As we speak (or as I type) I am on an airplane headed to Austin, Texas on my way to South By Southwest. This is not just any SXSW for me; it is my 10th straight SXSW. I started out traveling to Austin when I managed a dance pop band called The Gaskets. After the Gaskets broke up I started going as a member of the media, covering it for the last six years with a camera in hand. This year I am going to be EXTREMELY busy and I will be on the road for at least two weeks. I have a feeling that I won’t be able to update this site as much as I would like to so I wanted to put this post up. I WILL be updating my Twitter, Instagram and most importantly my Tumblr. I will be posting highlights from every day on Tumblr so check over there if I am slow to update this site.

Anyway, in honor of my 10th at SXSW I wanted to give you a little break down of some of the highlights of the last 10 years. Austin is crawling with musicians and celebrities so this list is going to sound a little (okay, a lot) name droppy, so I apologize for that in advance. Just don’t read it if that sort of thing is as grating to you as it is to most people. I am going to include some links and photos to keep you guys entertained while I am busy taking photos 14 hours a day. And if you are going to be in Texas over the next two weeks hit me up! See you guys in a food truck line! (Read the article)

12 years ago today I launched Driven By Boredom into the world wide internets. I was in my second and last year at the Penn State University. I hated it. I had a girlfriend who lived 6 hours away, I was a punk rock kid in a town with no punk scene and I was a straight edge kid at a frat filled party school. The year before I had started a party photo website that ended up being so successful that I had become a minor celebrity on campus which I hated. Being stopped by frat dudes at 8am on the way to class was a nightmare. I quit the blog and spent most of my time in my dorm room playing on the internet.

I was so bored at school. I barely did any school work and as I mentioned I didn’t have much of a social life. In high school I ran a record label, a magazine, played sports and got in trouble with my insane friends. I was constantly busy so being bored was something I wasn’t that used to. I hated it so I started coming up with projects to kill time. I was making stupid videos and I was selling weird fake shit on eBay and I was making horrible music on my computer.  I was always taking photos but emailing them to my friends was getting to be a pain. I needed a place for all these projects and a site to host my photography. My brother had a website and he had found a little community of webmasters who ran what they called “E/N” sites. E/N stood for Everything/Nothing. They were the first blog sites and I decided to create my own.

I decided on Driven By Boredom because it was quickly becoming my motto. I always needed something to fill my free time so I wouldn’t be bored. Everything from starting a record label to selling trash on eBay was all driven by a fear of being bored. For a while I had an idea of getting a tattoo that read Driven By Boredom and it eventually became not only a tattoo but an early logo for my website.

The site got very popular very quickly. It was a mix of a few projects that went viral and convincing fans of my site to send me photos of their boobs with BORED written on them. Tits = hits was an early motto of the internet and even back then my site was known for the nudity, even if I wasn’t even taking the photos. By 2002 I was getting thousands of visitors a day which in those days would have been like hundreds of thousands. The site now gets more that twice the traffic that the old site ever got, but I don’t get a 10th of the fan/hate mail that I did back then. It was a really amazing experience.

Unfortunately I made a huge mistake of letting a friend of a friend host my website. He disappeared from the internet one day and my site was down for almost two months while I had to rebuild the site almost from scratch. I had to get a new design and although I managed to recover most of my content that was backed up on my hard drive I lost a lot of stuff and a LOT of traffic. My site never really recovered. I kept blogging but it wasn’t as much fun and I was just constantly angry about it. I started blogging less and less and in 2004 I started managing a band called The Gaskets. I put so much effort into the Gaskets that by 2005 the site was pretty much just an advertisement for them and I only updated like once every three months.

I tried to revive Driven By Boredom once using Blogspot, but I gave up on that quickly. In September of 2006 I moved to New York and started going to a lot of dance parties. I bring a camera with me everywhere I go and so I started taking photos at these parties. Last Nights Party and the Cobrasnake had just blown up and everyone was asking me what website I posted my party photos on. I had met Cobrasnake years earlier back when he was doing Polaroid Scene and I didn’t really get it, despite running a successful party photo site in 2000, but by the time I moved to NYC it was pretty oblivious how popular party photography was.

I decided to bring Driven By Boredom back from the dead and started posting terrible photos on it because I was just fucking around. I think that was probably a mistake because by the time I started making a little bit of money and taking party photography seriously I think I had a reputation as a shitty photographer. I remember people being shocked when they would see my (good) photos after not seing my site for a while. I was a pretty good photographer back in 2006/07 but I just didn’t care about party photos.  Even though I take it seriously now, as it pays my rent, I still think party photos are bullshit and it slowly eats at me, but that’s a story for another time.

So yeah, I started bringing my real camera into clubs and then I started bringing my flash into clubs and I started hustling. My internet skills plus my old fan base plus naked girls plus me covering all of NYC south of 14th St with stickers added up to Driven By Boredom getting very well known, very quickly. A year after I moved to NYC I quit my job and started running the site full time. After 8 months I ran out of money and had to get a job again, but in December of 2008 I was laid off from that job after the economy tanked. I happened to book two big gigs in January of 2009 and I never looked back. It’s been more than 4 years of doing this site for a living and DBB has come a long way since 2001.

DBB 4.0 is on it’s way and when the new site drops there are going to be a lot of changes. Personally I can’t wait but I don’t have much of a choice since the two people building my site have full time jobs and I am paying them about a 1/100th of their normal rate. But by the DBB 13th anniversary things should be a lot different around here. I just hope the next 12 years are as fun as the last 12 years. See you guys in 2025.

Hey guys. I hope you are having some sort of fun today. Hopefully you are getting free things and hanging out with people you love or you are eating Chinese food and watching movies or are just not killing yourself. Whatever you do today just know that I don’t wish any specific harm on you this holiday season. Gonna make this quick today but I will be back this week to bring you some random nudity and to plug the New Years Eve event I am doing. Until then I just wanted to drop this Christmasy photo of the babelicious Amy Rose. We shot some insane photo set involving 100 hamburgers and a heart shaped bath tub so you have that to look forward to in 2013. Thanks Santa the Mayans were wrong.  Merry Xmas kids.

Tis the season for giving, and I give you guys a lot. Yeah, I make money doing the nightlife and I make some money in advertizing but most of the naked girls and the crazy adventuring I do for the love of it. In the last year I have been working less and trying to focus on a few projects. I am redoing the site, working on my first photo book, working on a series of food related zines, adding a video component to DBB and shooting as many naked girls as possible. All of this stuff is going to be awesome, but none of it is making any money. I am of course working enough to pay my rent and get by and everything is good as far as that stuff goes, BUT I want to be shooting more film and doing more stuff to make this site, and my Tumblr, more awesome.

So I came up with an idea. I always see these cam girls and porn stars with wish lists and I figured if dudes will buy them stuff maybe I can get dudes to buy me stuff. But I don’t want underwear or books or DVDs, I want supplies so I can keep making rad stuff for this site. I also figured that you should get something back for your rad donation.

So here’s the deal: I set up an Amazon wishlist and  if you buy something on it, you get something back.  If you buy me some Polaroid film, you get a naked girl Polaroid signed by both me and the naked girl. If you buy me some 35mm film you get a signed 8×10 35mm print. You can pick if you want a naked girl or not. You don’t get to pick the actual photo but you can at least sugest what kind of image you want.  If you buy me a box of 5 Hour Energy I will give you a digital print I guess. That seems to make sense somehow.

So yeah, buy this website a present, I will keep working on great content and you guys will get some “art”. Seems like a good idea right? Oh, and don’t forget… Driven By Boredom has a store now!  More on that later…

Ps. No DBB Christmas cards this year unfortunately but if you buy something I will send you an old one!

It’s New Years Eve and we are all about to be partying and what not like we all do at  this time of year but I wanted to look back on the year and talk about three things that really made a difference in my life in 2011 and I am looking forward to them still being a big part of my 2012. 2011 was a pretty great year for me and I hope 2012 is even better for me and you and everyone who reads this damn website.  Thanks for paying attention.

1) Fucking Bullshit

I worked in some way with music for most of my life. When I was 15 I started a zine and shortly after founded a record label. I started booking shows and taking photos of bands. Later in life I managed a band for 5 years, I started booking dance parties and went on tour with bands and DJ’s and even worked in the studio with bands. I did everything you could imagine except be in a band. And like every single person who works in music all I really wanted to do was be in a band.  Finally in 2011 I got my chance and I started my punk rock cover band Fucking Bullshit and we are somehow way better than we ever should have been and it’s more fun than I ever thought it would be.  We get the New Years started with a bang with our next free show January 5th at Don Pedro’s in Brooklyn. Come see us!

2) Dolfans NYC

I have been running the New York City Miami Dolphins fan club for a few years but this year I think we really established ourselves. Even though the Dolphins have sucked we have had a big group at our bar, Third & Long, every single week. We brought a HUGE group to the Meadowlands for Jets and Giants games and we are starting to be taken very seriously by the Miami Dolphins organization. Their Weekly TV show did an interview with us and we have had more and more contact with the team. 2012 seems like it is going to be even bigger for us as we are helping to promote the 40th Anniversary reunion of the 1972 undefeated Dolphins team in North Jersey. If the Dolphins ever started wining some games we would be in Phin Heaven.

3) Travel

2011 was amazing for me as far as adventuring is concerned. The year started off with a trip to LA and Vegas and then my yearly trip to SXSW but this year really got crazy when I went back to LA and ended up driving across the country. I ended up being out of town for 28 days and I did almost no actual paid work and was living on savings and ad money. Fortunately when I got back in NYC I met the Sailor Jerry Rum PR girl Dana Dynamite who over the last six months has become a great friend and Sailor Jerry has hired me to work Lolapalooza and then Voodoo Fest in New Orleans and then Fun Fun Fun in Austin and even Art Basel in Miami. Even though I rarely drink alcohol, Sailor Jerry is the perfect client. Their brand is all about tattoos and partying and half naked tattooed girls. They send me out to amazing parties and I get to talk bands into getting free Sailor Jerry tattoos. I even got a free tattoo out of the deal. It’s been pretty fucking amazing.  2012 is looking like it will be just as adventurous as on the 12th I head to LA for a week vacation before heading to Vegas to shoot the AVN Awards and then back to LA for a few days before heading to Aspen to cover the X Games for Sailor Jerry.

So yeah, 2011 was fucking amazing and assuming the world doesn’t end 2012 should be even better. But looking back there was some sadness too and I want to take a moment to remember the people I lost last year. My friend good tragically Colin died of brain cancer in his mid 20’s and my closest grandparent, my grandma Jo finally passed in her 90’s. My grandmother has been one of the closest people in my life so losing her killed me but losing a friend at 25 was so much more tragic. But with death comes new beginnings and 2012 will mark the release of a project I have been working on since the week my best friend Ross Harman died in late 2010. His tribute album will be released in late February and while it will never bring my friend back it will go a long way to helping me deal with his loss.

Let’s hope no one reading this has to deal with any of that loss in 2012 and as a fantastic year.  Happy New Years everyone!

Since I didn’t update on Thanksgiving and I probably won’t update again until Monday I wanted to give you guys a little Black Friday update. I figured nothing would make you guys happier than watching a few videos of people getting trampled on Black Friday.

By the way I did some Black Friday madness at Best Buy last year and it was kinda fun and I got really cheap hard drives. This year I have been reading Twitter and it’s just post after post mocking people who get up early and wait in line for Black Friday sales. I have heard several people talk about how they should work harder the rest of the year so they would have more money to pay for full price things. I also have heard people talk shit about consumerism and how it’s gross that people buy things.

I just wanted to say fuck you to all of you. How can you judge people like that in this economy. How can you tell parents that they shouldn’t by their kids Christmas presents because it doesn’t mesh with your bullshit vegan hipster lifestyle. Shout outs to all the people out there doing what they can to get the things they need for their families at a price they can afford.

Now all that being said, watch these fun videos of poor desperate people try to kill each other over discount electronics.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOVD-m8urJU[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeSgBL7gpAk&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCoR2hcseIw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DigiWS1YhxI&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Hello my friends. I am in Austin, TX and town is fireworks free due to threat of “dangerous” wildfires.  It sucks because I am missing the Coney Island hot dog eating contest for the first time seven years.  But on the plus side I am having a completely insane time driving from Los Angeles to NYC.

I don’t have time for a full recap as I am supposedly about to go on a boat somewhere but let me break down the trip a little bit.  I just wanted to let you know I was still alive.

My friend Whitney decided to move back to New Jersey for the summer and reached out on Twitter asking if anyone wanted to help her drive her car back.  I don’t know Whitney that well but I do know that she parties really hard and likes to get naked a lot. She is also pretty hot.  All of these things make for a pretty good traveling parter.

The first night we drove to Scottsdale, AZ and my one friend there decided to get drunk and pass out before I could meet up with her so we ended finding a pool party at the W Hotel and just went swimming.  We got out of town early and just drove until we wanted to fall asleep and we ended up in Ft. Stockton, Texas where neither of our phones got reception.

The drive through Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas is beautiful but also pretty fucking boring so we amused ourselves by hitting up roadside attractions like the mysterious “The Thing?” and taking topless photos of Whitney every time we stopped.

On the way to Austin her friends kept posting planking photos on Twitter and she decided that she couldn’t be beaten so we made a few stopps as she planked cows and a tractor and we even broke into a farm so she could plank a broken airplane. I even got my plank on at some state park in Texas.

Anyway we finally arived in Austin on Saturday and I was planning on crashing with my friend Isabel for a few days but she decided to go to Mexico for no reason and since I don’t have my passport I just am staying at her house.  Austin has been pretty nuts so far as we have been partying with Whitney’s stripper friends and terrorizing local bars. There as been a lot of nudity and madness and fun things like that and I have shot a ton of film. I also performed live band punk rock karaoke and got pretty much completely naked at a party last night.

I haven’t taken too many photos digitally and I am going to do a huge update about all this shit when I finally get back to NYC this week, but in the mean time you need to follow my Twitter and follow my Tumblr for crazy photos and tales from the road!

But anyway, Happy 4th of July and I hope you New Yorkers are enjoying the hotdog eating contest without me. We are headed to New Orleans tonight or tomorrow so I think I will just leave you with this…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-cT6SwFIHA[/youtube]

Not updating for five fucking days is completely unacceptable and I need to apologize to you, but really apologize to myself for that shit. I have three sets edited and ready to go but I haven’t had the hour it takes to do a proper post. I was in DC and Richmond, VA for a few days and I was with people pretty much that whole time and didn’t have time to do anything.  Well I just got to LA and I am in a pretty stable living situation while I am here and updating while it may be less frequent than while I am in town, should still be every other day at the least.  I would get up some photos right now but I woke up at 7:30 am yesterday and as it is 7pm right now I have been up for nearly 36 hours and that seems insane even for me.

So, in conclusion, I will have shit for you tomorrow and probably Friday too.  Accept that and enjoy that and know that lots of naked girl photos are coming very soon.

Enjoy this video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsHgpS2lug8[/youtube]

Yeah yeah yeah. It’s my fucking birthday. I am over it. I am 31 now which makes it really creepy that I keep hitting on 18 year old girls, but let’s be reasonable they are the only ones dumb enough to fall for my bullshit game. Seriously though, I have had some insane and midly epic birthday party ever year that I have lived in NYC but that shit is all behind me. I will have another one when I turn 40 if I am still alive.

I still only drink on my birthday and New Years Eve so if you really want to hang out with me today and watch me drink and try to hit on anything with boobs and try to start fights with strangers I will be at Public Assembly for the Brooklyn Zombie Crawl after party and then I will be hitting up Sway late night.

So yeah, just figured I should give you the info and now I am going to go back to getting old and slowly dying. If you want to get me a present just make your friends/fans/followers/etc to go to my website/twitter/tumblr/facebook etc. Or you know, just show me your boobs. Whatever works.

Fuck art, let’s kill. Merry Christmas.