flak photo

November 8, 2005

New York Marathon

Brooklyn, New York
November 2005

November 1, 2005

Pale Male
Manhattan
January 2003

August 18, 2005

Towers of Light

New York City
Sept. 11, 2004

August 10, 2005

Midtown Stack
Manhattan
November 2001

August 3, 2005

Manhattan Bridge
Brooklyn, NY
July 2004

July 27, 2005

Aloft
Black Rock City, Nevada
September 1996

July 20, 2005

Seawall

San Francisco
June 1997

July 13, 2005

Mise en Place

San Francisco
September 1999

July 7, 2005

Still Life

San Francisco
August 1994

June 29, 2005

Bring It On

Coney Island
June 2005

June 22, 2005

Annie

San Francisco
May 1992

One of my old roommates from the early days in San Francisco. There were four of us sharing a flat in a Victorian at the corner of Haight and Ashbury (I'd met the others through Roommate Referral, back in the pre-Web days when you had to sit on a blown-out couch in a dingy room, thumbing through binders of potential roommates & apartments and trying not to seem desperate in front of the other losers).

Our apartment and the one below were united through old friendships and current relationships, Deadheads all, as were the loose constellation of fellow travelers with whom we traveled to Dead shows, loitered on the front stoop, and generally wasted our lives. It was all good fun.

Annie was an inner-circle Deadhead through her close friendship with the photographer Herb Green, who took many of the definitive Grateful Dead portraits from the late 60s (when they lived just a few doors down from our place). At one point, she worked at a photography gallery that carried the work of Jock Sturges, whose nudes of adolescent girls led to a porno case in Cincinnati at around the same time as the Mapplethorpe dust-up). She left that job (office manager/accountant) after some financial misunderstandings--a pattern that would be repeated in later jobs. She thought it was great that I'd gone to Harvard (she hadn't gone to college), and always wanted to introduce me to her mother. It was hard not to have a soft spot for Annie; she was an underachiever, but very sweet and ready to laugh.

Annie was a pot dealer when I moved in, supplied by growers in the Emerald Triangle--all very organic and non-organized-crime-like--and also handled Ecstasy on occasion. In spite of her asthma, she wake-and-baked before work every day. Some of her friends went for the harder stuff. One of these (a jackass alpinist none of us could stand) became her boyfriend, and the volume of narcotics in the household--once forbidden--rose abruptly; for example, this guy's idea of a cool thing to do was to rent Scarface and match Tony Montana line-for-line. He also scaled an Alp and named it for her, and rode a vintage Triumph motorcycle. What a guy.

Within a year, Annie was hooked on heroin and Mr. Triumph had moved on. The house and its population were changing. Our favorite roommate had moved back East (replaced for a while by Mr. Triumph, alas). Some of the crowd were busted here and there for dealing and drunk driving; another got his girlfriend pregnant and handled it wrong. Jerry Garcia wasn't dead yet, but he would be soon. The rest of the roommates were at the point of evicting Annie (stuff kept "disappearing" around the house) when she moved out on her own. Last I heard, her health was spiralling downward and she'd been in a fairly serious car accident. I'd be surprised if she were still around, but if she is, I wish the best for her. The long-lost favorite roommate and I remain good friends. I haven't heard from any of the others in years.

The photo is from a morning early in Annie's dope days.

June 15, 2005

Half Dome
Yosemite
November 2000

June 8, 2005

The American Dream

Saunderstown, Rhode Island
August 2004

May 25, 2005

Crystal Palace
Madrid, Spain
June 2000

May 11, 2005

ETA

San Sebastian, Spain
May 2000

April 26, 2005

Rocks

Joshua Tree, California
April 2000

April 19, 2005

Kati
Toledo, Spain
January 1990

April 13, 2005

Sadie

April 1992
San Francisco

April 6, 2005

Jamestown Bridge

Saunderstown, Rhode Island
August 2004

March 30, 2005

Boo
Manhattan
July 2002

March 22, 2005

Blue Water, Blue Sky

Lake Tahoe
February 2001

March 15, 2005

Montauk Light
Montauk, New York
February 2001

March 8, 2005

Amigas

Salamanca, Spain
June 2000

March 1, 2005

Leaves

Brooklyn, New York
December 2004

February 22, 2005

Dog Days

San Francisco, California
August 2000

February 16, 2005

Last Light

Gearhart, Oregon
December 2004

February 9, 2005

Engine

Death Valley, California
November 1999

February 2, 2005

Terra Cotta

Lisbon, Portugal
June 2000

January 26, 2005

Lizard

Joshua Tree, California
April 2000

January 19, 2005

Vertigo
Manhattan, NY
July 2004

December 22, 2004

Brooklyn Bridge

New York City
May 2001

December 15, 2004

Sick Tree

The Presidio
September 2001

December 8, 2004

Lex Ave

Chrysler Building
December 2000

December 1, 2004

Harmony Motel
Twentynine Palms, California
April 2001

November 24, 2004

Brits of the 21st Century
London, England
June 2000

November 17, 2004

Archie Bunker
DUMBO, Brooklyn
July 2004
 

November 10, 2004

Sol y Sombra en Salamanca
(Sun and Shadow in Salamanca)
Salamanca, Spain
May 2000

November 3, 2004

"Death Valley" is the wrong name for this vast yet curiously intimate landscape. "Awesome Valley" would be more like it. Or "Rock Valley"—the place is a geologist's dream. By any name, you can get some good thinking done here, or think about nothing at all.

Texas Springs
Death Valley, California
November 1999