I went to Joshua tree with the girl from perth back in January. This has to be my 3rd or 4th post about this place but do desert photos with pretty girls ever get old? usually i would add some sort of commentary about the girl in the photos but she hates blogs and would kill me if i got too sentimental.

i shot some ads with the “the worlds fastest woman” a couple weeks ago in central park and a vacant appartment in the trump towers.

crazy that we were using the space as a studio to shoot portraits on white and not for the view.

after spending the day uptown it was time to go back downtown where people sit next to dead people in the park for hours without taking notice.

the next day I helped dill move to brooklyn. the end of an era.

goodbye 58 kenmare.

off to boulder.

after 2 years working on the same project,  jordan and i decided to regroup in the desert and figure out what comes next… this is what it looks like to get lost for 48 hours.

not that i’m into corpse robbing or anything but i couldn’t pass up the chance to validate my stance on atheism… plus having a 90% intact mummified body makes for an awesome conversation piece when the cenus folks stop by.

death valley.

we tried to spend as much time as possible off the highways. we had one stretch that went over a 100 miles without seeing asphalt or a road sign.

attempting to live out a car commercial.

the first nights accommodations were kind of shitty.

desert crack head ingenuity at its best. my new weapon of choice.

the end of day one.

pahrump has a lot of churches.

pahrump has even more whore houses!

they even have them in gas stations.

after passing the third brothel we got the balls to ring the bell and see what the deal was. at 10 am on a tuesday morning, madame butterfly’s was not all that alive… the “madame” was a 20 year old goth chick that had been working there for 3 weeks after finding the job through a classified ad. before we could tell her that we were just exploring she hit play on her cassette deck and 10 half asleep hookers came into the room dancing to r. kelly’s bump and grind. the reality of the pahrump sex industry is that the prostitues look more like edward james olmos than the do women which was beyond magical with “mr. showbiz” as the soundtrack.

the only photo i was allowed to take inside madame butterfly’s.

local sisterhood union 154.

just 4 hours outside of LA.

we drove through that mountain range on a dirt road covered in snow. the plan was if we didn’t see any signs, roads or people we would turn around at a half tank…

I spent the last month in Sydney and Bali. Its taken me 15 years but I think I’ve perfected my work/fun ratio to a consistency that keeps me just busy enough to not end up feeling guilty on the ride home. I shot some great photos that will be coming out over the next few months, witnessed one of my best friends get married, signed up with DLM to look after me in Australia, learned how amazing it is to wake up to a French girls voice, started a cover band with an Indonesian Reggae group, found my long lost Italian brother on a scooter in seminyak, skinny dipped with a Russian girl at Bondi, was pretty certain I was going to die in a Bali clinic, surfed perfect waves with only friends in the line up, drank my first pickle back (and my 20th…) at Flinders, ran soft sand laps without puking most days, spent 24 hours in the Gili islands, and few more things that should be left off the internet because my dad reads this…

not a bad view from george and cisco’s house… thanks for putting me up.

the view from bed.

just a fraction of the 10 years of Ksubi we had for the shoot.

waiting for the flight to bali i introduced george and benny to the wonders of chat roulette in the quantas lounge.

this guy taught me that cash can fix most things in indonesia, especially waiting in line at customs for a visa.

straight off the plane i met this guy… Claudio! brothers from different mothers. this photo was taken only 2 hours after we met.

riding a scooter on the sidewalk.

did not know that it was a 2 lane sidewalk till this dude tried to kill us.

everything came from somewhere.

later dudes.

party time.

morning one.

ghost dog.

my room at the villa.

the living room.

pretty much the best place ever…

dan invented a new game at the beach in front of the villa, wave chicken. by the time the wave hits you its completely dry sand. really fun but kind of painful. 2 weeks after i’m still finding black sand in my holes.

dan won every heat.

back in seminyak with my new brother claudio trying out the linen suit on the locals…

last pair of shoes i thought i would ever see on a stranger in a random bar in bali…

it rains a lot in bali.

all the rain ends up at the beach which is a bummer.

with rain comes the trash from the streets… surfed this secret barrel factory everyday. code name “dead dog”.

straight after the wedding the newlyweds jumped in the pool which led to everyone following suit.

the wedding singer… my first show in bali. opening up for the wedding band.

waiting for the boat to take us to the gili islands.

the harbor.

en route.

bambi is on the cover of harper’s this month!

so this is the main street on the island. motorized veheicles are not allowed on the island so you’re either on foot, bike or horse and carriage.

soon after this photo was taken i became sicker than i have been in a long time. i pretty much spent the rest of my time in indonesia sweating with a 102 fever, puking, getting shot up with stuff by doctors that didn’t speak english and sleeping. best trip ever.

3 years ago i drove to spanky’s dads house in mexico with curtis, ako and camille for new years. i fell asleep before midnight so i don’t have any awesome party photos but i did find these of the ride down and new years day.

post modern shackage.

slight nostalgia.

I went to Japan last week for a shoot and had crazy jet lag. I used these extra hours of consciousness that i normally wasted on sleep, to make lists; awesome lists that covered everything from “my worst ideas ever” to “countries i’ve been naked in with the opposite sex”. By the end of the trip, the lists had helped me realize that i’ve become a pussy. When did all of this become expected to me? When did I stop comparing my old life to this new foreign one, where I wake up in a king size bed with that view? No more will I forget I worked at taco bell and somehow scammed my way into this life I’m currently running.

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I stayed in Tokyo for a few days and then flew to Kumamoto.

Working hard for the money…

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The train ride from Kumamoto to Fukuoka.

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Back to Tokyo.

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Homeward bound.

I had surgery last week to hopefully change my life for the better. For the last year I have tried a bunch of different ways to reverse the problem without surgery to no avail. Last month I went to a birthday party where I happened to meet a doctor that specialized in sleep apnea related surgery. Less than 4 weeks later I was off to Cedar’s to have a bunch of my insides taken from me including my uvula, tonsils, adenoids, soft pallet and since he was already in there, he corrected my deviated septum. Dr. Nick named it the blue plate special…

Alexi came along to take care of me. Little did she know she would be stuck in a hospital chair for 30 plus hours as I puked blood after they woke me up. “Your body didn’t agree with the anesthesia and your stomach can’t digest all the blood, just try to sleep through this.”

48 hours post surgery I remember that I was supposed to be taking pictures…

Some of what was taken from me.

I wasn’t the only one wanting to document an adventure.

In hindsight I’m so bummed I didn’t get more photos, my face and neck were so much more swallen than the photos show.

Cedar’s is down with the Jews and so am I.

Max Factor is a different story though…

After to putting in 30 hours sitting in a chair next to me, Alexi got a bed of her own. The most expensive hotel room I have ever stayed in and we slept in separate beds.

On my way home.

I hope this works.

While making a documentary, you sometimes have to do whatever it takes to save money. While in the UK, I’ve opted to stay on the couch at a friends house instead of a hotel to show I was no primadona, but a true team player. Staying on the outskirts of London in the English countryside is kind of like camping. It feels good to get back to my roots of doing whatever it takes to get the job done.

The house I spent my lonely nights in.

The view from my room.

Digging through cases of old photos and tour memorabilia, that has been packed away for almost 20 years, was easily one of the cooler things I have had the opportunity of doing. An archaeologist of metal’s best years.

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Proof I was there…

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That is the Gate House which kept me safe from the outside world.

If I was an oil painter this is what I’d be aiming for.

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Yeah, those dudes were in the backyard .