My friends at BBQ Films are back with another amazing interactive film screening. I met them years ago when I shot their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles screening for the Village Voice. I had such an amazing time that I actually started showing up at their brainstorming sessions and helped them work on a number of screenings over the years. The entire time I’ve known them I have been trying to get them to do Wayne’s World and they finally did it! (Although I haven’t been to any of their meetings in a long time so I don’t think I had anything to do with it.)

I have a BFA in “Photography and Filmmaking” and while I focused primarily on the photography part of that, I took a ton of film classes. Pretty much every elective I took was a film history class. I loved that shit. I was a huge film nerd and when I was still living in Virginia I was taking a couple of trips a month to NYC just to watch films. One of the main reasons I moved to NYC in the first place was to watch more movies (ironically when I moved to NYC I didn’t have the time or money to keep up my cinephile ways). Essentially, I have spent most of my life as a pretentious asshole when it comes to film. I mean just look how many times I called it “film” in this paragraph. What a dick!

The point of that totally needless paragraph was to explain that despite my art house cinema pretension, my favorite movie of all time is Wayne’s World. I have loved it since I saw it in the 5th grade and I have seen it probably 100 times since. It’s the movie I have seen the most (by far) and I can quote half the movie which happens to be really annoying when watching it with me at my apartment, but really fun when you are in a music venue surrounded by a couple hundred people who are quoting every line along with you.

BBQ Films threw their Wayne’s World party, AKA Garthapalooza, at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, AKA Gasworks, in Brooklyn. They picked a musical venue because they wanted to incorporate the musical aspects of the movie into an interactive experience. They had several female fronted bands play the show before the screening and part of the profits from the event went to Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls to help inspire a new generation of female musicians. Hit Like a Girl opened the show and were followed by Early Riser.

The interactive experience really kicked off after that with “Wayne and Garth” introducing “Crucial Taunt” aka Young Thieves who covered the Tia Carrere cover of Sweet’s Ballroom Bliz.  The Young Thieves front woman dressed like Carrere’s character Cassandra and it was amazing. They did some of their own songs as well before Wayne and Garth came back out to announce that sadly the headliner “The Shitty Beatles” had canceled. Fortunately they had a back up plan and Calico Cooper of Beasto Blanco was introduced. Calico happens to be Alice Cooper’s daughter and she performed Alice’s song from the movie Feed My Frankenstein. (Hey Stoopid by Alice Cooper was absolutely the album of the summer between 5th and 6th grade.) She didn’t have her band with her, but no matter, a mix of people from BBQ Films and Young Thieves backed her up and it was really amazing. 

After the Calico Cooper performance the movie began, but a few minutes into the movie the lights came up and the BBQ Films actors playing Wayne, Garth and their crew were sitting on the steps of the stage almost as if they were seated in a car. Young Thieves returned to the stage and the entire crowd sang along to the infamous Bohemian Rhapsody scene. The movie came back on when the Mirth Mobile stopped to pick up their drunk friend Phil (played by my buddy Mike) who if he was going to spew, had to spew into this. They all got back into their fictional car and the band picked up right in time with the movie and we finished the singalong. I actually woke up this morning with a sore neck from all the head banging I did during the climax of the Queen classic.  After that the movie played as usual with everyone in the crowd yelling along to all the classic lines. The whole BBQ Films team came on stage as the credits rolled and the night was pretty much over.

On top of all that amazingness BBQ pulled out all the stops as usual. They had a photo booth set up that looked like the Wayne’s World set and a hockey net set up with a couple of my friends playing throughout the show, occasionally yelling CAR and GAME ON as they played. They had a bunch of extra sticks so people could take shots on goal all night. There was a “roadie training” set up and VIP Passes made to look like the Alice Cooper backstage passes from the movie. They had “Glen” from Stan Mikita’s passing out donuts and you could buy Red Vines for a dollar. They even had Wane’s famous Wayne’s World hat for sale (I managed to escape wth one myself) and of course they had the whole BBQ Films crew dressed up as characters from the movie which was slightly confusing given that half the crowd came dressed up as character from the movie as well. It was all really fantastic.

I am probably forgetting some stuff but this is nearly 1000 words already and nobody has time for that. Just go look at the photos and get on the BBQ Films mailing list so you don’t miss their next interactive movie. I hear it’s going to be spooky…

Click here to see all the photos from the BBQ Films Garthapalooza screening of Wayne’s World!

I had this idea to put up a bunch of old sets this week, but then my girlfriend came to visit and I didn’t get anything done so this is the only one I am dropping. I am shooting this amazing Wayne’s World party tomorrow so that should be up this weekend and then I will get some more throwback sets up next week. Sorry.

Anyway, when I was organizing old photos from 2015 I found a handful of lost sets. I already posted a set of Vonka Romanov & Kaya Lin and I uploaded all of them to Girls of Driven By Boredom already. But, today I bring you this set of Jenna J. Ross.

I don’t really know how I lost this set but it seems to be the only shoot I did on that trip to LA which might explain how I lost it. I am honestly not even sure why I was in LA or why I only did one set, but it’s a pretty fun one. I was introduced to Jenna by my friend (and super weird porn director (the porn is weird, he’s honestly surprisingly normal for a guy who turns beloved cartoons into X-rated nightmares)) Lee Roy Meyers. He is based in Vegas and I was asking him about people to shoot in Vegas at some point. He said I should hit up Jenna, but we didn’t actually shoot in Vegas so I don’t even know how that happened. 

I also don’t even remember where exactly we shot these photos, but it was some sort of state park in or around LA. It is some sort of hiking trail around some sort of body of water and I remembered we were never very far from the road. We weren’t visible to passing cars or anything, but the trail wasn’t that long and honestly any second people could have come around a corner and caught us. We did a pretty good job of shooting most of the set with at least some of her clothes on so we could have covered her up if people appeared, but we got brave and did some full nude stuff as well. We are champions or something. 

After the shoot we went to some sort of chain restaurant that I had never been to before but I don’t remember what it was or what we had. Honestly I don’t remember much, but I do remember that the roll of film I shot during the day got fucked up and  some of the funnier stuff we shot didn’t come out tragically. 

I hope you enjoyed a recap about a day I barely remember from three years ago. It was very well informed and interesting. Sorry I never posted these before, Jenna I hope you forgive me although I am sure I sent you and/or posted a handful of these right after because that’s usually what I do before forgetting a shoot for three years. Lastly, I should plug Girls of Driven By Boredom again because these photos have been on there for a week and the photos there are in higher resolution and there’s a few more explicit shots on there that are exclusive to the Girls of DBB. Go sign up already. 

Now click here to see a bunch of NSFW photos of Jenna J. Ross getting naked in public back in 2015.

Apparently it’s Thursday so I guess this can be a “Throwback Thursday” post. Whatever the case it’s another addition of my “Best of” posts. I have spent way too much time of my life organizing every photo I’ve ever taken and I done with another yet. 2015 is in the books. Fortunately I’ve also pretty much finished 2016 too. I am getting dangerously closed to being organized.

2015 was a terrible year for me and it featured the single worst day of my life where I got served with a lawsuit on the way into my good friend DJ Jess’ funeral. On the way home I got into a car accident. A few weeks later I broke up with my girlfriend and got into a second car accident. Months of depression followed and honestly my photography suffered from it as well. My back has been fucked up from the (first) car accident as well. When I was going through some of these galleries I just kept thinking about how much worse they were than stuff I shot previously. It’s really weird how my personal state of being could impact my work so drastically.

That being said there are still some highlights. I am currently figuring out how I am going to make it to another Gathering of the Juggalos, and when going through that stuff from 2015 I realized it might have been some of my best ever juggalo coverage. I shot a record cover for one of my favorite bands. I shot some great portraits at SXSW. I had some work in an art show in LA. I got my head shaved my a 90’s teen icon at an Empire Records party. I covered some quality nerd stuff like NY Comic Con and a Bronies watch party. I shot my friend Eaddy’s band Ho99o9 a bunch of times. I shot some fun stuff for Sailor Jerry as always and the Fool’s Gold Day Off is always fun. Oh, and I had a book release party for my second book Dinner With Igor.

On the naked lady side I shot some decent stuff over the year. I really liked the shoot I did of Ava Dalush at AVN and these photos I took of Chanel Preston. I met Carter Cruise in 2015 and we did two photo shoots in LA and then she came to NYC and bought us matching NSFW tattoos for my birthday. I also met my friend January Seraph in 2015. She reached out to me when she read about my depression and after we shot together we became really close friends. Unfortunately we lost her to depression last year.  I shot my friend Lucy Everleigh for the first time in 2016 (it was her first ever shoot!) . I don’t love the photos we shot but she’s a good friend of mine now so that rules. And lastly I should mention the shoot I did with my friend Erica. It wasn’t naked but she is one of my favorite humans and I’ve known her forever and I love the photos we made. Plus she just had a baby a few days ago which is adorable. 

I also found a few unpublished shoots from 2015. I found a second shoot I did with Ava Dalush that I already edited and posted on Girls of Driven By Boredom over two years ago, but apparently forgot to post on here. I also found a really fun shoot I did with Jenna J. Ross (that I just posted on Girls of DBB today) that I have no idea how I lost. And of course I found the Kaya & Vonka shoot I posted in my last update. I am gonna try and get the Ava & Jenna shoots up this week and try and get rid of the old photos sets ASAP. I found a few when going through 2016 as well so I might make a whole week of it. 

There are a lot more photos in here this gallery but I don’t wanna keep typing this. Lot’s of nudity and madness and famous people and I need to eat. It’s a massive gallery of nearly 300 photos and a ton of links to keep you busy. Just a couple more of these posts and I am gonna have to come up with a new excuse for not having a proper portfolio site. Come back soon. There will be more photos…

Click here to see some of my best photos from 2015.