STORY: 5 Things To Know About Me

My grandma is the coolest. Really. And not in that “My grandma is the coolest, pinch my cheek, thanks Gram, where’s my inheritance, I’m going home”-kinda way. She really is cool.

She owned an art gallery in the ‘60s and ran with artists whose names you might know. She has some of the coolest clothes I’ve ever seen (Hermes everything, gator this, diamond that—the type of stuff girls today would kill for). And she keeps it real. I mean really real. I can talk to her about anything; girls, sex, career stuff, hopes, dreams, fears, you name it. And we do. We try to go to dinner at least once a month, after which we have a drink or two, kick back and get into it.

On Thursday night me and my Grandma Teddy went to dinner, had our drinks, came home and started talking. She’s so animated. So cute. So much fun. So I, of course, tried to capture it all with a series of arms-length photos. What I captured instead was something totally unexpected.

We were talking about life when all of the sudden, out of the blue she says, “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That.”
“What?”
“That right there on your hand.”
At this point she grabbed my free hand and started rubbing. It took me a minute to realize what was going on, but when I did, it hit hard like a ton of bricks.

She was trying to rub off what she thought was dirt on my knuckles. But my hand wasn’t dirty. It was hairy.




















(Did you notice there was a slight pause after she did it, before either of us realized what she’d done. My life is made up entirely of those moments.)

Anyway, I might have expected that from a stranger… but this was my grandma. It was kind of crushing.

Oh well, I feel better for having shared. I’VE GOT HAIRY HANDS!







That’s right, the first revelation in “5 Things To Know About Me” is:
I’VE GOT HAIRY HANDS AND I’M PROUD!

Well proud-ish. No longer ashamed. Whatever. Over the next few days we’ll be revealing the other four things. And we’ll be feeling better about ourselves in the process. (‘Who’s we?’ you ask. See below.)







I encourage you to come along with me. Don’t leave me out here on my own. Post an embarrassing secret. Your strangest habit. Your weirdest fantasy. Anything. Don’t carry it around inside any longer. Come on. It’ll make you feel good. Hallelujah the truth will set you free.



PS—My grandma would like you to know that no one looks pretty when they’re photographed while they talk. I would like you to know that no one looks confident, collected or cool when they’re cut down a notch two by their own family. And with that, let the confessions begin…

COLLECTION: Snow Day

Wow, lets see, where did I let off… oh right, I had balls and wanted respect (If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click on the last post COLLECTION: I Got Balls and all will be explained). As always, the first thing I though of was showing ‘em off to the ladies. Enter Erin Ness.




Check it out, she likes ‘em. I don’t know why, but I’m itching to make a snow-job joke. Sorry, done with the puns. Promise.




Next we went to the roof, where I planned on launching them at tourists.




Just look at how happy even the thought of it makes me. Very. Very happy. You know how gross it feels when a random drop of water drips on you from some unseen ledge? Multiply that by a hundred and you’re still nowhere near the panic a summertime snowball would cause.



Er, they are kind of hard though.
And this is where the plan falls apart.
Erin was like, “Why don’t I throw one at you first… like a test run… see if it hurts.”
“No.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“Nada.”
“Please.”
“Never.”
“Seriously, it’ll be funny.”
“Nope.”
“We’ll set it up with the auto-timer and get the perfect shot. It’ll be so much fun. “
“The perfect shot?”
“Yeah, I’ll get a shot with the ball mid-air coming at you. It’ll be cool. Besides, you can always throw them at tourists later. At least that way you’ll have something to show for it all if you miss from up here.”
(pause)
As something of a photographer myself ‘the perfect shot’ had a cool ring to it. Why not?
“Fine,”



She said she wouldn’t throw hard… I should’ve known better.







“Did’ja get it—the perfect shot?”
“Missed it. I think you should turn around though. And take off your shirt.”



Luckily, I’m the owner of a catcher’s mask. It wasn’t until I geared-up though that she spotted welt number one taking shape. Still, I wasn’t ready to give up.




“Did’ja get it?”
“No.”





“Did’ja get it?”
“Nope. One more.”



“Now?”
“No, missed it.”



“Now?”
“No, timing's all off.”



“Now?”
“Not even close.”



“Now?”
“No, the ball's not even in the shot.”
Those of you reading the fine print will notice the spots are now multiplying.



“Now?”
“Closer. Just a few more.”



"Now?"



"Now?"



"Anything?"





Perfect shot, my ass. After lose to 30 minutes of home girl pegging me with chunks of ice (that didn’t look any worse for the wear I might add) the only thing I had to show for my effort was a collection of bruises forming.

And maybe a new appreciation for Ms Ness’ arm? No.
A new respect for the power of nature? No.
A true understanding of what it means to suffer for art? No.
Just bruises. Really. Nothing but bruises.
I hope you enjoyed it though. Erin did.


Still, I’d like to take a moment to point out that all four ice-balls are now safely back in my freezer where they’ll age like wine until sometime in August when I’ll get my revenge. That’s right, don’t lower the terror alert just yet, this is by no means done.

COLLECTION: I Got Balls

Sorry, I didn’t do much web-work over the weekend. Something came up. Something cool. Something I might care to share once the sting wears off. In the meantime though, I thought I’d give you as close to a real-time update as I’ll probably ever do….




I got something of a late start this morning… in fact, I probably wouldn’t have gotten out of bed at all if the doorbell hadn’t rung.


Time check: 10.28. Like I said, a late start. Normally I get up around 7 (much like AXL in Mr. Brownstone).


Temp check: 65 degrees. Beautiful sunny day. According to weather.com it’s supposed to go up into the 70s again.


Anyway, it was UPS at the door. We have a little deal where I don’t have to sign for every package—they just ring. I like it better this way. It feels more like a surprise.


Except today I knew exactly what it was.


I’ll give you the back-story while I open it up. Zoiks, I’m still hung over. But back to the story: Last week Denver got hit with a storm. A blizzard actually. Meanwhile, New York looked like summer all of the sudden.


So I came up with an idea. I called the tourism board there and spoke to a lovely woman named Kelly. (Incidentally, as luck would have it, Kelly’s seen my site, but waiting until our conversation was done to admit she’d seen me naked. Hi Kelly.) Kelly told me the snow there had melted already…


…but she put me in touch with the good people at Steamboat Springs Ski Resort. And, though they said it was something of a strange request…


…they were kind enough to ship me snowballs!


Four to be exact.


That’s right, it’s 65 degrees—t-shirt weather—and I’m armed and dangerous. Snowballs. How cool is that?


And they shipped it with dry ice (in the bag, I was too scared to touch it, but I’m sure this too will provide countless hours of joy).


The way I see it, this makes me the most powerful man in Manhattan. Watch the fuck out people.


So who’s going to get it? I’m not going to lie, I haven’t decided just yet. It could be an ex-girlfriend, a meter-maid (or meter-man, I’ve got nothing against the ladies per say, though I don’t know why I have a thing again any of them—I don’t even have a car), a former employer, who knows. Stay tuned. All I know for sure is today’s going to be a good day…





PS—As far as asking for web help, I didn't really expect the response I got. All I wanted was the for the “links” button on the blog to go away and the “archives” buttons up and running (50% ain’t bad, but you've still got to click through old posts to go back to the beginning—that kind of sucks). That said, maybe later in the week I'll put up some of the mock-ups people sent (assuming everyone's cool with that).