I had plans right now but she’s apparently hung over and moving slowly so it looks like I have time to get up some more SXSW photos.

Thursday I didn’t have any actual work to do so I took it pretty easy. I started my day by seeing a movie. The SXSW Film Festival is pretty wonderful and I have covered it several times in the past, but this year I only got to see one movie but it was a good one. The Big Sick is a new film by Michael Showalter of the State & Stella. His movie Hello, My Name Is Doris was at SXSW a few years ago and I loved it but not nearly as much as the Big Sick. The movie was written by Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon about a real life incident where she got really sick and ended up in a coma. Kumail plays himself and it is so god damn funny and sad and amazing and I spent 80% of the movie either laughing or crying or both. I met Kumail about a week after he moved from Chicago to NYC after seeing him to stand up. He did one of the funniest sets I had ever seen and he was just in the audience of the show. One of the comedians was running late so the host Seth Herzog put him on and he killed it so hard. After that I saw him probably a dozen times before he moved to LA. For a time my two favorite comedians in NYC were him and Pete Holmes and Pete now has an amazing show on HBO and Kumail is in one of the best movies I have seen this year. Amazingly both of those projects came from a SXSW live podcast taping with Judd Appatow who produced both projects and told the story about that meetin in the Q&A.

Speaking of the Q&A one of the people to ask a question was fellow Chicago comedian Hannibal Buress. I didn’t even realize he was in town so I hit him up and he told me to come by the MTV Woodie Awards because he was giving out an award. I took forever to get there and I got there just in time to see him give the award. I got to see Rick Ross play too which was not awful. I went with Hannibal’s crew to Mohawk for the House of Vans party and saw a handful of rappers that were all from Chicago (to continue on the theme). I got to see the Cool Kids for the first time since probably 2008 and finally French Montana played.

So yeah we finally get to the point of this meandering name dropping post. French Montana (who is not at all from Chicago) headlined the Vans party. I was sort of near the stage so when he stared playing I took a few photos. Then A$AP Ferg showed up which was kinda funny because the day before I shot Playboi Carti and A$SAP Rocky showed up. Seemed like A$AP Mob was following me. Then the next song Rocky showed up again. After they left I shot one more French Montana song before calling it a night.

Don’t worry this post is almost over. I didn’t shoot a ton of photos yesterday but here are a handful of photos of French Montana and friends. The end.

Click here to see the photos of French Montana, A$AP Ferg & A$AP Rocky at Mohawk. 

I am back from my two week LA & Vegas trip and ready to get you some photos. I do this trip nearly every year around the Adult Video News Awards. I think I have shot the AVNs or at least the events around the AVNs every year since 2008. The trip is how I got started photographing people in the adult industry and now it’s become a good way to see friends, meet new models and make some money… plus with only a few hour drive to LA it’s a good excuse to hit up LA for a week without having to pay for a flight.

Given that the AVN Awards happened over a week ago I am clearly a bit late on these photos, but I shot them for the LA Weekly and posted that link everywhere so I figured that if you really wanted to see my AVN Awards coverage you had plenty of opportunities to do so. That being said, my edit is much bigger than the LA Weekly gallery and of course you don’t get to read a long, pointless, poorly written blog about it.

This year’s AVN’s were pretty cool because a lot of my friends won stuff. Adriana Chechik won Female Performer of the Year, Greg Lansky won back to back Director of the Year awards and my friends cleaned up the acting awards. Best supporting actress went to Joanna Angel and Xander Corvus won best actor. Best Actress went to Kleio Valentien who I actually helped get into porn many years ago after sending this 2009 photo shoot to Burning Angel! (Update: That gallery is broken for some reason but you can find it on Girls of DBB!)

Also it was hosted by Riley Reid (and Aspen Rae) and a bunch of other friends won awards too like my LA landlord Abella Danger who won best Star Showcase. Holly Hendrix won Best New Starlet and we aren’t friends yet but we talked about shooting soon so hopefully we will be by next AVN.  Oh, and Sgt Kabukiman NYPD was there and he’s pretty much family.

Okay, let’s get to these photos. My shots from the Adult Entertainment Expo will be up ASAP too.

Ps. Donate to my Kickstarter. Many AVN Awards winners are in the book.

PPs. Did I mention Flo Rida performed? He did. We got low.

Click here to see all the photos from the 2017 AVN Awards at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas, NV.

Wanted to come at you guys with a late night post featuring late night things. Really I am just trying to organize these Gathering of the Juggalos photos into as few updates as possible so we can all get on with out lives. Plus I am going on vacation tomorrow so I don’t want to be doing this while I am supposed to be fishing. Yeah, I am going fishing. I go every year. Deal with it.

Anyway, this post is pretty much just all the photos I took using the rented flash that I had to drive 90 minutes to get because I left mine at home because I was on two hours of sleep when I packed. Most of these photos are just photos of juggalos but we got some other stuff going on. After the headlining band plays at the Gathering there is about 5 hours of events going on including a dance party every night featuring various DJs and dancers and stuff. Plus there is comedy and wrestling. I didn’t do any of the wrestling this year but I did hang out with Colt Cabana a couple times if that counts for anything.

I also caught Big Jay Oakerson and Judah Friedlander’s comedy sets. Well I caught part of Oakerson’s but left because I don’t hate women or gay people but that’s just me. Friedlander was really funny but I run into that dude in NYC from time to time so maybe our sensibilities are a bit closer in line than Big Jay Oakerson. True fact: Once when waiting for a friend in Times Square a guy promoting a Judah Friedlander show was so certain I was him that he started telling everyone who passed that I was playing that night. I had to tell a dozen people I wasn’t him before I decided to wait inside the movie theater…

Okay, enough of this madness. Let’s look at some photos. They are slightly NSFW thanks to a lingerie contest.

Click here to see a fairly gigantic gallery of nighttime photos from the 2015 Gathering of the Juggalos.

Last week I got a text from Hannibal Buress. He was opening up for Aziz Ansari at fucking Madison Square Garden and asked me if I could come hang out and shoot some photos of the occasion. I was on my way to watch hockey at a bar a few blocks from MSG anyway, I had to miss overtime but it seemed worth it.

I didn’t shoot a ton but I think I got some cool shots of Hannibal throughout the night. The worst photos are the shots of him on stage because I didn’t bring my 70mm-200mm with me and I was shooting from behind the stage. Still, I think the shots reasonably capture the enormity of the situation. The backstage stuff and after party shots are more fun anyway.

I am not one for being star struck but it was pretty insane to have Chris Rock just hanging out all night. A lot of comedians aren’t funny in normal conversation but that dude is apparently hilarious at every moment. Just listening to him talk to Hannibal for a few minutes made my night.

Before I get to the photos I just want to say how amazing it is that Aziz and Hannibal got to play not one, but two shows at Madison Square Garden. Aziz has come so far from the funny dude I’d bring to random dance parties in the LES and Hannibal is doing such big things since I met him at the Gathering of the Juggalos where he was performing because they couldn’t get Rob Schneider. Hannibal and Aziz are both so fucking funny and very solid dudes. Watching them kill at one of the most legendary venues on Earth was pretty special.

Now click here to see my shots of Hannibal Buress at Madison Square Garden.

In 2006, one week before I moved to NYC I came up here with a band I was managing at the time, The Gaskets. I had already signed a lease so I brought up a car load of stuff and ended up sleeping on the floor of my apartment because I was so happy to have my first New York apartment. Eight years later I am still in that apartment, but that has nothing to do with this post.

That night The Gaskets played a show at some bar that probably doesn’t exist anymore but while we were there we met comedian Zak Orth and his girlfriend (now wife) Kat. They loved the Gaskets and ended up taking us all to Ruff Club and Kat invited me to a weekly comedy show called Sweet at the Slipper Room in the LES.

I immediately became a regular and was going nearly ever week for probably a year or two. At some point the Slipper Room had some crazy renovations and it was closed for a few years. Sweet moved all over the place and ended up at Ella for a while before moving back to the Slipper Room when it opened a couple years ago. Clearly my timeline is very precise. During the move I started going to Sweet less and less often but I still try and make sure to check it out every now and then. It’s always very funny and an excellent place to take a lady.

Anyway, Sweet turned 10 this week and I caught the last of three anniversary shows last night. The show is hosted by Seth Herzog who is actually one of my oldest friends in NYC since I met him the first week I moved to NYC. I think he hated me for a while because we were both hanging out with the same girl but I’ve always loved the guy. Really proud of him and the show and how big it has become.

Last night Seth pulled out all the stops. Normally he has one co-host but this week he had four! Dion Flynn was the most active co-host, but Questlove was DJing, Jess Hudak was singing and playing piano as comedians came on and Seth’s mom, a weekly show highlight, asked comedians questions before they left the stage. She also freestyle rapped at some point.

The show opened with an extended monologue from Seth recounting the last 10 years of the show followed by a supremely weird act by the owners of the Slipper Room that involved ironing a veal cutlet that Seth then ate. If he is dead right now let it be said that he gave his life for comedy.

Up next was Ted Alexandro who I have seen do stand up a bunch of times but I never realized that he has a web series that he does with my old friend Hollis James. I found that out while googling him to make sure I got his name right and I haven’t watched it yet, but I will and clearly you guys should too. He did a bit about a pot brownie that lasted 36 hours and then performed a song for Seth and his mom to dance to. It was that kinda night.

At some point there were a series of contests to win Seth Olenick’s new book of comedy portraits Funny Business. I was pretty jealous of the winners and I gotta get a copy of the book at some point. As a big photo book collector and comedy nerd it’s a must have for my shelf.

Next up was the always hilarious Kurt Braunohler who used to host a show with Kristen Schaal called Hot Tub that was always fantastic. I’ve known Kurt for years too as he was a judge on the first LVHRD events I ever went to. My buddy Drop The Lime was another judge that night. And Doug from LVHRD was at Sweet last night. LVHRD doesn’t exist anymore but it’s worth a Google… Oh, by the way it was probably the best Kurt set I have seen and I have seen a lot of his sets.

After Seth’s mom freestyled with Shockwave and Victor Varnado my dude Hannibal Burress killed it as always. I haven’t seen him since he did a joke where he told me to fuck myself in the middle of his last Comedy Central special so it was good to see him and find out that he didn’t actually want to murder me. He’s one of the funniest humans on earth so normally a show would go down hill from there but this was no ordinary comedy show!

Next up was the legendary Jeff Ross. Now that Joan Rivers is dead he’s just gotta outlive Don Rickles to become the greatest living insult comic. He did a set making fun of Joan Rivers which was probably the most touching roast I’ve ever seen the guy give and then went into other dead celebrity jokes including Robin Williams. If pretty much any other comedian did that they would be booed off the stage, but you know Joan and Robin would have been more upset if he didn’t do stand up on their graves.

Artie Lange was essentially the closer and did a set that went from hilarious to offensive to depressing and back again. This is a guy who nearly stabbed himself to death while losing his mind on heroin just a couple years ago. He’s dangerously overweight and constantly joked about his own death.  His jokes stepped over the line into just blatantly racist a number of times. Yet for all that he still managed to kill at points in his set. He said “you have to live a little bit for comedy” and he’s a guy who has lived 10 lives for comedy. It was brilliant and sad at the same time and his set alone was well worth the price of admission.

The night ended with a cameo from regular Sweet co-host Justin Long who you couldn’t walk a block in the LES without running into him a few years ago. (He literally ran into me once actually.) He’s in LA now but was in NYC promoting a movie and got a chance to stop by Sweet. He and most of the other comedians then performed the creepiest rendition of We Are The World ever where they took turns impersonating celebrities. The perfect ending to a fantastic night of super weird underground comedy, which is exactly what Sweet has delivered every week for the last 10 years.

So congrats Seth and everyone else go look at the photos!

Click here to see all the pictures from the 10th anniversary of Sweet at The Slipper Room.

It’s not Flashback Friday or Throwback Thursday or whatever bullshit alliteration thing that exists on the internets. I am however going to take you guys back in time to February 2008 with some very cool, but very terrible photos from the last two shows of the underground comedy show Invite Them Up. I had an awful early digital camera at the time, but I think these are worth looking at anyway.

I had been living in NYC for about a year and a half and I was shooting party photos every day and all that shit, but I also was going to underground comedy shows a couple nights a week. For some reason I rarely took photos at these events but there are a couple of exceptions.

In late February the legendary Invite Them Upended. Eugene Mirman and Bobby Tisdale had been hosting it for five years and for the last year I was a constant regular. The show was at the Rififi nightclub (the original home of the party Trash) and Rififi was going to be closing and Invite Them Up decided to get ahead of that and end early. (Brett Gelman and Jon Daly took over Wednesday nights until they escaped to LA.)

To end the run Invite Them Up held three farewell shows so they could invite all their favorite comics to play. And the line up was impressive at the time, but even more so looking back on it. It’s amazing how many people have gone on to huge things. John Oliver, Dimitri Martin, Jon Benjamin, Pete Holmes, Brett Gelman and Seth Herzog all have had their own TV shows since then. Mike Birbiglia turned his hit one man show into a fantastic movie. Zach Galifinakis was a big name at the time but I don’t think anyone would have predicted his post Hangover fame. Todd Barry played all three and did one of best comedy sets I have ever seen just making fun of Rififi off the top of his head. He also played drums with Yo La Tengo. Chelsea Peretti and Kristen Schaal are two of the funniest women on TV and Leo Alan and Jon Glaser seem to be on everything that exists on Comedy Central. Oh yeah and Jim Gaffigan and Michael Showalter performed too… you may have heard of them. Seriously when I found the flyers to these shows in a box recently I couldn’t believe how good the line up was.

Also, just in the crowd shots after the show there are pictures of Reggie Watts, Kumail Nanjiani (probably a year before I actually met him), Jon Daly, Larry Murphy and a bunch of other hilarious humans. And I only photographed two of the days!

At the end of the third show, Eugene and Bobby brought up a time capsule that everyone could put stuff in to be opened five years later in 2013. I wonder if they ever opened it because I am pretty sure that Jon Benjamin put a vile of his urine in it. I don’t even remember what I put in it. Whatever the case I think these photos serve as a pretty good time capsule of the last nights of a legendary comedy show that will never happen again.

Now click here to see photos from the last two Invite Them Up comedy shows in February 2008!

In my efforts to finish getting up all my photos from the Gathering of the Juggalos I just through a bunch of stuff into a gallery called “Nighttime Madness”. This gallery includes a bunch of stuff including shots of the late night after parties, comedy showcases, wrestling, and much more. Let’s see if I can walk you through it…

Every night at the Gathering there is an after party. In the past they have been some of the Gathering’s best events. This year they did them on the main stage and something about that got away from the intimacy of a small tent in the middle of the woods. A couple years ago I sat on the stage and watched Pharcyde and Warren G did a tribute to Nate Dogg. This year not so much.

The comedy highlights were Gilbert Gottfried who I see all the time in the Lower East Side just walking around and former wrestler Mick Foley. Gottfried did a set of really old jokes which was honestly amazing to see. These are jokes you have heard your entire life done by the guy who wrote them. Watching him get a kick out of the juggalos was the best part though. He just kept getting them to chant insane things like “Fuck Jack Parr!” and then would laugh to himself. It was great. He also did a particularly offensive telling of The Aristocrats which you should clearly watch. Mick Foley really impressed as well. I always enjoyed him as a wrestler, and the guy has written a bunch of best selling books, but he is a fantastic raconteur and told stories that even people who aren’t wresting fans would enjoy. Not that it would matter since pretty much all juggalos are also wrestling fans.

Also included in this gallery are some shots of the girls of the infamous “Passed Out Juggalos“. They find sleeping jugglaos at the Gathering and put their butts on their heads. I realized those pronouns might be confusing and the concept seem mildly awful, but in reality it’s a good time for all and kinda hilarious at 5am.

We also have a few shots of lady wrasslin’, the legendary and mysterious burrito men, and a camp set up by fire juggling steam punk maniacs RIFT (Rhythmic Illusions Fire Tribe). Oh there is also a terrifying wheel and some fire works. Whoop whoop.

Click here to see all the nighttime madness from the Gathering of the Juggalos. NSFW as you would expect.

Every year I shoot a gallery of film portraits for the Village Voice, LA Weekly and their 9 other sister papers. Every year it’s some of my favorite work. I love cinema and the SXSW Film Fest is always really well curated. I have seen so many good movies there. So photographing the festival is always a great time.

I don’t normally enjoy shooting celebrity stuff, but I do enjoy the challenge of having to get a good portrait in the sometimes seconds I have to shoot them. I also occasionally get to meet people I really admire and I sometimes get to meet just some really good people. This year I really busted my ass and photographed the cast and/or crew of a TON of films. Let’s see if I can quickly break this down!

First of all I shot the cast and director of Two Step. Two Step is a Texas thriller that I wanted to photograph because my brother edited it. My brother has a pretty serious IMDB but Two Step was the first feature he edited by himself. Turns out it is WAY better than I thought it would be. It was probably the best film I saw at the theater and if you get a chance to see it you NEED to, especially if you enjoy really fucked up violent films. And violent in a realistic way, not a cheesy ultra gory way. The star of the film James Landry Hebert is going to get a lot of work after this and he couldn’t deserve it more. Fantastic actor and really good dude. Oh, and they got a great Variety review that mentioned my brother by name!

A highlight for me was meeting Tobe Hooper director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We had a pretty awesome conversation about the underrated sequel. Really brilliant dude. I also got to meet Tom Savini, the make up artist who is pretty much responsible for the look of zombies today. His film Doc Of The Dead looks amazing even though I didn’t get to see it.

I got to shoot Juliette Lewis for the third time. I have had a crush on her my entire life and every time I meet her I get slightly more smitten. She retweeted one of my photos saying how nice it was to be photographed by me so you guys need to see her film Kelly & Cal right away. Don’t be fools!

Speaking of smitten, Emmy Rossum is the most attractive human I have ever seen in real life. She is in a movie called Before I Disappear with Ron Perlman of Sons of Anarchy fame and Paul Wesley who is a very pretty famous vampire or so I have been told. I heard great things about their movie so I am gonna see that one for sure.

Alia Shawkat is the most photogenic person I have ever seen. She is in a movie called Wild Canaries that features my friend Teddy Blanks title sequence. Teddy did four title sequences in the festival including Ping Pong Summer which he was nominated for an award for. I went with him to the Wild Canaries after party and ended up dancing with most of the cast until they kicked us out. The next morning I photographed them all. Only slightly awkward.

I shot the Heart Machine which features John Gallagher Jr and Kate Lyn Sheil two people that I have taken fantastic photos of in the past. John Gallagher is probably my favorite person I have met doing these things and I hope the Heart Machine does as well as his last film Short Term 12.

Did I mention I got to shoot Robert Duvall for his film A Night In Old Mexico? I got to shoot him once before and he and Bill Murray gave me Hell for being late. It was an honor to be mocked by them. This year I got him one on one and he was great. Really amazing experience. Another hero I got to photograph was Snoop. He was in a documentary called Take Me To The River about music in Mississippi. I shot him with R&B legend William Bell and other musicians. Pretty cool.

Shooting comedy stuff is always the best cause the photo shoots are fun and the people will do entertaining things. Jemaine Clement has a new film called What We Do In Shadows  and I got to photograph him eating a sandwich. When I shot the cast of Mike Judge’s new HBO show Silicon Valley it was 10am and was probably the only good time I have ever had before noon. Those guys are so funny I know this show is going to be amazing. I have known Kumail Nanjiani for years and it’s awesome to see him be as successful as he is now. Also, apologies again to Amanda Crew for giving her shit about her camera lens, she is a way better photographer than I am.

This is getting way too long, let’s stop name dropping and wrap it up. Other films in the gallery include my friend AJ’s film Take Care, tennis comedy Break Point, Late Phases, Starry Eyes, I Believe In Unicorns and the cast of the new Dusk Til Dawn TV show including Danny Trejo and Robert Patrick!

I also shot red carpet stuff for Chef (which I loved), Supermench (I got to photography Mike Myers aka Wayne Campbell!), Neighbors (Zac Efron selfie), A Night In Old Mexico and Cesar Chavez. I also got to shoot Cesar Chavez portraits but they gave me less than 30 seconds and were missing a cast member and Diego Luna and they were kinda rude about it (the publicists not the actors0. Rosario Dawson is also insanely attractive in real life. I have had a crush on her since the mid 90’s.

Okay, I am done! Click here to see the giant gallery of 2014 SXSW Film portraits!

I am back in Brooklyn! My insane South By Southwest is over! I slept on average about three hours a night for 11 straight days and I started to lose my mind. After SXSW was over I still had a couple days in Austin so I checked into a hotel and took a nap. I woke up 13 hours later. Since then I think I have been asleep more than I have been awake, but I think I am finally recovered and now it’s time to start getting up photos! Today I am going to get up the stuff from SXSW Interactive and tomorrow I am going to post my SXSW Film gallery that I am really proud of. Friday I will start in on my photos from the Sailor Jerry House. I shot nine parties there during SXSW Music week and I have a ton of cool stuff. Hopefully by this time next week everything will be up… and I will try to break it up with a little nudity… Let’s see how it goes.

So yeah, today I have not one but TWO galleries for you. Admittedly they are both pretty small.. but still. SXSW Interactive is notoriously hard for me to photograph. A tech conference is pretty boring to look at. In the past I have covered the trade show, photographed branding, and shot nerds on their cell phones, but it’s all a little tedious to look at. This year I hit up two SXSW Interactive parties instead.

The first party was IHeartComix first ever Interactive party. Franki Chan and crew always throw great SXSW events and this year was no exception. I was working during music week so I missed all their serious parties but their Interactive party was nothing to sneeze at. AraabMusik and Just Blaze DJ’d and there were a ton of babes mixed in with nerdy tech dudes so it was a pretty good look. I was only there for an hour or so because the after party for the movie my brother edited was also that night, but I think I got a few fun shots anyway.

Click here to see all the photos from the IHeartComix Interactive party at Empire Garage.

The second party I hit was the Mobile Movement party that AT&T threw with Motherboard. Vice put me on the list and I saw that Reggie Watts was playing so I clearly had to go. I have been a Reggie fan since I saw him do stand up a few weeks after I moved to NYC almost a decade ago. So glad to see that dude so successful. He performed on a giant soundboard called a Keezy. It’s a giant version of an iPhone app.  He also performed on the main stage as well. I left after Reggie was done because I wanted to get food with an old friend, but evidently Lady Gaga showed up later or something. I think I have taken enough photos of her to last a lifetime so I didn’t regret my dinner move.

Click here to see all the shots from the Mobile Movement party!