Donald Glover

A month ago I was a pretty big fan of the TV show Community.  Today I am a pretty big fan of one of Community’s stars Donald Glover. I didn’t really know anything about Donald Glover other than he and his partner in crime on the show (Abed, played by Danny Pudi) were my favorite parts of the show, which is impressive since the show features Chevy Chase and the always hilarious Dr. turned comedians Ken Jeong.  But while I was at SXSW I was asked by the web editor of Village Voice Media if I could take some photos of Donald for a story he was doing on him.

The story was on Donald’s versatility. Not only does Donald do stand up and act, but it turns out he is actually rapper that goes by the name Childish Gambino. When I found out I was going to be shooting him I googled him and listened to a song real quick. I thought it was entertaining enough. I also found out he was one of the main guys in Derrick Comedy a web video comedy team who’s videos I am sure you have seen.

So I headed down to the Austin Music Hall a few hours before Donald was hosting MTV U Woodie Awards there. The original idea was that I was going to shoot him getting ready for the show or something but when I got there I found out that I had 15 minutes to shoot him outside.  It was super bright out and I had no location so we walked around for a bit and couldn’t find anything good. They told me that I should go find a location and that we could try to shoot again right before the show if I was willing to come back. I told them that would work but I wanted to get some shots just incase so we shot for about 3 minutes up against a fence and then up against a truck. They weren’t very inspired but I figured I would get another chance.

Unfortunately they got behind with the Woodies and I didn’t get to shoot him that day, but he showed up to the Village Voice Media music party and I ran into him back stage. He and Danny Pudi spent like 20 minutes looking at the photos on my iPad and we hung out by Wu Tang’s dressing room talked about shooting again in a few days.  Both of the guys seemed like rad dudes. Plus I got to see Childish Gambino live and he absolutely killed it. Seriously, he was amazing. I was not prepared for that.

A few days later Donald had this comedy show at SXSW and I was going to meet up with him before it. Unfortunately I didn’t get there in time to shoot again but we made plans to meet up later to shoot. Unfortunately that didn’t happen either.  Luckily he was going to be in NYC and it was looking like this article was going to be for the cover of the Village Voice and I might get to shoot it.  Again, luck was not on my side and the art director of the Voice wanted studio shots which is not what I do.  All of this was a bummer.

Now all that aside it turned out to be a good experience anyway.  First of all, Bill Jensen’s cover on Donald came out today and it is really great and they used a few of my photos. You need to read it now. Secondly, I got turned on to Childish Gambino. I understand why he goes by the pseudonym. If you hear about a comedy rapper you might think it’s a joke, but Childish is seriously awesome.  Download his free EP now. Thirdly, Donald and Danny both said they will let me shoot them in the future which should be fun, plus Donald might by a photo from me which I cannot complain about, and lastly and most importantly the shots I took came out pretty great and that is the whole point of this damn post.

Click here to see all my shots of Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino.

Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino

Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino

Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino

Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino

Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino

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The Return Of Carter Cruise

Carter Cruise is one of my favorite people. I have taken her photo a bunch of times and she DJ’d my book release party in LA and she bought us matching tattoos for my birthday 5 years ago and the first time we ever hung out was at Donald Glover’s Super Bowl party and the goddamn Seahawks blew the game. What are you doing Pete? You have god damn Marshawn Lynch and you are gonna fucking pass the ball from the 1? Sorry, still pissed off about that one. What was I talking about?

Oh yeah Carter rules and she let me shoot nudes of her even though she is pretty much done with the whole being naked on the internets thing and I really appreciate her for that. She also signed a bunch of Instax for me for Kickstarter prizes for a Kickstarter that never happened cause of the fucking coronavirus. It will probably happen one day in the future but I didn’t really feel like trying to convince people to buy a book when everyone was unemployed.

Speaking of convincing people to give me money while they are unemployed this whole shoot is available in high resolution on Girls of Driven By Boredom and has a bunch of full nudes that are exclusive just to that site. You can still see a bunch of photos of her topless on here because I still love you even if you don’t help me pay my rent. There is also a short video of her on my OnlyFans today that has no actual nudity in it, but a couple weeks ago I posted a video from the day we got matching tattoos and she shows off her tattoo and her brand new nipple rings which she still has and was wearing in this shoot 5 years later! Okay enough, promotion. Moving on. 

Just want to give a huge shout out to my brother’s girlfriend Lauren who not only let me take these photos in her apartment but also let me stay there for a few days when I was in LA back in January. She had just moved in with my brother and she hadn’t rented out her place yet so I got to stay there which was fucking awesome because hotels in LA are unreasonably expensive. 

Okay this was super rambling but I really like these photos so hopefully you do to and can’t wait until coronavirus is over so I can go to LA and hang out with Carter and her super rad (and also very hot) roommate who let me take photos of her too but they are just on Girls of DBB because she didn’t want to be naked on the free internet which seems totally reasonable to me. They also just started a clothing company together and they have a pool which I want to be in right now. Oh fuck the paragraph apologizing for the rambling and trying to wrap things up got super rambling. There is only one thing to do now. Go look at the pictures!

Click here to see my latest shoot with the fantastic Carter Cruise!

Carter Cruise

Carter Cruise

Carter Cruise

Carter Cruise

Carter Cruise

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Best Of 2012

In my last update I talked about how I had three girl gallery updates for you this week, but I also mentioned I had finished going through every photo I took in 2012. I also looked at my calendar and realized that Thursday is March 1st, which means that my website is turning 17 this week. In celebration I decided to do a post every day this week. We have the three girl galleries on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but we also will have an anniversary post on Thursday and I decided that today would be the perfect day to put up a gallery of my favorite photos from 2012.

I have done galleries like this before. Here are links to the best of 2009, the best of 2010 and the best of 2011. Hopefully the best of 2013 will be coming soon as well. So far I’ve made it to to June. This one should be pretty good.

2012 was an interesting year. It was sort of a turning point in my career. I was still shooting a ton of nightlife but I was dating someone who lived in LA so I was out there a lot shooting naked women and things like that. I did my first solo photo show in 2012 and I shot my first Village Voice cover. I had some pretty cool opportunities shooting movie posters for Red Flag and The Yes Men Are Revolting and I had a ton of fun shooting music festivals like SXSW, Pitchfork and Musink.

2012 also had some disappointments. The second Vice Dos and Don’ts book came out and I had more than 70 photos in the book but they somehow forgot to credit me. They were really apologetic and I basically came up with an agreement with them that they would start letting me shoot actual documentary work for them. I ended up going to Puerto Rico to do a story on cockfighting. It’s probably some of the best work I have ever done but when I got home my editor had vanished. I don’t want to say too much but not only did the story never get published but I also didn’t end up shooting anything for Vice again for several years.

I also got to do a story on Hurricane Sandy for Gawker. I went with a Gawker writer to Breezy Point and Rockaway Beach and looked at the devastation and recovery effort after the storm. It was and incredible, heartbreaking trip and I came back with some work that I was really proud of. Unfortunately right around that a certain sex tape was published that ultimately led to the end of Gakwer as a website. My editor left shortly after and the work was never published (amazingly I finally got paid for it in 2016!)

I did some other proper journalism in 2012 as well. During Hurricane Sandy I actually walked over the Williamsburg Bridge and photographed a flooded Lower East Side in the middle of the storm. I covered the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, took a bunch of photos at the NFL Draft and went to both the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest AND the after party.  I covered a bunch of conventions including NYC Comic Con, a couple tattoo conventions, Exxxotica Chicago and of course the Adult Entertainment Expo.

I shot a bunch of “celebrity” stuff in 2012. I shot celebrity portraits at SXSW, I photographed Hannibal Buress’ 30th birthday party for him, I photographed backstage at the MTV Woodie Awards and I spent the day shooting Donald Glover when Childish Gambino played the Brooklyn Bandshell. I got to shoot Alec Baldwin doing stuff twice for NYU and I photographed that dude from that band Orgy hanging out in a playground.

I am gonna stop now but shout out to Sailor Jerry and the Village Voice who were by far my best clients back then and I should of course mention that there’s a ton of NSFW stuff in this gallery. I shot a TON of porn stars in 2012 including this great shoot with my girlfriend at the Salton Sea, the first time I ever shot my pal Lily LaBeau and one of my favorite shoots ever with Dana DeArmond. Okay, seriously I am gonna wrap this up now, but did I mention that the Voice made me photograph One Direction? Hilarious.

Click here to see all my best photos from 2012!

PS. I should mention that there are no photos from the 2012 Gathering of the Juggalos because I am working on a juggalo book so all those photos ended up in their own folder and I forgot to add them to this gallery.

Aubrey Plaza

Breezy Point After Hurricane Sandy

One Direction

Dana DeArmond

ASAP Rocky

Skrillex & Steve Aoki At The MTvU Woodie Awards

Cock Fighting In Pureto Rico

Hurricane Sandy Sonya Thomas

Donald Glover, Wyatt Cenac, Hannibal Buress & Aziz Ansari

Occupy Wall Street

 

 

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Best Of 2011

For a while I was spending hours a day going through every photo I have ever taken but at some point I stopped. I think I just got busy or something but the other day I started the project up again. The idea is to pull all my favorite images of all time into one place so it’s easier to find stuff and easier to put together some sort of portfolio page which I don’t actually have. I finally finished 2011 so I wanted to give you guys some of the highlights.

2011 was a good year. It was the first year I started working for Sailor Jerry and I got to shoot a bunch of fun stuff for them back when we were doing music festivals almost every weekend it seems. Lolapalooza, Fun Fun Fun and Voodoo Fest were some of the highlights. I had a Ryan Gosling/ Big Freedia photo go viral at Fun Fun Fun and an Odd Future set at Voodoo made national news after they attacked some photographers and I decided to defend them.

Lots of other great festivals that year including the first Four Knots festival, Mad Decent Block Party and of course SXSW. I photographed an Insane Clown Posse cruise and went to the Kentucky Derby with Prince Terry & Dances With White Girls. I was on stage for Wu-Tang and shot Slayer for the first time and spent more time with Major Lazer, TV On The Radio and the Black Lips than is reasonable. I shot Nicki Minaj and Britney Spears and I even shot a Sweet 16 party that Usher showed up at.

2011 was the year of Occupy Wall Street and I photographed the party at Ground Zero when Osama Bin Laden was finally killed.

I went on a cross country road trip with someone I had met twice. I photographed the woman that I would date for two years for the first time. I started a punk band and photographed babes in our t-shirts. I went to Art Basel and the AVN Awards and photographed a ton of naked women everywhere.

Honestly I am getting bored of writing this but there are a lot of celebrities and naked people and the general madness you might expect from my blog. Just go look at the pictures. There are a LOT of them. NSFW obviously.

Click here to see the huge gallery from the best of 2011!

Ryan Gosling & Big Freedia

Odd Future

Jessie Andrews

Blake Anderson & Donald Glover

The Big Four

Snoop Dogg

Kentucky Derby

Major Lazer

Whitney For Mishka

Pharrell & Michael Rapaport

Britney Spears

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Carter Cruise

Let’s start off NSFW week with a good one! We will have a new girl post every day this week starting with the amazing Carter Cruise!

When Carter Cruise won Best New Starlet at the 2015 AVN Awards I was outside talking to a super hot cam girl instead of doing my job. I had honestly never heard of her before then but she cleaned up at the AVNs and XBiz and she happens to be represented by porn’s best agent and world’s most photogenic human Mark Spiegler. Clearly I needed to know who she was and when I googled her I noticed she was following me on Twitter. I immediately hit her up to let her know I would be in LA the following week and that if she wanted to take photos I would be very into it.

Carter was busy the whole time I was in LA except for my very last night in town which also happened to be the night of the Super Bowl. I had her meet me at Donald Glover’s Super Bowl party because I wanted to see if I could make this post extra name droppy and then we went back to my super creepy hotel room (where I had already shot Amarna Miller & Silvia Rubi) and took a bunch of photos.

I was in a horrible mood because the cheating sacks of skin and garbage known as the New England Patriots had just won the Super Bowl but Carter fucking rules and the shoot a blast. She was just laughing the whole time so I took really fun photos of her losing her shit and making dumb faces and just being a super hot babe to the max.

After the shoot we went over to Janice Griffith and Alison Faye’s apartment for some reason and I took a hand full of naked photos of the three of them because that seems like the right thing to do and then we went over to the Ace Hotel for an LA Art Book Fair after party.

By the end of the night Carter and I had become bffs and we decided we would get NSFW tattoos together. I had a flight in a few hours so the tattoos would have to wait, but  last week Carter was in New York and we got tattooed together! I actually spent my whole 35th birthday with her which was great cause as I mentioned she is awesome and hanging out with a really hot naked 20 something is the perfect cure for feeling old as fuck.

In conclusion, Carter rules, she’s really hot and these photos are fucking fun (and not at all color balanced). On top of the photos here we took another 20 or so kinda pervy photos that if you are into that kinda thing you should totally look at over at Girls of Driven By Boredom. And you get 20% off using the code “nsfwweek” in celebration of this amazing week of naked babes. Get on it!

Now click here to see all the naked photos of Carter Cruise!

Carter Cruise

Carter Cruise

Carter Cruise

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San Francisco Vs Driven By Boredom

I spent another day in LA and I ended up shooting Arabelle Raphael in her new messy apartment, meeting up with Ash Hollywood and Charlotte Stokely to do post road trip interviews for the web series I am working on, and then I ran over to Donald Glover’s place where he was working on the new Childish Gambino album. I love all four of those people so it was awesome to see all of them again, especially Arabelle’s boobs. They are awesome.

The next day I headed off to San Francisco. I had never been there before and I was pretty excited about it but I was quickly turned against the city. My first night there I had plans to meet up with two people who both blew me off. I ended up in the Castro at three in the morning eating pancakes across from some friendly gay dudes, but it was not exactly how I wanted to spend my first night in SF.

The next day I had four shoots booked including a 10:30am shoot with Dylan Ryan. I wasn’t super happy about the timing and Dylan’s schedule opened up so we moved it to later in the day. Perfect, I could sleep in. Unfortunately I hadn’t heard from my noon shoot so I woke up early anyway to text her. Evidently she got in a fight the night before and might have to go to the hospital. She said she could probably shoot anyway but then I never heard from her again. I was supposed to shoot with Krysta Kaos at six but she texted me saying she was sick. Two shoots down already. My Bay Area anger was rising.

My next shoot was with Finch Linden but it turns out it takes a fucking hour to get from where I was staying in Berkley to San Francisco because everyone in the Bay Area drives well below the speed limit because they are fucking slow moving hippie assholes. I ended up being super late for the shoot and ready to poison all the US granola reserves. Fortunately Finch Linden was all ready for me and had a well lit apartment to shoot in. I shot Finch naked in public in Brooklyn and I was psyched to get to shoot her again but I had to do the whole shoot in 15 minutes before a bunch of her friends came over for a game of Dungeons and Dragons. Party forever.

After my shoot with Finch I texted Dylan and she was only a few blocks a way and on her way to shoot with me. I loved shooting Dylan the first time we shot and I was really excited to see her again. We bonded in a tattoo shop in Austin a couple years ago but I hadn’t seen her since. As I was waiting, I suddenly got a text from Dylan. She had been in a car accident. She was thankfully fine  and it was the other drivers fault, but she had to deal with the police and get her car towed and suddenly three of my four shoots had been canceled and one was tragically cut short by slow drivers and dungeon masters. I had lost my mind.

I just sat in my car with no idea what to do and was sort of just seething, ready to kill the next person I saw wearing sandals or a tie dyed t-shirt. I drove around Mission Hill to check out the view and kill time until I figured out what the fuck I was supposed to do. Suddenly I got a call from Krysta Kaos. She was off work and Theresa Manchester had randomly shown up at her work. What were the chances? I guilt tripped her about flaking on me (We had previously tried to shoot in Vegas, LA and NYC and every time something came up) and she told me to just come out and we would see what happened. I drove out to Oakland and suddenly as I drove over the bridge my luck started to change.

When I got to Krysta’s work she was missing and didn’t pick up when I called her. I was about to lose my mind when I got a hold of Theresa. Evidently they had all gone to let out Krysta’s dog and she grabbed a change of clothes and was down to shoot with me. I interviewed Theresa about my day in St. Louis with her for my web series while Krysta changed and then we went back to her place for a shoot. Krysta fucking killed it and we shot pretty much inside a billboard on her roof. The photos turned out pretty fucking amazing and the whole thing only took 20 minutes. I was so pumped to get to shoot with her after all this time and to have the shots come out so well.

At this point Tori Lux showed up. I had talked to her earlier and she was going to meet and try to shoot with Krysta but she didn’t make it in time. Krysta had to bounce so Tori and I went to her place, shot in her back yard and then ate some delicious foods at some random diner in Oakland. So suddenly I had photographed three girls in one day and was feeling pretty good about things. I also ran into Roxy Rage at Krysta’s work. I had met Roxy with the Bombshell Brats at a Philly tattoo convention and a photo of her Slayer butt tattoo became one of my most popular Tumblr posts of all time. She had moved to Oakland and was down to shoot when she got off work.

I killed time with Tori until Roxy got off work and we ended up at some super weird Oakland bars and I decided that while I might hate Berkley and San Francisco, Oakland seems like my kinda town. I met up with Roxy and I shot a bunch of 35mm photos of her. I didn’t shoot any digital shots and I am not even sure why at this point, but whatever the case they will be developed at some point and that will be exciting or something. Sorry this is getting so long.

The next morning I decided that instead of going 9 hours north to Portland I would just start moving towards Chicago. I need to be there on Friday so I decided to get a head start. I drove 12 hours to Salt Lake City where I am now. I have no plans on doing anything but sleeping in this town and then getting the fuck on. Gonna try to hit Denver tomorrow and see an old friend or two and then keep it moving. I probably won’t have anything exciting for you guys until I get back to Chicago. Until then, here are some NSFW photos. Enjoy.

Ps. Don’t forget about my sexy mobile app!

(Read the article)

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Models & Rappers Interview

My friend Ibra Ake interviewed me for his website Models and Rappers. I realize I am neither a model or a rapper, but I guess since I take photos of models and rappers that I am somehow relevant to his blog. I met Ibra at a hotel party thrown by comedian/rapper Donald Glover. Ibra is Donald’s friend/photographer/designer and Donald had showed Ibra my work. Ibra was psyched on my photography, which normally makes me uncomfortable but Ibra is a fantastic photographer himself so it was great to meet him. Anyway, Ibra started this site a few months ago and has been interviewing a ton of people so clearly you should check his site out, but more importantly you should check out his interview with me, because I am awesome.

Ibra came over and he asked me about my favorite clients, best advice I had received and we talked about the positives and negatives of shooting naked girls. I showed Ibra my infamous nude Polaroid collection and pulled out some prints for him to look through. Ibra turned the whole thing into a pretty awesome interview with me. I sent him a bunch of random photos that I had high res shots of laying around so they aren’t exactly the most relevant images to the interview, but there is some new shots that no one has ever seen before in there as well.

So check out the NSFW video below and read Ibra’s actual post because it has a nice write up to go along with it. I particularly like this part:

“Igor makes it a point to take pictures everywhere, whether he’s getting paid to or not. After looking through the massive collection of outrageous images he keeps at his apartment, I realized he’s on to something: The more you shoot, the more likely you are to get interesting shots. It’s kind of obvious, but it’s a good reminder for all aspiring photographers.”

I only really have three points of advice for anyone who wants to be a photographer. Shoot photos all the time, develop a personal style and don’t work for free. I will be billing you for that. Thank you and goodnight.

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Childish Gambino – 6.26.12

Childish Gambino played the Prospect Park Bandshell yesterday. It was the second of two huge outdoor NYC gigs. Monday’s show was in Central Park. Over the last year or so have become pretty good friends with Donald Glover and the whole Childish crew and they are honestly all really rad dudes. Seeing them kill it in front of such a huge crowd was really awesome. Plus I had great access to the show so I got some nice live shots and some pretty fun backstage stuff.

When I walked in fellow photographer and Donald’s right hand man Ibra Ake was trying to get the proper credentials to bring me and two other girls backstage. The three of us ended up in this little VIP area for a bit and I ended up hanging out with them most of the night. One of those girls happened to be Gabourey Sidibe who you might know from her Academy Award nominated starring role in the movie Precious. Her and her friend were rad people. Actually pretty much everyone hanging out in the Childish dressing room seemed to be good peoples. No rockstar bullshit in that crowd.

Anyway, the show was a lot of fun and I got some rad pictures. Kilo Kish and Donald’s brother Steve G. Lover came out during the encore and killed it. Evidently they had some more fun stuff planned but their set went over and they got cut short. After the dressing room got really wild with fresh pomegranate seeds and working out with medicine balls. Crazy shit.

Click here to see all the pictures from the Childish Gambino show at the Prospect Park Bandshell.

Ps. If you look closely in one of the pictures you can see Ibra & Donald working on the cover to the Royalty mix tape that drops next week. How’s that for some secret exclusive shit…

Childish Gambino @ Prospect Park Bandshell

Childish Gambino @ Prospect Park Bandshell

Childish Gambino @ Prospect Park Bandshell

Gabourey Sidibe

Childish Gambino @ Prospect Park Bandshell

Kilo Kish

Childish Gambino @ Prospect Park Bandshell

Childish Gambino @ Prospect Park Bandshell

Childish Gambino & Steve G. Lover

Childish Gambino @ Prospect Park Bandshell

Childish Gambino @ Prospect Park Bandshell

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Hannibal Buress Animal Furnace Party – 5.20.12

Sunday night Comedy Central premiered Hannibal Buress’ first hour long stand up special “Hannibal Buress Animal Furnace”. Hannibal decided to throw a party at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn to celebrate the special.

The sold out party opened up with Hannibal hosting an amazing stand up show. Amy Schumer opened up and although I had never seen her before she absolutely killed it. My boy Donald Glover went on after her and did what he said was his first stand up set in like nine months. He was brilliant as always and talked a little about his role on season two of Girls.  I mention this only so I can plug my cameo on Girls next episode. I play “Mustache Guy”. Get excited. After Donald Morgan Murphy came up and I have had a fake crush on her for like the last 7 years. I saw her about a month before I moved to NYC and I’ve run into her a half dozen times since and she is always fucking hilarious. Aziz Ansari headlined the comedy show and proved why he is one of the biggest comedians to come out of the NYC downtown comedy scene. Years ago, before Aziz was on TV or hanging with Kanye I think a lot of people knew he was going to make it. He would kill it every time he hit the stage and I think he’s only gotten better and better. I was close to crying during his set.

After the comedy show Hannibal showed a documentary he made leading up the taping of his special. I was running around a little bit while they showed it but the parts I saw were funny and at times touching. The documentary is a special feature of the Animal Furnace DVD and is going to be available online.  After the documentary screened Hannibal finally played his Comedy Central special. Hannibal is one of the funniest comics in New York and Animal Furnace was fantastic. People had been standing up for hours before the special even started and everyone was glued to the screen watching and laughing their asses off.

Sunday just happened to be the premier of The Eric Andrew Show on Adult Swim as well and Hannibal is the co-host so at 12:30am he played that live. Adult Swim is known for their insane programing but the Eric Andrew show is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen. It reminds me of the Tom Green Show before Tom Green was om MTV. It is filmed like a cable access show and is bizarrely funny.

Lastly the homies Ninjasonik closed out the night with a live performance. Most people there came to see comedy and had been standing up for nearly five hours and bounced before the Ninjas went on but there was still a good group of friends and fans left and they put on a great show with guest  spots from Johnny Nelson and Starcity.

Overall I cannot tell you how psyched I was that Hannibal thought of me to shoot his party. He even tipped me (he was possibly drunk) but I would have shot this show for free. Despite it being a really long night it was one of the better events I have been to this year. So go buy Hannibal’s awkwardly named special or just watch it however one might go about doing such a thing. I assure you it is funny.

Now click here to see all the pictures from Hannibal Buress’ Animal Furnace premiere party at the Knitting Factory.

Hannibal Buress Animal Furnace

Donald Glover, Wyatt Cynac, Hannibal Buress and Aziz Ansari

Amy Schumer

Donald Glover

Hannibal Buress Animal Furnace

Morgan Murphy

Aziz Ansari

Ninjasonik

Matt & Kim Showed Up

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