drew of me tattooed to my leg so that’s something. 

Anyway sorry to make this write up so quick but I am running late for band practice. Yeah, I am trying out for another shitty punk band and I say shitty with nothing but love. Will let you know how that goes (as long as it goes well). Now go look at photos!

Click here to see all the photos from the Jeremyville/ Original Penguin pop-up gallery opening!

Jeremyville X Original Penguin

Jeremyville X Original Penguin

Jeremyville X Original Penguin

Jeremyville X Original Penguin

Jeremyville X Original Penguin

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