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.

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.

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!

For some unexplained reason I haven’t really picked up my camera recently. Not sure if it’s the winter or the holidays or what but I just haven’t had a reason to shoot. So I figured this would be a good opportunity to publish some of the outtakes from my Arts zine. I photographed a ton of artists for this, and then I also had a bunch of shots I had taken in the past that sort of inspired the zine in the first place.

Essentially this is a collection of 35mm black and white photos of artists. This gallery includes the shots that are in the zine, and some outtakes from those shoots, but it also includes a handful of photos of artists that didn’t make the zine for whatever reason. They didn’t make the zine because they are photographers or don’t make work on paper, didn’t get the art into me in time (God dammit Oliver!) or I just didn’t know them well enough to ask.  Whatever the case there are a bunch of pretty black and white photos in here that you should look at.

So take a look at the photos and then buy a copy of the zine. You need Arts in your life!

Click here to see the full gallery of 35mm artist portraits.

Hi there. I have some stuff for you guys and I figured I could throw all of it in one post and use alliteration in the title to make it seem more like this post has a real purpose and not just a thinly disguised attempt to sell you more shit you don’t need. Let’s begin.

First up, I found 17 old Driven By Boredom t-shirts under my couch. These shirts were for DBB’s 8th anniversary back in 2009. Apparently I forgot they were there. I threw them up on Etsy last night and now there are only 12 left and honestly I might keep a couple of them so if you want one, you should do it soon. Just saying. ORDER NOW!

Next up… Remember my Arts zine? I am really proud of that thing. It features really lovely black and white portraits of some amazing artist friends of mine and a selection of their art work. It’s printed well, inexpensive and fairly collectable given it’s small edition and great collection of artist… but because it doesn’t have any nudity in it, no one bought it. Seriously, I have sold like 30 of them. All of my other zines have done great, but this one? Not so much. I have learned my lesson… Fuck art, more tits.

Anyway, at the Zine Friends release party for Arts I traded amazingly talented human Penelope Gazin a print of a tiny puppy on a giant butt for a bunch of 5″x7″ drawings of the art school test turtle on the cover of Arts. (Side note – that turtle has an actual name and that name is Tippy.) I am keeping one of the drawings because it was a drawing of a turtle vomiting at the site of my genitals which seemed important. But the other four turtles are now for sale with the zine! So get your own Penelope Gazin drawing now! Do it!

Lastly, tonight my Dolphins are playing in their first and only Monday Night Football game of the year. Seemed like a perfect occasion to debut the video from the 2015 #MetLifeTakeover. The Takeover is a massive tailgate party/group trip that my club Dolfans NYC organizes to MetLife Stadium when the Dolphins come up to play the Jets.

The game went very poorly for the Dolphins but we threw a hell of a party! We had  nearly 1000 people go with us and had a huge tailgate with live music, catered food and free drinks thanks to Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, Sailor Jerry rum and AquaHydrate water. We had the CEO and Vice-President of the Dolphins stop by the tailgate and even Ace Ventura showed up! Check out the video!

I love bartering for stuff. I try and do a lot of print trades and things like that to collect my friends art and I certainly love trading photo work for tattoos. At least a quarter of my tattoos have come from trading photo work for them so when tattoo artist Amy Shapiro asked me to photograph her band for a tattoo I was totally psyched.

Unfortunately by the time Amy actually tattooed me she was no longer in the band. The tattoo also took much longer than the photo shoot did so I told her I owed her some more photos. A couple months ago Amy reached out to me saying she needed some press photos. I was working on my new “Arts” zine at the time and it seemed like a perfect reason to head over to Amy’s studio and get a portrait for my zine while at the same time helping Amy out with some press photos. Everyone wins.

I also though these photos would be a great opportunity to promote the Arts zine that Amy is in and all these other amazing artists are in and you should fucking order it right god damn now.

Also, you should go get a tattoo from Amy at Three Kings Tattoo because he rules and Three Kings rules and yeah.. do it.

Now click here to look at some photos of Amy Shapiro looking adorable as per always.

Last night I shot a new party for my friend Andrea Grant. She is a talented writer, total babe and gives me work a couple times a year so I am a big fan of her existence. She helped start an art, music and poetry collective called The Mixed Media Method and last night they threw their first event at Le Poisson Rouge.

Andrea got things started off with a poetry reading and then Canadian singer/songwriter Apryll Aileen played some songs that were real pretty and then this kinda great Russian band called Mad Meg played. I can’t really explain them but I was real into it. Kinda reminded me of some weird mix between Nick Cave and Gogol Bordello which maybe doesn’t make sense at all. Alycia Mayhew was the headliner and it was a CD release party for her new album “Letting Go”. I unfortunately had to go throw an event for a football team that got fucking embarrassed on national TV so I missed her performance but I showed up a bit early and took some shots of her sound checking and she sounded great.

On top of all the live music Ian Slarsky did blind contour portraits of people all night and DJ Ivan played music between bands. Between Ian and Ivan and Igor (me) there was a lot of name related confusion but we all did our jobs anyway. Rebecca Larson hosted the whole thing too so that’s important and stuff.

And thus ends another weird event write up. I think it’s time you go look at pictures.

Click here to see all the photos from the first ever The Mixed Media Method party at Le Poisson Rouge.

On November 7th the Zine Friends zine fair returns to Cotton Candy Machine in Brooklyn and this time I am gonna be part of it. I covered the last Zine Friends and this time they asked me to be a part of it. I had a great time and bought some cool stuff but I am a photographer and nearly everyone else involved is some sort of drawers or somethin’. I figured I would have to come up with something special for the fest.

So I bring you “Arts’ a zine about people who draw real good. I photographed nearly 20 of my artist friends on black and white 35mm film and then got them to send me art of theirs for my first really collaborative project. It’s got art and portraits from tattoo artists, graffiti artists, painters, illustrators and cartoonists. It was a lot of fun to shoot and put together.

The zine is limited to 150 copies and is only $10! It comes out at the fair on November 7th but you can pre-order it now. You can also get a copy with a 5″x7″ print of your choice of artists which might be cool if you were into one of these artists.

Also, unrelated to the zine I put together some grab bags on my Etsy store featuring a DBB tote bag, shot glass, some stickers and buttons and your choice of signed zines. So perhaps if you wanna get a copy of “Arts’ you could get a bunch more stuff for just $15 more.

Lastly, here’s a list of the artists:

Buff Monster, Molly Crabapple, Matt Crabe, DAZE, Day By Day, Blanda Eggenschwiler, ELLE, Erik Foss, Nicholas Gazin, Penelope Gazin, Lamour Supreme, Sheila Marcello, Eddy Segal, Amy Shapiro, Minka Sicklinger, SMURFO, Nate Turbow & Wizard Skull!

Now go get your hands on a copy!

When I was in Vegas for the AVN Awards back in January James Deen spent most of the time talking about kittens and showing people kittens on his phone and asking people to see photos of kittens on their phones. I am super allergic to cats so I don’t really love kittens but I did rescue some kittens nearly exactly five years ago. I did an adorable photo shoot with them before finding them homes. I told James I would send him a print of Maven hanging out with a 40oz of Miller Highlife and when I made the print I ended up making like 10 of them because the internet loves cats and maybe the internet would give me money in exchange for cats.

Then of course I forgot about all of that and these kitty prints sat in a print drawer. Then this really fun thing happened where I remembered I owe the state of Delaware some money since my business is registered there because all businesses are registered there cause their taxes rule. Anyway, I figured this was as good of reason as any to sell you some cats.

I also had some prints of Annalee Belle left over from the fundraiser for my sold out Route 66 book “Get Your Kicks”. I decided I would put them up as well. I also lowered the price on prints of Veruca James in a swimming pool and my friend Tine when I stopped by Charlotte, NC a few years ago on a road trip. Plus I added the option to buy any of the prints in 16″x”20 although that will take a little longer because I would have to get them printed.

So yeah, there are now four $40 prints in my Etsy shop, plus a bunch of newish Polaroids and my books and zines and other fun stuff. There’s only one more copy of Fuck LA signed by April O’Neil so you might wanna get on that ASAP.

Long story short, give me some money so I can give it to Delaware. Thanks!