(Ignore the stated publish date – this was published on October 17, 2018)

 

Obviously, Stonehenge is the inspiration for Manhattanhenge:

 

I don’t know how many people outside of the NYC area are familiar with Manhattanhenge. If you’re not, go here: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-return-manhattanhenge

Be sure to click on the “whiteboard video” link for an explanation and the link for the video the author shot on May 30, 2010 to see it.

The explanation’s OK, but I think the video’s not very exciting.

Below are two pix I found online. This first one’s really cool-looking, but it’s mainly because of all the stopped taxis, the people in the street looking at the sun and the proper exposure of the buildings. And – fourth on the plus list – the sun is contained in its little open space…………nice and neat.

 

This image, I think, is a still from the video you just saw:

If the sun will pardon the pun, photographically, this is not a stellar picture.

 

I’ve yet to hear any of the NYC TV newscasters who breathlessly report on this “phenomenon” every time it comes around mention that they’re actually encouraging you to stare directly at the sun!

I just don’t see this as something to get all excited about or a reason for anyone to travel to NYC just to view it.

 

I’ve got something way better, though quite the reverse, here in Hackensack, NJ. Instead of the sun lighting up the empty space between buildings for a couple of minutes on a few streets for a day or two (twice a year), I’ve got it illuminating everything BUT the empty spaces. Instead, it’s reflecting off the buildings themselves – actually, the entire Manhattan skyline – for multiple days on end…………..also twice a year, as the sun travels north (Spring) and back south (Fall).

Which would you rather see – the sun lighting up air between buildings (doesn’t it light up air all day long?) or the sun reflecting brilliantly off one of the most famous skylines in the world?

The time of year differs from Manhattanhenge because my angle of viewing is not close to being directly (or nearly directly) east and west, since Midtown Manhattan is southeast of me. But while Manhattanites would have to go to different streets every couple of days, I stay here in one spot and take pictures that – when combined – show the movement of the sun’s reflections over the course of several days.

I can even swap out pictures from the same dates in different years because the sun (and its reflection) will always be in the same spot on those days (though the buildings may change).

For instance, the initial picture in the first set of three below is from October 17, 2015 and the other five sequential image components from both sets of three each are from October 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 2013, yet you can see the sun’s steady southerly (to the right) progression.

 

SO, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I GIVE YOU…………..HACKENHENGE:

 

I’m sure this reverse counterpoint to Manhattanhenge exists anywhere in northeastern NJ that has a clear view of the skyline. And it would occur at different times of the year, due to their particular angles relative to Manhattan. This just happens to be mine and has been for 30 years.

As mentioned above, the reflections can be blindingly bright (possibly harmful to eyeballs) and even light up one of my living room walls, but the New Jersey version sure beats staring directly at the sun with dark buildings surrounding you.

I should mention that I stopped shooting the southerly progression on October 28 back then because the NYC skyline pretty much ended at that point, but sometime in November, the sun’s trek will reach down to the World Trade Center. I’ll have to do some more digging – I’m sure I have shots of that somewhere (or I’ll just shoot it again next month, so you’ll have to check back and see).

 

During my research, I found there are other -henges. The one shot that caught my eye popped up under “Brusselshenge”. It’s just an absolutely stunning shot that appears to have not a single photographic deficiency. But while the sun looks very good, the stars (yeah, I know – the sun is a star) of the shot are the street, its lights and the sun’s reflection on the street.

I’m showing it on the page where I found it. The photographer’s name is Aliaume Chapelle.

 

This fall’s Hackenhenge started a week or two ago, but there have been many cloudy or rainy days, so I’ve only been able to shoot one day so far – October 13 (this post was made on October 17). This means that I will probably not be able to create a steady progression over time this fall.

During the course of each sunset, on whatever building the sun’s reflections happen to be falling on that day, you can see those reflections gradually intensify, peak (blazingly) and fade as they cross that building on a downward diagonal as the sun sets. This can take 15-20 minutes or more each day.

So what I’d like to do instead of showing the progression of the reflections over a couple of weeks’ time this year is to show them over the course of that one single day. It starts in the center:

Multiply that by the number of days that the sun takes to complete its journey lighting up every part of the skyline and you can see that the total amount of time spent viewing this phenomenon is measured in hours, instead of the minutes that the much-less majestic Manhattanhenge provides.

 

If you REALLY want to see the sun between some Hackensack buildings, I offer you the following: two high-rises on Prospect Ave with the sun AND the moon between them. No one in New York – or anywhere else – has ever offered something like this:

 

 

Manhattanhenge – in my opinion – seems like a tinier, inside-out runnerup version of Hackenhenge. If you agree, let me know in the comments.

Lastly……….if “Hackenhenge” becomes a thing, remember – you heard it here first.

 

 

 

 

 

(Ignore above publish date – this was published on November 2, 2018)

 

Today – November 2 – would have been my father’s 97th birthday. It is also El Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead). As most of you know, it’s not a spooky day like Halloween, but rather one that celebrates loved ones who are no longer with us.

It also has nothing to do with this post’s subject matter, which is a year older than Dad, but it’s nice to throw him a shout-out on his birthday.

(Also unrelated, but leading up to………something): Yesterday, I received my complimentary contributor’s copy of the brand new Metallica remastered deluxe box set that celebrates the 30th anniversary of their “…And Justice For All” album (a couple of my photos are in it). It’s got a TON of stuff in the box and costs a couple hundred dollars (thank you, Q-Prime Management).

I had to rearrange things on a shelf to accommodate it – it’s large and heavy. I have a lot of diverse collections on those shelves and one of the things I unearthed under a pile of other things was a piece of sheet music……………….from 1920!

Here’s the front cover:

The song was published by Irving Berlin, Inc., but – as you can see – was not written by him.

 

Inside are the music and lyrics (click to enlarge):

 

Because the lyrics might not be fully-legible, I looked for them online to copy and paste here, but they were kind of jumbled paragraph-style – not lyric-style – so I typed them up:

 

EVERYBODY’S ON THEIR WAY TO JERSEY

(First Verse)

There’s a certain little state

No one thought was up-to-date

Jokes about it made a lot of fun

 

But folks are getting hunches

Going there in bunches

A mighty mob has started on the run

 

Tho’ small in size

That state is wise

Nobody hesitates

Its population soon will be

The whole United States

 

(Second Verse)

People living there are fine

Each one has a friend named “Stein”

Anderson had better watch his step

 

The cops are in a fury

Each kitchen is a brewery

They brew those hops

That fill you full of pep

 

From California, Massachusetts

People far and near

A train they take

To join the wake

And gather ‘round the “bier”

 

(Chorus)

Everybody’s on their way to Jersey

Everybody’s going there to stay

And it’s not to get the air

That they’re going over there

 

There is something doing, something brewing

OH! BOY! Buckets of joy

 

Three and a half percent in dear old Jersey

Is not the dividends the bankers pay

Just hop on a train and tell the man

That you want to go where they rush the can

For everybody’s on their way to Jersey

 

(Hmmm………..a little non-PC in that second verse – and what’s “rush the can”?)

 

I DID find a “Click here to play this song” link, but after downloading it and then having to convert it to another format, all I got was an instrumental. So if you read music and play, maybe you can sing along with the prior image.

 

Here’s the back cover, in case you want some Berlin song hits for your Talking Machine or Player-piano:

 

Back to the front cover image: The very affluent-looking (and 100% MALE) Jersey-bound crowd of Mister Monopolys is split between two transportation choices after work in Manhattan: ferry or train (Hudson Tube under the Hudson River).

The ferry bunch looks quite unhappy while the tubesters are quite the opposite. The much newer tube option appears to be the preferred choice…………..by far.

Nearly 100 years later, contrast that with these recent images (I think they were taken this week and copyright credits go to CBS New York and PIX11 New York, respectively) of what seem to be an almost-daily occurrence in Manhattan with the trains to New Jersey (in this case, the ancient Portal Bridge in New Jersey was stuck in the open position – something that happens on a regular basis):

 

I don’t see any smiles.

This is progress?

Oy!

 

Well, there IS a little progress…………….at least it’s not all male.

 

I’m glad that – in my job – I only had to “commute” (by car) at night (though Alice Cooper DID do a lunchtime show in Times Square once).

 

 

 

(Ignore above publish date – this was published on December 17, 2018)

 

I have lots of collections that I don’t do anything with and haven’t added to in ages, so I guess it’s time to put them on the blog and find out if it’s just me or does anyone else have similar groups of things. If so, let me know in the comments.

I recently came across a manila envelope that contained a bunch of sleeves for some of the 45rpm records I bought in the 1960s. Many of them had old Scotch Tape discolorations on them, so I guess I must have displayed them on my bedroom wall, which sounds like something teenage girls would do. I guess the difference is that I didn’t feature dreamy idols like Frankie Avalon or Fabian – I liked the tougher sounds of car aficionados like the Beach Boys and the British Invasion bands, especially the Rolling Stones.

OK, so there’s ONE idol in the bunch, but Bobby Rydell’s “Good Time Baby” sounded pretty cool back then.

There are some instances where a band used the same picture on front (“A” side) and back (“B” side) and I’ve shown the “B” side one and that’s because the “A” side was in worse shape. That happened on a few of the Beatles sleeves. And I did try to make all the sleeves look as good as possible (thank you, Photoshop), but sometimes, the tape marks could not be removed either because it would harm the image under it or because removing the yellow/orange-y color left it with black marks. Everyone knows what tape marks look like, but if they’re made black, no one knows what could have caused that. Stick with the familiar.

 

Here are my old sleeves (alphabetically and in order of release):

 

 

I still keep all the singles jammed into the same five bursting-at-the-seams record boxes I had back then. Two of them still have the dividers with hand-written band names on them.

Besides all the singles I bought as a teenager, there’s a whole bunch I didn’t buy. During my career in the music industry, I was given a lot of 45s and 45-sized records, many of which I had no interest in, but I saved them anyway and – if for no other reason than to be complete – included all of them that I could find in this post.

Let’s start with the main 45 box. For the record, the listed bands are: The Four Seasons, Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, Animals, Yardbirds, Turtles, Strangeloves, Music Machine, Herman’s Hermits, (Tommy James and the) Shondells, Hollies, Young Rascals, Left Banke, Searchers, Kinks and the Beatles:

 

The other segmented box contains the following: Dave Clark Five, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Supremes, Doors, (Smokey Robinson and the) Miracles, American Breed, Sonny & Cher, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, Mamas and Papas, Otis Redding, Ritchie Valens, Frankie Avalon (shhh!), Lloyd Price, Jan & Dean, Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Sandy Nelson, the Regents, Chiffons and the Shirelles:

 

You can see how all the other singles wound up. In total, I gave new meaning to the term “jam sessions” – 5 times!

 

You can also see the music hot spot where I bought two of these boxes: Two Guys. If you remember Two Guys, you’re old. There was one about a mile from where I lived, so…………..

 

If you look closely, you can see that I went out with a girl named Holly who liked to write her/our name(s) on things. She was very tall, model-thin, gorgeous……………and 16. I was almost 21.

It didn’t work out.

 

As mentioned earlier, I received a whole bunch of 45s during my career. Aside from all the ones with picture sleeves, there was a pile of 20 or 30 in regular sleeves. There’s no point in featuring all of those, so they remained a pile and are in the picture – ALL under the one with the blue Mercury sleeve.

 

Additionally, I have these 45-sized records that might be EPs or something else:

 

The charming centerpiece came out of one of my ‘60s MAD magazines. I haven’t heard it since then, but just found it on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6le600NWk0

I didn’t miss much.

It was referred to online as a flexi-disc, but that’s a misnomer since it’s like a piece of cardboard. However, if you look in the lower right corner of the previous pic, there’s a whole shirtload of flexi-discs that were in issues of Trouser Press, which I used to shoot for. Some pretty cool bands were featured, including XTC, which is shown on the top of the pile.

 

Lastly, there’s one other single sleeve that I MUST feature because……….it’s “MINE”!

 

No – I didn’t sing on it, but I took the cover picture. There’s even a hard-to-read credit on it that I’ve blown up a bit and made slightly more readable:

 

The whole story is on http://bobleafe.com/ under “Squier”, but to semi-capsulize it: Remember Tom Snyder’s “Tomorrow” show? Billy was on it and the record company sent me to shoot it. He was sitting in what was, essentially, a barber’s chair in the show’s makeup room when I took the shot:

 

(Yeah – I know it’s small………..I just stole it off my site)

 

Another interesting thing is the “B” side of the single: Billy’s “Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You”. I’m sure you’ve seen the video where Billy’s singing that song with the original MTV VJs and a whole bunch of industry people sitting behind him.

I was there and it was a great time (I again refer you to the story on my site). Before the taping, I had Billy sign the sleeve for me:

 

 

So that’s it for the collection. I’m not gonna give my thoughts on the merits of individual singles because it’s too subjective, boring, would take forever and is WAY too pretentious for my tastes. I will, however, mention TWO whose stories will stick in my mind forever:

1. “Russian Bandstand” – 1959, Spencer & Spencer (but I’m told it’s really Dickie Goodman)

This is the song I always use to stump know-it-alls. It hasn’t failed me yet. I even stumped two DJs at WNEW-FM in NYC: the late, great Thom Morrera and Pam Merly, when I dropped in on them at the station one night.

Give it a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRq7phYWS7U

 

2. “La Bamba” – 1958, Ritchie Valens

On her deathbed (sorry to be dramatic), my mother told me that I used to go up to my room, shut the door and play this song as loud as I could so no one would know I was singing to it over and over and over and over and…………………

I think the whole neighborhood knew.

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

On a personal note:

Christmas is next week. As far as I’m concerned, Christmas is the time to say “thank you” to you all for reading and reacting to all this stuff that pours out of my head and onto your desktop. It’s also the time to warn you that I plan on continuing to do so, so I hope you’ll stick around.

Bob

 

 

 

 

 

(Ignore above publish date of May 1, 2017. This was posted on March 8, 2019.)

 

Right off the bat, I’m cheating.

The above picture was NOT taken in 2018, but rather 18 days into 2019. However, it’s directly connected to what you’ll read below. So far, it’s my favorite representation of the subject…………..and who doesn’t like cute puppies?

In 2018, I was all over the place – literally (locally) and photographically. Hackensack is undergoing many rehab/redevelopment projects in its Main St area, and – as the moderator/photographer of a Hackensack site whose administrator is both the City Historian and the Director of Redevelopment for ALL of these projects – I’ve been up and down Main St all year shooting updates on the various stages of teardowns and buildups at at least 10 of them.

Of course, the demolitions are more interesting to me, probably because they’re not terribly unlike shooting heavy metal concerts: death and destruction (sonically) all around you while you concentrate on capturing that defining visual moment.

It’s fun. It’s what I do.

So, because of the continuous length of time involved with these projects, it makes sense to stay with the monthly photo “chapters” for the entire post format and I will add various project photos at the end of each one. Hopefully, the progression of each project will be evident as you go along.

By the way…………I was 18 for ’18 (I took over 18,000 photos in 2018).

 

JANUARY

I HAVE to start off with a shot I took on January 1. Every year on that day, I shoot a noontime Ecuadorian religious procession called “Our Lady of the Cloud” (for pix and info go here: http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,971.msg3079.html#msg3079 ). Although I might not be feeling my perkiest on the morning after New Year’s Eve, this is pretty easy to do since it comes right past my building and I can either shoot it from my roof or just go downstairs and walk outside.

Since I don’t understand the symbolism, this image seemed the oddest to me:

 

 

The rest of the non-project January shots in sequence:

 

It’s always a good idea to air out your car’s trunk during a snowstorm. Judging by the spare tire, the accumulation is between 1-2 inches so far:

 

Dressing smartly for zero wind chill:

 

The City snowplow respects the shopping cart:

 

Three shots taken on a very cold day from my LR window and my roof door (2):

 

Sitting in my car waiting for the train to pass:

 

I ran a shot in the 2014 “Best of” about a whole family who were carrying vacuum cleaners in the same parking lot. I wonder if this guy is part of the Hoover clan:

 

For the first time in my life, I had to go to the ER (nothing serious) and wound up sitting on a gurney in a hallway for a couple of hours with nothing to do but look around for things to shoot. The ER had area signs for all the different types of ailments, but the area where I was only had a sign that said “ETC area”, which I figured meant that it was for all the other, non-specific ailments, so I asked a nurse if “ETC” stood for “Et Cetera”. She told me that I gave her the best laugh of the day after she explained what it really meant – Emergency Trauma Center.

 

I saw what looked like a large red standup tool box with thin drawers and wondered why it was there until I zoomed in on the drawers’ labels:

 

Back home, I’m sitting at my computer and hear tapping behind me on my LR window. Being 7 floors up, that’s not something I’m used to hearing. It was this guy:

 

I don’t usually see anything but empty beer bottles in these recycling receptacles. Maybe someone shredded their beer bottle label collection:

 

Geese and Ospreys:

 

Some thoughtful person left food and drink on the 5th-floor landing of the stairwell:

 

Three other pictures that speak for themselves (I hope so – I got nothin’):

 

PROJECTS

IMPORTANT: Photo stitches are scattered throughout this post. The proper way to view them full-size is to click on the image and – after it enlarges – run your mouse over it. If it becomes a + sign, click the image again for the full blowup and start scrolling – usually from left to right. To get back to normal, click the image for the first reduction and then hit your back button. So whenever you see the word “stitch”……..

These are 4 photo stitches from two projects known as Current on River (horrible name, but it IS on River St) and the 170 Main project (unaffectionately known locally as “The Hole” because after all the buildings were knocked down and carted away, no serious building occurred for a couple of years, leaving an empty hole at the corner of Main and Mercer.

C on R replaces a beloved old Hackensack institution (The Oritani Field Club) whose demolition I shot 2 years ago (see http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,2033.0.html ).

The first stitch could be called “When the wires snapped” because…………well, LOOK at it. The truth is that one of the images didn’t line up properly when the program stitched them together, but I shouldn’t have told you that so you would think I have amazing reflexes and timing to capture THAT moment.

 

This stitch shows C on R starting to get vertical:

 

Two views of The Hole from a year ago – at the moment, it’s finally starting to get vertical. By the way, on the right side of the first stitch, the empty shell of The Record newspaper building waits to be taken down (it waited another 11 months). In the center of the second stitch, you can see an historic-looking building with a red sign that says, “Buy & Save Furniture”. To its left is another project – an empty space that was about to go vertical. The furniture store burned down 9 months later and almost took the rising WOODEN project next door with it. You can see pix of the fire in the October segment.

 

The 389 Main project

Straight out my living room window and across a parking lot to State St is the easiest (and longest) project I will ever shoot: a series of two-story buildings that start on Main St and make a left onto a very short block on Ward St and then another quick left onto State St were to all be torn down and replaced by a large, five-story residential unit. While I like having the ability to shoot from my living room, I hate the fact that this monstrosity will completely obliterate my 30-year love affair with my view of the Hackensack River. Instead of having a ribbon of a view of a perpendicular river, the river has a large bend in it (Kipp’s Bend) at that point making it parallel to my view. I’m 3 blocks away from the water, but I have shots where small motorcraft appear to be heading straight for my living room.

Personally, this will be a huge loss.

Meanwhile, I occupy myself by documenting anything and everything to do with this project. I’m a year-and-a-half in with a long way to go (see http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3580.0.html ).

Anyway, the 3 buildings facing me on State St were a realty office, a Peruvian restaurant and a building that wraps around all 3 streets that housed many diverse offices, but was primarily occupied by Comprehensive Behavioral Healthcare, which vanned in many disadvantaged people every day from group homes and were taken care of by a large number of the building’s social workers, who vanned them back home after 6 hours.

The realty office and the restaurant were taken down in January. Here are the Hanson Realty shots (from my LR):

Three days before demo, I took this shot from behind Hanson (and the restaurant). By the way, the red X shows where my living room window is in relation to this project:

 

The destruction sequence:

 

 

One down, one to go:

 

Hanson’s pile:

 

(NOT from my LR):

Hanson’s front porch and one if its columns:

 

Hanson’s demise revealed a previously-unseen side wall of the restaurant:

 

Closeups of the interesting-looking window that would only be seen until the next day:

 

The Don Alfonso Restaurant demolition sequence:

 

This is the front canvas awning of the restaurant:

 

Stitch: two down and a huge 3-street, wraparound building to go:

 

While I was shooting stills, I used another tripod-ed camera right next to it to shoot video clips, which I put together for this 8-minute YouTube video:

 

 

FEBRUARY

I saw this plate that said “ADY RO” on a car near where I parked at Shop-Rite one morning. I immediately thought of Aidy Bryant from SNL and Ensign Ro from Star Trek Next Gen. Ro is a bit less known in non-trekkie circles, while the reverse holds true for Bryant, so I added their pictures. and the fact that Aidy’s name was spelled incorrectly.

NOW I was ready for food-shopping:

 

Early one morning, I heard all these bird noises coming from my bedroom A/C. I went into the living room and opened that window. As soon as I stuck my head and camera out, this happened:

 

Bet you can’t guess what today’s date is:

 

Is this an obscene banana gesture?

 

Why you should pull the tab:

 

Other non-project images:

 

PROJECTS

THE HOLE

 

C on R

STITCH (you know what to do):

 

389 Main

This was originally called the 389 Main project, but somewhere along the way it was changed to 395. Because I shoot everything (almost), I was able to find two of my images that showed where the original 389 Main was:

 

Welding and brick recycling:

 

Three photo stitch views from across Main St (2/23), the roof behind a State Farm Insurance office (under “SIGNS” in last stitch – 2/27) – and from my living room (2/28):

 

 

MARCH

PEOPLE

 

Laundry day (2)

 

FAMILY FUN

 

OTHER

 

STITCH

 

REFLECTIONS

 

PROJECTS

389 Main

and here’s THAT story: http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3679

 

STITCH:

 

240 Main

 

THE HOLE (170 Main)

6-photo stitch

 

STITCH of 4 projects, as seen from my living room

 

 

APRIL

More of my interesting neighbors (all but 2 photos taken from home)

Aww…………don’t be bashful:

 

NOT bashful:

 

The gurl can hurl!

 

This must be multiples month:

 

I don’t know if this is a good or bad reaction:

 

Different “arms up” reaction:

 

This is kind of an “arms up” shot, right?

 

Big fan of the Bangles’ “Walk like an Egyptian” video (arms almost up):

 

The rest:

 

Poor Dad……………what to do?

His children – 2 – keep losing a shoe:

 

OTHER

Living:

 

DEAD:

 

Found on a hallway floor in my building:

 

MOONSHINE ON THE HACKENSACK RIVER

Pretty soon, I won’t be able to even SEE the river – let alone get rare shots like this – because the 389 Main project will block my view of it.

 

CHEATING PART 2:

In 1979, I shot a Cars in-store at E.J. Korvettes in Paramus (remember that store?………..remember that band?) that was published in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony program in April 2018, so why shouldn’t it be in the April 2018 section of this post? (because you took the picture in 1979, dumbass)

 

 

PROJECTS

149 Main (stitch)

Remember when I wrote this in the January section?

…an historic-looking building with a red sign that says, “Buy & Save Furniture”. To its left is another project – an empty space that was about to go vertical.

This is that empty space with the historic building (and the ancient McCrory’s ad on it) next door. It burned down 6 months after I shot this stitch, almost taking this new project with it.

 

 

The Hole (stitch)

 

Right across the street from the furniture store (on the left) is the lovely Hole. Up the street is the 210 Main project.

 

 

210 Main

210 is the former big bank building on Main St that was built about 90 years ago. It was the tallest building in Hackensack for quite a while. It’s being converted to residential and the only visible exterior change is taking place on top where another floor is being added on the back and sides, so there’s not a lot to shoot. The front entrance is boarded up, but this hangs in front of it. It might be as old as the building and my guess is that it’ll stay.

 

240 Main

This is what 240 and 210 Main look like from my living room. 240 is kind of L-shaped with the front on Main St and the back on Moore St. The back of 210 is also on Moore St.

 

These shots were taken on the Moore St side of 240:

 

389 Main

The night before, I heard a crash, but couldn’t see any accident from my LR, so I went out on the roof and from its furthest northern point, saw a car that had driven into the guardrail. The guardrail died a hero by doing what it was supposed to do: keeping the car from going through the fence and falling 15′ or so into the dug-out site.

 

 

 

Large pieces of concrete were dropped onto other pieces to break them in half, but this one didn’t break because my watermark held it together.

 

 

 

MAY

It’s taking me forever to get this post together. I always want to be able to post it in January since the year it’s about has just finished, but it’s already February 1 and I’m just getting to May, so I’m gonna change things up for this month.

I just noticed that I haven’t included any projects shots in May’s folder. I have no idea why because I shot projects every month. What I’ve shown so far is but a tiny percentage of what I actually shot. What I was going to do was mention in December that I’ve been posting broader updates all along on all projects on hackensacknow.org and give the links in case anyone wanted to check them out.

Instead, I’ll mention it now because of the lack of May projects pix, though there will be some in every other month.

The projects’ names and links are as follows:

“Tracking the 389 Main St rehab project” (begun in August 2017 and to be taken to completion): http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3580.0.html

“Demolition of The Record Building”: http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3750.0.html

“The Holman/Waypoint project (435 Main St)”: http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3789.0.html

“Projects Update” (everything else): http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3648.0.html

 

Speaking of updates, I DO have ONE May projects picture to post here. It’s of the groundbreaking ceremony for the 389 Main project. The old buildings are down and gone and it’s time to go vertical, so here are mayor, council, builders and all the other major people that make this project run:

 

As for May, I gonna post all pictures sequentially – just as they are in the folder.

 

 

This was part of the sidewalk in front of the recently-demolished Don Alfonso Restaurant. It was put there by predecessor State Street Café and allowed to remain. It’s supposedly going to be replaced when all-new sidewalks are installed for all sides of the new residential building.

Violent wind:

 

 

We’ll finish off May with what appears to be 6-frame soap opera:

 

 

JUNE

Is this guy wearing a red bow-tie or just leaking transmission fluid?

 

Flags over Rt 80 (which – of course – is under this bridge):

 

This is a scene from Steven Colbert’s “Late Show” open. It’s only there for about a second and it’s not overly-bright, so it’s hard to shoot without a tripod and even harder when you’re lying down on a sofa shooting it hand-held, but I like the party scene on the roof, so it took me a couple of tries. Still not great, but it’ll have to do:

 

Two scenes – taken from my living room – showing the burgeoning fishing and boating community in Hackensack (you better not eat any fish you catch here).

 

Fish crows will eat anything and park anywhere they please:

 

The lit-up tree branches are the reason I took this shot:

 

Woodchuck/Groundhog:

 

Three Great Egrets (upper right):

 

It’s like day and night (almost):

 

 

PEOPLE

Busy kid earns an H2O-van break:

 

Winner of the Pass/Block/Catch competition:

 

Never saw this before:

 

Had to investigate. He’s in the high school band and he was drumming/trumpeting up business for a car wash at the Middle School:

 

Colombia was in the World Cup and everyone with Colombian ties came to this Colombian restaurant on Main St to watch and commiserate when they lost:

 

Moving day: first, the mattress and a few hours later, the box spring:

 

The Graduate:

 

 

PROJECTS

Stitch:

 

 

OTHER

 

 

STITCHES

 

Under the Anderson Street/Cedar Lane Bridge (Hackensack to Teaneck):

 

The longest truck I’ve seen so far at the nearby construction site:

 

At Paterson, NJ’s Great Falls (which are not facing the camera):

 

 

JULY

July………….GOTTA start with fireworks, right?

This first one is actually one circular image inside another – it just fits:

 

This last one could go in the PROJECTS section because it shows the hole in the ground that is the 389 Main St project. By next July 4, I won’t be able to see any of Main St because a 5-story residential building will be sitting in that hole, so next year, I’ll probably run this shot with one from this year’s July 4 to compare:

 

Staying on the color tip, I bring you something that I’ve featured before because it gets changed every so often………..the gorgeous graffiti of the Union St Park (on the other end of my street):

 

STITCHES:

 

PEOPLE

Doing exactly what her bag says:

 

Same pooch in both pix:

 

“Hey – it doesn’t work that way.”

 

Make your own caption (if you dare):

 

John 3:16 – The sold-out concert:

 

 

PROJECTS

 

OTHER

 

STITCH (from the They Can’t ALL Be Gems Department):

 

 

AUGUST

 

PEOPLE

Dancing around the Maypole – (but it’s a parking meter……….and it’s August):

 

OTHER

 

GREAT FALLS NATIONAL PARK, Paterson, NJ – stitches and stills

This is the front area of Paterson, NJ’s Great Falls National Park (undergoing renovation in this August, 2018 stitch). The box to the right of center contains the statue of Alexander Hamilton, who saw the great power of the falls, which inspired him to harness that power and create the nation’s first industrialized city – Paterson.

 

STITCH 2 – The Falls:

 

The Mist:

 

The Love (and the rainbow):

 

The Next-Door Neighbors stitches:

 

The Overview:

 

Andohbytheway……….I shot a little video that day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fzRh2o1Ag8

 

 

PROJECTS (in sequence)

389 Main:

 

240 Main (Moore St section):

 

Current on River:

 

Rain, C on R, 240 Main, 210 Main (l-r), Midtown Manhattan:

 

 

SEPTEMBER

 

PEOPLE

 

Lift material, hit head, smack guardrail:

 

 

Little Cuties:

 

Not found in my clothing store:

 

OTHER

My parents met at IBM in Manhattan in the early 1940s. This plaque was my father’s. Because this room is where a man supposedly does his best thinking, this has resided in this spot in my apartment for decades:

 

Great Egrets, as seen from my living room – something I may soon not ever see again from home, due to construction:

 

This might be the beginning of a good idea (use your imagination):

 

Tennis, anyone?

 

Tennis shoes, anyone? (found nearby exactly as pictured):

 

Fly me from the moon:

 

The moon four days later:

 

Before the fall colors come in…….Summer’s last gasp:

 

Former deli:

 

Teaneck fog:

 

From the tallest US residential building to the Bogota smokestack:

 

Late summer fireworks:

 

 

REFLECTIONS:

The sun reflecting off the high-rises of NYC and NJ and also off the Hackensack River is always a treat to shoot, but sometime in 2019, I’ll be losing the ability to do that off the river when 5 stories of progress gets built between me and it, so I’ve been shooting as much as I can before that happens.

I know I’ve mentioned this a few times so far in this post, but it’s hard for me to imagine that after 30 years of shooting something different and visually-stimulating nearly every day will simply vanish.

I know I have to accept it, but I’m certainly gonna bitch and moan about it in the meantime. Semi-fortunately, it’s a very gradual loss, so that makes it slightly easier.

Meanwhile………..here are some September 2018 images to reflect on:

 

 

PROJECTS

 

240 Main:

 

Current on River:

 

389 Main:

 

Giant crane – hooked up to cement truck – pumps concrete for the basement floor (above and below pix):

 

STITCH:

 

NOW & LATER

I took the first shot on 9-16-18. The second image is what the finished product is supposed to look like. As noted on the pic, the building will have a “389” on it – NOT the “359” that the rendering mistakenly shows:

 

 

OCTOBER

 

PEOPLE

Love the slippers, the hat and the shoutout, but not so sure about the tats:

 

One guy in two (merged) pictures (check out the mirror-like hood) and two guys and two pooches in one pic:

 

One pooch and one non-guy:

 

Touring the neighborhood:

 

Pre-schoolers:

 

Rolling on the roof:

 

Waving to her fans:

 

Football party:

 

Footballer/boarder encore (not invited to the football party):

 

 

BIRDS

Fish crow squawking on my A/C:

 

Commander Cormorant and the USS Ling (WWII submarine). The commander is humming his favorite Springseen song lyric from “Rosalita”: “And my machine, she’s a dud, out stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey”. The Ling – berthed in Hackensack at the Hackensack River for the last 45 years – IS stuck in the mud. It’s also been evicted, but can’t get out. Stay tuned…………. (and there’s a nice stitch of it that ends the below OTHER section):

 

The sun helped this picture out:

 

What gull wouldn’t be thrilled by the surrounding 9 to 1 odds and the sparkling bathroom facilities? This is a small stitch:

 

 

MANHATTAN FROM HOME

The first image is a stitch that runs from Central Park South to the Empire State Building:

 

The next 4 images begin in Midtown with a differently-colored ESB AND a daytime one (which includes a plane flying into Teterboro Airport), some new, tall buildings popping up on this side of the Hudson River in the Jersey City vicinity and end down at the Battery and 1 World Trade Center:

 

OTHER

Lynch & Lunch:

 

Yeah – that’s a sign:

 

Shouldn’t this be on the front of the bus so people will steer clear?

 

I saw this on a tree stump near my building. I’ve never seen them before. I guess they’re some sort of mushroom. Maybe I should see if Lynch wants them for lunch:

 

Geese on a river cruise:

 

I have a gold-colored tie-tack on my cap that people have been asking me about for years. I bought it a long time ago on eBay because it had my initials:

 

Does this spider merit posting?

 

Lovely Hackensack sunset:

 

I saw this on the news and had my camera nearby. I was shocked that Hurricane Michael was so strong that it picked up Panama City Beach in Florida and deposited it in New Jersey!

 

I like football, but I don’t think I’d want this at the head of my bed:

 

When it came time to clean the cobwebs out of the Holy Trinity Church (in Hackensack) domed steeple, a local crane popped the top and shook everything out (and if you believe that………………):

 

I don’t see very many seaplanes coming in to land at Teterboro, but they do have those little wheels on the pontoons that look oh-so-sturdy, so I guess it’s OK:

 

Maybe this’ll be the year that Hackensack spends 15 cents apiece for shields to block/redirect the ridiculous lighting they install:

 

Speaking of light, the sun does interesting things with Fort Lee’s The Modern 1 and 2 towers both at sunrise (3 pix) and sunset (1). By the way, that plane in the first shot just took off from LaGuardia Airport:

 

Facing the opposite direction, I enjoy capturing Hackensack’s sunsets:

 

There’s at least a quarter-mile between these two buildings, but they look like neighbors:

 

I never did find out what caused this smoke in Teaneck, but it does brighten up the early-fall colors on a dreary day:

 

I’m not sure what goes on in this building, but the deflated patriotic balloon sure says a lot about current affairs:

 

Approaching Teterboro at sunset:

 

This is the USS Ling, which I mentioned above in the Birds section. This is – by far – the BEST image (actually, a photo stitch) that I’ve ever taken of this quite-lengthy submarine (shot from across the river in Bogota). Thankfully, Commander Cormorant is nowhere to be seen, but two Hackensack projects on the right side are.

The Record newspaper’s old HQ is closest, lowest and gutted. It would be taken down completely within the next two months and replaced by a large residential building.

Behind The Record and very tall is the old bank building at 210 Main St, which had a floor added to the roof (some of it is still wrapped in blue insulation).

But the Ling is the star of this photo stitch:

 

 

BIG FIRE ON MAIN ST

 

I was on the phone one morning with Albert Dib, who is the Director of Redevelopment for all the projects going on in the Main St area. He’s also the city historian and I happen to moderate his hackensacknow.org site.

After a while, he said he just got word of a big fire at 153 Main St that’s next to one of the projects, so he had to run over there. I said I’d meet him there.

I could see the smoke from my living room window a little over a half-mile away:

 

Since it was blowing east, I drove to a location to the west of it, ran over and started taking pictures:

 

I walked over to a nearby 3-story parking garage to shoot from its roof, where I got this stitch of the overall scene. The wooden building is the project next door at 149 Main and – miraculously – didn’t burn down:

 

This is a drone still I found online the next day. The parking garage roof is in the lower right. I think I’m in the picture, but I can’t be sure (and I don’t know who to credit):

 

Back on the ground, I later ran into Al and we decided to walk two blocks east to Moore St to see what was visible, considering the volume of smoke. It wasn’t much:

 

I did one final stitch that also shows The Hole project at the bottom (it’s right across Main St from the fire):

 

Al had to get back to work and I had shot all that was available to me, so I walked back a block west to Main St, took this shot and then went home:

 

The fire was in a furniture/mattress store called “Buy & Save Furniture 2”. It was in an historic old building that was a McCrory’s 5 & 10 since 1907 (says “1910” below…………I remember it as a Woolworth’s) and originally was a Marcus Jewelers and then the Odd Fellows Hall. The photo is courtesy of Google and the information is from the Bergen County Historic Site:

Second Marcus Jewelers. Constructed 1897. Architect: William Augustus Lambert. Style: Romanesque Revival. Facade: Pair of gablets with large, arched opening with projecting bay window (now gone) on 2nd story. The Odd Fellows Hall is an interesting, eclectic building with bold, round arched openings with conspicuous rock faced stone trim. In 1898, the building was described as “one of the finest in town”. The building was erected in 1897 as the second hall for the oldest paternal lodge in Bergen County, founded in 1848. The U.S. Post Office was located here until 1910. In 1910, the stores were leased to J.G. McCrory & Co., five and dime store. The building as listed in Forbe’s Key to the Architects of Greater New York of 1899, 1900 and 1901 as the only representative work of William Augustus Lambert who had offices in Manhattan until 1896 and lived in Hackensack. He designed a large number of houses in Hackensack.

 

The Odd Fellows Hall on a postcard with a 1905 postmark:

 

If you scroll back to April in the 149 Main “Projects” section, you’ll find a photo stitch I took that shows the empty space where you saw the wooden structure next to the on-fire structure just above. That latter structure is the old Odd Fellows building and on the far right of the stitch, you can see the old McCrory’s ad on the southern side of the now-gone building it once occupied.

The last time I shot a Main St fire that had to be demolished, it was done much later in the evening, like 10 or 11pm. I figured I should go back to this one at 8pm – just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

When I arrived at the nearest intersection, a cop was stationed there to keep the sightseers away at a safe distance. After speaking with him for a while, he asked me to wait there while he walked down the street and sought to clear it with someone.

Realizing that I might be turned down, I went over to the sidewalk and set up my camera. I zoomed in down the street half a block to the scene, adjusted the shutter speed for a long exposure, set the timer and put the camera down on something horizontal…..CLICK!

Here’s the result (can’t go home empty-handed, right?):

 

The purple is from the repeating red and blue cop car lights.

When the officer returned, he said I was cleared, but I already knew I was too late.

Turns out the building had been taken down at 5pm. Damn! I really wanted to capture that distinct façade coming down.

I saw a firefighter I know named Mike Martinelli. He was there for the takedown and proceeded to show me some video he shot of exactly what I wanted to shoot.

He later sent me a short clip. I’m not sure, but I think he enjoyed rubbing that in my face. I wouldn’t blame him if he did.

The below image is a still that I made from that video and it’s being shown here, courtesy of Mr. Martinelli:

Thanks, Mike!

 

The pile was still pretty hot and was being hosed-down from the front and rear:

 

Here’s the stitch of the whole scene:

 

There really was nothing else to shoot. Time to go home and come back in the morning.

 

Shooting over The Hole the next morning showed that the HFD was still putting water on the pile, that the wooden structure next door really DID appear to have somehow emerged unscathed, and that the same couldn’t be said of the pile’s northerly neighbor, which looked like a Battleground. I capitalized the “B” because – believe it or not – that actually was the name of the affected store: The Battleground.

 

This is as close as I was allowed to be………..almost to The Battleground. I was told that there was a sinkhole on Main St right in front of the pile, but it must have been a small one because I saw nothing unusual and no vehicles were sinking or even tilted. There really wasn’t much to shoot anyway.

 

Even so, I backtracked around to try an approach from the south, passing this sea of yellow that had kept people away hours earlier:

 

Save for a plank sticking out of 149 Main, this street view was even less interesting:

 

Time to leave.

 

BTW – four months later, the pile was still there!

 

 

PROJECTS

The Hole

Two stitches:

 

Current On River

Men at work:

 

Proximity to Manhattan:

 

 

The southwest corner:

 

The old Hess tank farm conversion in Bogota

The old tanks in 2014 and the tankless site in 2015 (this is just across the Hackensack River from the Bergen County Courthouse):

 

This stitch was taken from the Hackensack side of the Court St Bridge and shows the cranes starting work on the project:

 

The Record

Just on the other side of the Court St Bridge is the USS Ling submarine and the ready-to-come-down former headquarters of The Record newspaper.

The front on River St:

 

A stitch of the gutted south side:

 

A stitch of the unseen north side (I’ve yet to see another picture of this anywhere………it wasn’t easy getting this one):

 

This is actually part of the above stitch that stands well by itself:

 

 

240 MAIN

I think this project will finish first:

 

435 MAIN

The project just began in October.

The initial sign of activity I saw one morning was this covering – probably for asbestos remediation. It was gone by the afternoon:

 

This is the first time I saw a roof mower and an axe murderer on one of these projects:

 

389 MAIN

Loads of dirt: These were all taken on the same day. The site was getting something like 48 loads a day during this week.

The first pic shows a truck I saw coming around the corner with what look like two Michelin Men figures on top (if you want one, they’re sold on eBay):

 

A later truck dumps its load:

 

The loads pile up………….literally:

 

Smoke and ladders:

 

I’m starting to lose the view of Main St. Wait’ll this thing reaches 5 stories……….goodbye, river:

 

 

Dumping cement:

 

 

Breaking concrete blocks:

 

Arts and Crafts day for the crew (I have no idea why these were there – I was just walking around inside the site, saw it and shot it:

 

A stitch at State and Ward showing verticality on the Main St side:

 

 

NOVEMBER

 

People

 

NO idea what’s going on here (and maybe that’s a good thing)…

 

Self-indulgent (no wonder they’re called “selfies”):

 

I had seen this guy a week earlier from a distance and had no idea what was on his jacket. This week, he was a little closer – enough to think that maybe it said “sack time”. I had a hunch that it might be on eBay and – sure enough – there was the same WWII honey:

 

Men’s laundry day:

 

Self-explanatory:

 

Back-lit bags:

 

Other pix:

 

 

Fall colors in my neighborhood

 

These are from Nov. 3:

 

From Nov. 4 (the last of the four is a stitch, so click to enlarge):

 

What a difference 3 weeks makes………..this is from Nov. 25:

 

 

OTHER

I attended a couple of concerts at this Asbury Park venue c.1974. I found this item on eBay, learned that the venue had another identity in the 1940s (rink!) and bought it (the trinket – not the venue):

 

When I saw the sun playing shadow games with my cheaters (left), I took the shot, got bored, and then decided to add some color and prep them for Red Nose Day, which is May 23, 2019 in the US:

 

Indecision:

 

Fish crows:

 

Smoke signals on a windless day – I think this is a lower-case “i”:

 

Mixed emotions:

 

Johnnie better step it up – he’s already two lengths behind:

 

Just make sure it’s ship-shape:

 

I love these two shots:

 

The Rest:

 

 

STITCHES:

On Nov.15, there was a snowstorm that took everyone by surprise and tied up traffic all over NJ and NYC (and elsewhere) with traffic jams that lasted for HOURS. It doesn’t look like much, but because there was no preparation, the roads were horrible.

This is State St in Hackensack, as seen from my living room. The traffic almost never moved because every other road was the same – absolute gridlock (and, yes, the middle image in this stitch is out of focus):

 

This is the Hackensack River at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Hackensack:

 

I’m not sure why I combined these two stitches: other than NYC, they’re unrelated and were taken 10 days apart. As nice as the top one is, I think I like the bottom one better:

 

 

PROJECTS

 

76 MAIN ST

Although what’s left of the fence mural is cute, it’s been 4 years since the fire and it’s time something rose from the ashes:

 

153 MAIN

As I write this, the pile has been sitting there for over 4 months……….it’s time to go:

 

240 MAIN

Closest to the finish line:

 

CURRENT ON RIVER

I cringed every time they started another floor…….would I lose my view of Midtown Manhattan? Fortunately, they stopped just short:

 

THE HOLE

These concrete pumpers make amazing stitches. After enlarging, scroll from the right on this one:

 

THE RECORD

When is this building coming down already? It’s been MONTHS:

 

 

389 Main

The crew had to work on a pretty muddy site this day and when some of them were about to be picked up in someone’s truck to go home, they came over one-by-one with a big brush to a small street puddle to scrub the mud off before getting into the vehicle:

 

The rest:

 

Stitches:

 

 

DECEMBER

People

On the bottom, I’ve written what appeared to me to be what the guy was doing/feeling/saying. The corresponding reactions from the woman are what you’d expect: waiting/longing/grimacing.

That last facial expression made putting these 6 pictures together worthwhile.

 

The kid wonders why the lights went out and laughs when Dad tells him:

 

My guess is that she gets better cell reception when she stands on a window sill behind a hedge:

 

What is she shooting – her nails?

 

Oh no! My cover’s blown…………I’ll have to move:

 

The Three Seasons (that’s what they look like they’re dressed for):

 

Either he’s hailing a taxi where none exist or it’s John Travolta in a remake of Saturday Night Fever:

 

The rest:

 

The Christmas Day Shoot:

I try to take a nice long walk on Christmas Day that winds up totaling about 3 miles. All but the first two images were taken in the vicinity of the Bergen County Courthouse.

This may be the only pink back alley in Hackensack:

 

Somebody doesn’t like the owner of this heap, who will not be opening a Christmas present, but instead, will be opening his trunk to change a flat tire:

 

The courthouse from a short distance away:

 

This is the steeple of the historic First Reformed Church of Hackensack, known locally as The Church on the Green. It’s across the street from the Courthouse:

 

This is next door:

 

Atop the Courthouse dome is “Enlightenment Giving Power”. I played around with E’s color to distract you from her nearly-naked downstairs neighbor:

 

My favorite place to shoot here is from the top floor of the parking garage behind the complex, where I can shoot in almost any direction, so I started with E’s backside:

 

It’s not very modest to say, but to me, this photo stitch looks almost like an artist’s rendering before construction…………except the artist would not have included the red façade on the far right of the Pep Boys auto store:

 

I turned around 180 degrees from where I shot the above stitch and shot another one:

 

From the garage’s northeast corner, I wanted to shoot two of the Hackensack River bridges: the nearby Court St Bridge and the new green replacement Midtown Bridge, but Manny, (no Moe) and half of Jack (and their store) jumped in front:

 

Moving more to the east, I shot a stitch that had MM&J blocked by a tree, showed a bend in the river with construction going on in Bogota and the Costco parking lot:

 

Lastly, I took a shot in a southeasterly direction that shows River St, a gas station, the homeless shelter, the County jail and – right above it – Route 80:

River St appears to head right into Manhattan.

 

 

The Sky

This shot was taken from home at sunrise and circled is part of the New Jersey tower of the George Washington Bridge (and one of its cables). I can only see the GWB when no leaves are on the trees. If you want a good view of the bridge, move into the Modern 1 and 2 towers in Fort Lee – preferably the one on the left:

 

This is a sunset shot of my next-door neighbor:

 

The next two shots I took were of this plane coming into Teterboro Airport while passing some really interesting-looking sky scenery:

 

A bit less blazing, this shot was taken on a dark day when a small piece of sky let in some light near the Empire State Building:

 

One minute, I’m blinded by the sun and the next minute, it’s blocked, letting me take this shot:

 

I wonder if this cloud looks as good to the jet pilot………..maybe, if this was a two-dimensional world:

 

What a weird cloud……………..it looks like the world’s skinniest tornado:

 

Maybe I should have put this one with the Bergen County Courthouse shots, but it’s got a lot more sky than Courthouse (and there’s no “Geese” section), so………………..

 

 

OTHER

I found these things on my roof. They look like little pastries and a couple seem to have cannoli filing, but they’re tiny……….. maybe ¼” each. Obviously, they’re some form of excretion, but what would make something in this form/shape?

Two days later, I shot them after it rained:

 

I have a friend who writes a bird column and can usually answer my avian questions. Here’s how that went:

https://www.celeryfarm.net/2018/12/perhaps-disgusting-monday-mystery.html

 

One is looking east, one north and one south……………so who’s looking west?

Me!

 

I don’t recall ever seeing a picture like this on the side of a truck, so – of course – I had to shoot it:

 

Waiting for the transformer to explode…………………….

 

Gift-wrapped from Hackensack:

 

New Jersey Transit takes pictures of their female passengers’ legs? Watch YOUR step, guys!

 

This is my 90-year-old building’s lobby. Our new landlord decided to paint it. I don’t recall it needing paint – in fact, I don’t even recall its original color – that’s how neutral it was. Anyway, I saw the scene on the left one day…………is that a new color or the old one? In any event, 3 days later, I saw something horribly different (right half). What the hell?

A few days later, the apartment doors and trim on that floor were painted black. Who’s their designer, Svengoolie?

I haven’t taken a picture of that yet – I’m hoping to wake up from this nightmare first. If it’s real, it’s ghastly! Nice first impression. Way to class up the place!

 

What’s the purpose of having a tiny door on the traffic side of a school bus?

 

The Used Car Christmas Sale Balloon Minuet

Just picture the balloons as a pair of dancers: apart, together…………..there’s even a dip!

 

A couple of others that don’t fit anywhere:

 

 

PROJECTS

 

76 Main

This stitch is an expanded version of last month’s short mural shot:

 

Current on River

Day and night:

 

The Record

Well, everything finally came down today (Dec. 10). Of course, I wasn’t there. From the looks of an online search, I don’t think anyone else with a camera was there either, so here’s a stitch that I finished up with:

Thanks, Record!

Some friend!

 

The rest:

Pick up and drop:

 

The only thing left:

 

The final side shot stitch:

 

 

389 Main

A late-week steel delivery sat in the lot over the weekend and made for a nice stitch on Sunday. Most – if not all – of it was destined to be used horizontally on the Main St (right) side:

 

I’ve circled my living room window from where I took the previous two photos (and a million other shots):

 

The view from Main St:

 

This has to be one of the best-timed shots I’ve taken during this project. After a steel beam is brought down from the sky (see previous pic) and ready to be secured, someone below throws bolts up to the guy sitting on another beam on the second floor. They’re thrown one at a time.

I wanted to stop one in the air just as he was about to catch it.

Bingo!

 

DONE!!!   FINALLY!!!

 

Sorry it’s two months late, but adding the extra projects entries in every month and the current shooting of existing projects, with all the attendant photo editing just takes way too much time.

 

So to make it worth your while, I’m adding one more thing that I didn’t shoot – something I saved years ago, but which turned up in 2018………….something that you’ll want to run right over to your supermarket and get a supply of before they’re all gone:

Now you can have delicious chocolate AND keep your face clean. I still haven’t figured out if the white stuff in the confection is tissue or lotion, but who cares? It’s got chocolate! ENJOY while you slog through all these damn pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…………………………………..Note: (Ignore above publish date of May 1, 2017. This was posted on May 16, 2019.)

 

I got the notice on May 3. It was not unexpected, as his health had not been good since a stroke hit him 10 or 11 years ago. He had to retire from his day job as a senior investigator for the Office of the Bergen County Superintendent of Elections because of it, but he continued to be the legendary DJ at WFMU that he had been since 1976.

When I graduated from Bergen Catholic High School in 1965, I had no idea that someone who was pretty much like me in a lot of ways would begin his high school life in the same building just 3 months later. That – and the strict Catholic upbringing we both endured – was our first tie, though we didn’t discover that until a few other bonds were established in the early 70s.

You may recall in my “The Other Career” post (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=6541), that I was going through hell in my one semester at Seton Hall University, quit school, spent a couple of years finding out what I wanted to do with my life and wound up at Bergen Community College in September of 1970.

I used to see these two long-haired guys hanging around BCC a lot, but didn’t know them. In my second semester there as a Chem major, a professor asked me if I’d tutor someone in his statistics class.

It turned out to be one of the two longhaired guys. His name was Bob Hussey. He sang in a band and was really into music, so we got along just fine. Eventually, he introduced me to his friend and that was Frank O’Toole, who was also really into music.

We started going to concerts together, along with their girlfriends, Janet (Bob H.) and Elaine (Frank). We went to a million of them and – with a couple of exceptions – usually had a pretty good time.

Frank told me years later that he originally thought I was a narc because I was 4 years older and in community college – a thought that was easily proven false.

Since they both graduated high school in 1969, they entered BCC a year before I did, so they were now in their last semester. I made sure Hussey passed statistics. They both graduated and Frank continued at Ramapo College, where I joined him a year later, and Hussey got more into his band (Pegasus).

Amongst the three of us, it seemed obvious that Hussey would be the only one to see success in the music industry as Frank would probably be teaching history somewhere and I would be experimenting in a chem lab.

Life completely flipped that script. Frank became well-known on WFMU, I was published all over the world in music magazines, books, etc., and Hussey became………………a nurse!

Whoda thunkit?

So what did we look like back then? Sometime in the last 10 years or so, Frank sent me a picture that was taken in 1971 in the woods behind Ramapo:

I don’t know the people on the ends, but the middle three are (l-r), John and Cindy Cavanaugh (I’m not sure if they were married when this was taken) and Frank, who appears to be scratching his lip or something. He must be scratching awfully fast because I think I see smoke, which seems to be amusing Cindy.

 

I don’t have any Hussey pix from then, so I’m including one I took that’s in my 1976 post:

 

The only pic of me I have from 1971 is in “The Other Career” post, which I’ve just lifted for your convenience and chuckles:

 

During the early 70s, Frank and I engaged in purple-haze-tinged mental bonding rituals – OK, ridiculous trivia – that had us laughing hysterically when both of us knew what seemed like hundreds of the exact same, super-obscure things. I can only recall one, probably because it seemed like the most obscure one, and because whoever asked it was POSITIVE that the other would have no way in hell of knowing the answer…………..but we did:

What was the odd, baseball-sounding name of Dondi’s adoptive grandfather?

Does anyone here even know who Dondi is? (without looking it up…………..we couldn’t)

The answer is found at the end of this post.

 

Back to our show:

So the concerts continued and Frank and I got our degrees in 1973 and 1974, respectively. In ’73, I (re)started my “Other Career”, but 3 days before that began, I shot my first concert (Led Zeppelin, from the 4th row orchestra on the center aisle. F&E had seats 3 and 4). Those two careers ran parallel for 6 years until R’n’R Photography knocked Chemistry out for good.

In 1974, Hussey and I moved into a house in Leonia with some other people and that lasted a whole 6 months. In ’75, we moved into a house in River Edge with the guitarist from another band and his wife……………and Hussey’s cats (see ’75 and ’76 posts for that).

Also in ’75, Frank and Elaine got married on August 1!

I decided to shoot it, but did TERRIBLY! Below is the ONE picture I managed to salvage recently and it took a lot of Photoshopping to make it come out only THIS bad:

 

I’m guessing there was an official event photographer who shot all the guests sitting at their tables because I’ve had this print of me and Debbie – who I met in ’74 – for years. It’s not a sharp print, but we both looked good, so I did what I could with it:

 

I have a confession to make to those of you who don’t know me. If that’s you and you’re reading this, chances are you’re a WFMU devotee and really into Frank’s show.

I wasn’t. I’m one of those slugs who was SO knocked out by hard rock guitar that my devotion to it has never wavered and my basic tastes have never changed. I’m still 16 in that regard and if no one’s looking, I may try to sneak in a little air guitar. I DO like lots of other things – I’m not Beavis OR Butt-head, you know – but I’m also not Frank’s musically-identical twin. We all have our little niches and mine just happens to have nice hard edges (but I DO love XTC’s “Black Sea” album).

 

But Frank DID influence me in a couple of major areas – the first one being Bruce Springsteen. I had listened to some of the first two albums and yawned.

“No, no! You have to see him live! It’s like night and day!” is what I heard for the next two years. “Yeah, yeah…………”

Finally, the stars aligned 15 days after F&E’s wedding. We had tickets to BOTH shows at the Bottom Line on August 16! If I recall correctly, 5 of us went: F&E, me and Debbie and John Cavanaugh (the 16th was Cindy’s due date, so she couldn’t make it).

Here are the fronts and backs of my ticket stubs:

 

Here’s a trivia question for you: I have a Bottom Line ticket stub from 4 days later – August 20, 1975. Guess what future E Street Band member was the headliner.

(Hint: NL at the BL)

 

The Bottom Line seats 400, plus standing room. Of course, the line outside the venue was long and we wound up in the back half of the club. But – except for seats behind the support columns – there really were no bad seats there. Everyone could see (and I could shoot!).

Frank was right – it was a great show. I was hooked and psyched for the second show – especially since most of it would be on my birthday, August 17.

The problem at the Bottom Line if you had tickets to both shows was that EVERYONE had to exit the club after the first show and get on line again – a line that started forming before the first show began and would be SUPER long by the time we exited the club.

What to do?

I had an ace up my sleeve. I was friendly with Donna Stewart, the head waitress. I probably told her that it was my birthday and she gave me the best present ever: she told us to stay while the club emptied and then said to grab whatever table we wanted up front…………ANY table!

I didn’t want dead center because I’d wind up with a lot of shots of Bruce with the mic (and mic stand) in his face, so I picked just right of center on Miami Steve’s side.

While the back half of the club had small round tables, the front section had several what looked like very long tables (actually 4 or 5 end-to-end rectangular tables that each sat 2 people across from two others) that began at the stage and went straight back perpendicularly. The net effect was that each row looked like one very long table.

I took a picture before the people on line were let in:

Elaine and Debbie are right against the stage, with Elaine being closest to Bruce (he later fell in her lap during the show!) and Debbie would be facing him directly. Frank’s next to Elaine (and holding one of my lenses). You can see my seat next to Debbie. I would also be facing Bruce. And you can also see the 4-person rectangular table. Picture 4 or 5 of them end-to end, multiply that by 10 or 20 and you’ve got an idea of what the front seating of the Bottom Line looked like.

I searched all over online and could not find a Bottom Line seating chart that would have made this explanation a lot easier. The only thing I could find that might give you some semblance of an idea of what it all looked like is this undated/uncredited Bottom Line picture of a LaBelle performance:

The guy who’s directly below the tambourine is sitting where I think Debbie might have been (which would make me the bald guy sitting next to him). In the back left is standing room by the bar.

So – if the first show was great, you can imagine what a total knockout the second show was! Thanks to Frank (and especially Donna!), this was probably the second-best birthday show of my life (the best one has to be when the moment I turned 22 was the same moment that the Who hit the stage at Woodstock – exactly 5:00am on August 17, 1969. What a blast THAT was!).

After the Bottom Line shows, I photographed every Bruce show I could for the next 17 years (http://bobleafe.com/ , http://bobleafe.com/darkness/enter.html).

 

LATE ADDITIONS:

Ten days after making this post, I came across two Peter Cunningham images I had never seen before:

1. Remember the “he-fell-in-her-lap” comment above? Here it is. You can see Elaine laughing on the left as John Cavanaugh inches closer with his camera:

 

While Elaine had been aware of that photo, she (and I) were completely unaware that a photo existed with her AND Frank!

This is a great find!

 

One last note from this show: this picture from that show – taken by Peter Cunningham – ran in Rolling Stone when the 30th Anniversary Edition of Born To Run came out.

Guess what guy sitting next to Debbie (not shown) I circled in red. This is the birthday gift that keeps on giving…………..and it’s all due to Frank (and, of course, Donna – more on her later). By the way, that might be John Cavanaugh above Bruce’s headstock (I’m sure someone will let me know).

 

In 1976, Frank started at WFMU, I bid adieu to Debbie and said hello to a blonde.

 

The other instance in which Frank was a major influence occurred when he turned me on to The Uncle Floyd Show. Trivia: Did y’all know that he and Floyd were born on the same day?

I was not familiar with the show at all when Frank invited me to accompany him to a UFS taping in West Orange in 1977. When we walked in, all the cast members were on one side of the studio and we were on the other. We were being eyed suspiciously for the entire time and no one came over to talk to us. It was VERY uncomfortable and it didn’t make me want to invest my time with this bunch.

On a related note, Hussey moved out of the River Edge house around this time (or maybe it was in ’76). He wound up back in his hometown of New Milford.

One day, I got a call from him, inviting me over to see his new place and also meet some guy on a different floor of his residence who had something new and exciting that few other people had – CABLE TV!

I went over and met this rather rotund gentleman who didn’t say much and that was the end of that.

As time went on, I started getting into the UFS and by the time the show got to perform at the Bottom Line in 1979, I was interested enough to go and shoot it.

I also shot a couple of personal appearances by Floyd and cast and got to know some of them well. This was 180 degrees from my initial encounter with them in 1977.

One of the cast members – a guy named Scott – was a rotund guy who lived in New Milford. “Omigod! YOU live where Hussey does?” “Yeah.”

By ’82, I was the show’s official photographer, shooting all the studio tapings and live shows………and all the pictures for their one album.

Since so many bands – including some big ones – visited the show, it was a unique opportunity to get shots that no other photographer could get. This benefitted the show, especially when I got them in a bunch of national rock magazines at the time when the show (for a short time) became nationally-syndicated. Again, visit my site and look under “U” for 94 UFS pix and stories, including David Bowie, who showed up at a UFS Bottom Line show and later wrote a song about the show (“Slip Away”). If you need more incentive, that story also includes something you may not know about John Lennon in connection with the show!

Obviously, this whole thing was a blast and I owe it all to Frank.

(Note to Hussey: years after the fact, Scott Gordon told me that he and his wife still refer to my visit to you and him in New Milford as “the Two Bobs Night”………….even though nothing transpired. I’ll take it.)

 

Getting back on track………

On a couple of rare occasions, Frank and I teamed up as a photographer/journalist unit. The most interesting one occurred in October, 1977, somewhere on 57th St in Manhattan when he interviewed City Boy. We were both friendly with a helpful Atlantic Records promo guy named Roy Rosenberg, who arranged the interview (and sat in on it).

I took pictures while Frank interviewed the 3 band members. At the head of the table, Roy looks a bit zoned out. He appears to be either hiding his poker hand or about to play a harmonica – or maybe something else.

 

A slight detour side note about Roy Rosenberg:

Frank knew him before I did, so that eased my introduction to Roy. I usually dealt with publicity departments, but on occasion, promo departments would have some interesting assignments for me.

I happened to be visiting Roy at Atlantic one day in 1978 when he told me he didn’t have much time because he had to deliver a new single to radio stations, but asked me if I wanted to hear the new ROLLING STONES SINGLE before every DJ in New York City – including Scott Muni at WNEW-FM – heard it.

Geez – you have to ask?

Believe it or not, I was somewhat disappointed because the song turned out to be “Miss You” – the Stones’ entry into disco, which – as we all know – SUCKS!

 

Back to City Boy:

After I took the above picture, I took two more right after it. In the first one, I took a group shot of the band. In the very next frame, Frank and I are out on 57th St. He recognizes someone and runs right over to get an autograph. I’m not sure if he told me right away who it was, but in any event, I made sure to take a picture of the encounter.

It was Joseph Heller, the author of Catch-22.

 

A week later, we were at the Bottom Line to see Eddie Money. We weren’t seated up front, but our table was pretty interesting. While Frank ignored me, BeBe Buell and Liz Derringer posed for me as Jon Tiven smiled a bit just in case he was in the frame.

 

Five months earlier, BeBe had given birth to Liv Tyler. If you’re not familiar with that wild story, you can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bebe_Buell

She also played a small part in my “1989 – New Year’s Eve Over Times Square” post (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=6433).

Liz and Jon are no slouches either, so look them up too.

 

Six weeks later, Frank is grabbing my new blonde GF’s head at NYU as we attend a really good Mink DeVille/Eddie and the Hot Rods show.

 

I found the negatives for our penultimate event of 1977 in a plastic neg sheet labeled “Christmas” “WFMU” “1977”. I don’t know that these were taken ON Christmas……..it was probably some sort of party at the station, but there are hardly any people in the images, so maybe Frank was just doing a show circa Christmas and had some friends in.

This friend’s name is Elaine O’Toole:

 

And here’s Frank hard at work:

 

Of course, the ULTIMATE event of 1977 was on the year’s last evening: the First Annual Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes New Year’s Eve show at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic…………..you know – the show that surprise guest Bruce and his boys took over.

By this time, I was the Capitol’s house photographer and was given 4 tickets on the left-center aisle in the second row so I could work AND enjoy the show with Frank and Elaine and the blonde GF.

I’ve written extensively about what went on that night, but you’ll have to go to http://bobleafe.com/ and scroll down to the Springsteen listing to read all about it and see the pictures.

 

The following year, WNEW-FM held its annual Christmas concert at Avery Fisher Hall to benefit United Cerebral Palsy on 12-4-78. The DJs would accept wrapped toys around a lobby Christmas tree from ticketholders, who would get to meet their favorite DJ.

I was shooting for the station. When F&E walked in, I took this shot on crappy film of them with DJs Meg Griffin and Thom Morrera:

 

 

 

I found the neg for this pic of our favorite couple as a loose single frame, so there was no indication what year it was taken, where it was taken or what occasion would cause Frank to wear a tie:

 

Eventually, I found a contact sheet that had this image, but still without any information…………EXCEPT for one more numerically-sequential image attached to it that was very dark, grainy and seemingly unrelated. I spiffed it up as much as I could:

This is the Capitol Theatre’s lobby and – right in the middle – breaking down what appears to have been a party setup is the highly recognizable form of promoter John Scher. That still doesn’t give any useful info, however.

Up on the walls above the entry doors on the right, I can see Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes posters, but New Year’s Eve isn’t mentioned on them.

But “Hearts of Stone” IS and that’s the clue. That album was released in 1978 and John didn’t use the lobby for partying very often, but I KNOW he did for the ’78 NYE show because I have a picture of me eating a turkey leg in that party lobby at that show, SO I’m confident that the above F&E picture was taken at the Capitol at the 1978 SSJ NYE show, with Elaine resplendent in her raccoon jacket and Frank (gasp!) wearing a tie.

 

On May 24, 1979, Frank came with me when I shot a Patti Smith Group in-store at E. J. Korvettes in Paramus. In this shot, he appears to be sharing a laugh with Patti:

 

In this one, it looks like he’s trying to sell disco albums to PSG guitarist Lenny Kaye.

 

On November 7, 1980, I picked up Frank in Lodi and took him to see the B-52s and Kid Creole and the Coconuts at the Capitol Theater. This was taken on the way home. Looks like he enjoyed it:

 

Also in 1980, I found out that Abbie Hoffman was going to be interviewed by Bob Fass (to musical accompaniment by former Blues Project member Danny Kalb?) at WFMU on December 19. Since this was four days after I had done a so-so shoot with Abbie when he appeared on the Robert Klein Radio Hour, I wanted to see if I could get some better shots of him at FMU.

Frank’s not in any of the FMU shots, so I guess he wasn’t there, but I’m sure he facilitated my being there.

Both of these shots are on my site, so I’m just gonna add the site captions to these images:

Bob Fass (WFMU-FM), Danny Kalb and Abbie Hoffman

WFMU-FM Studios – Upsala College, E. Orange, NJ 1980 Abbie is interviewed to musical accompaniment on the Bob Fass Show (not really, but it looks that way, no?)

 

Abbie Hoffman and Chuck Russo (WFMU-FM)

WFMU-FM Studios – Upsala College, E. Orange, NJ 1980 Abbie shows which station he thinks is #1. Chuck thinks that if he closes his eyes, maybe this never happened.

 

I don’t know about Chuck, but I’m happy with what I got.

 

In 1981………F&E visited me at my apartment. We took some fooling around shots of a pretty-pregnant Elaine, so………..

Ladies & Gentlemen, I give you the O’Toole family: Frank, Elaine…………….and Meghan:

 

Late additions:

Regarding that last shot (and PLEASE don’t tell Meghan), she was the second of fraternal twins to pop out. The first one was WAY early and arrived in my living room, much to her father’s – and my – shock. Elaine seems cool with it. And if Meghan complains to me about revealing this, I’m gonna change “fraternal” to “identical”.

(jk, M)

 

In 1982, Frank and I teamed up again – this time at Hitsville in Passaic Park, where Frank interviewed Jimmy O’Neil of Fingerprintz:

 

In 1985, Frank and our friend Mike O’Connor dropped by my apartment. At one time in the early 70s, Frank, Mike, Hussey and I all worked at Blue Cab in Teaneck. The Blue Cab story is part of the “The Other Career” post that I keep mentioning:

 

Small shout-out to Hussey…………..during my massive photo search, I found this picture of him that I took in 1985. I was at Madison Square Garden to shoot a Bryan Adams show when I saw someone in the loge (first ring) trying to get my attention between acts. Guess who?

Even in the early 70s when we all thought Hussey would be the rock star of the group, I never imagined that I’d be photographing him at the Garden.

 

Jumping ahead to 1989……….

Elaine was pregnant again in 1986, but I never got to shoot enlarged E, so when the family visited in 1989, I got the sisters together in the chair that Elaine patched multiple times over the years. Corinne was 3 and Meghan was 8.

In the second shot, Corinne looks like she’s wondering what’s with the two photobombers on the sides.

Late additions:

In the first two shots, Meghan appears to have it in for the other family females (and Corinne seems to have eyes in the back of her head in the second one), but in the end, they are loving (and fun-loving) sisters:

 

1992 was the last year of my R’n’R photo career. I had an upcoming night shoot on my roof scheduled with Dee Snider’s new band (with an old name): Widowmaker. I knew that because I had shot Ariel Bender’s Widowmaker in 1977.

I had recently come up with a new (and simple) back-lighting technique that I hadn’t tried out yet and F&E volunteered to be the guinea pigs.

I’m glad they did because it actually came out better than the Snider one did. It’s also my last photo of F&E and – of course – my favorite.

 

Late 1992 additions: I found these two (and a few others that you’ve already seen) when I finally had a chance to go through a few thousand “uncategorized” color slides.

I have NO idea where the first one was taken and Frank has NO idea why I suddenly called him a hoser. The last one was taken early in our rooftop shoot – WAY before my favorite one above. They looked cute, so here it is:

 

I didn’t see much of them in the ensuing years, but Frank and I talked on the phone and kept up. I’d pick up the phone and hear a low, semi-drawn-out “Leafe” (he knew Hussey first, so that was “Bob”).

When email came into play, that was another useful communication tool until this year when I knew something was up because he didn’t reply to my emails.

Fortunately, the last two emails I received from him were short and sweet and ones I’ll treasure forever.

In the first one – from last September – he replied to my notification of the posting of “The Other Career”. All I had written was “Few know, fewer care…………” and gave the link.

His reply?

“I cared.”

 

This last one was a reply to a greeting on his last birthday:

In case his reply is too small to read:

 

 

Endnotes: A “more on that later” that I didn’t want to forget. Our Bottom Line savior at the Springsteen shows – Donna Stewart – has been Donna Diken for the last three decades. Dennis Diken, of course, is the Smithereens’ drummer and was a very good friend of Frank. I don’t have their contact information, but I hope that someone who does will forward the link to this post to them.

 

Oh yeah – Dondi! His adoptive grandfather’s baseball-sounding name was “Pop Fligh”. For more info on that comic strip:

https://newspapercomicstripsblog.wordpress.com/2016/11/28/dondi/

 

 

And here is the obituary as it appeared in The Record on May 5, 2019:

 

 

Frank was just a great guy and the one unique thing I can say about him is that I don’t remember ever having a serious argument or difference of opinion with him during the entire 48 years that I knew him.

I don’t think I can say that about anyone else I’ve known for a tenth of that time.

This man was a true friend…………… to. the. end.

Rest in peace, Frank.

 

LATE ADDITION: I recently found these. They could have come from no one other than Frank:

 

An even later addition (just found this on 1-21-22):

 

 

Please feel free to use the comments section to express any feelings or remembrances.

 

 

 

 

 

(Ignore May 1, 2017 publish date. This was published on May 23, 2019)

 

I’ve been a buyer on eBay for over 20 years. I have a 100% rating and my feedbacks are almost up to 1,600. I know what’s a good transaction and what isn’t.

I was recently in the market for a ream of paper for my printer………nothing fancy for photos (it’s a B&W printer). It takes me about 4 years to get through a ream (500 sheets).

I found a decent deal on eBay and bought it. When it arrived, I was mildly disappointed to see that the entire package was covered with TWO layers of tape (can’t recycle THAT paper):

 

When I finally macheted my way through that, I found all this……………STUFF:

 

There were small, clear(ish) plastic bags with red stuff in some of them:

 

Paper:

 

Dark plastic shipping bags with shipping labels still on them with names and addresses:

 

The blue plastic outer covering of a Staples 5-ream package (it looked like a small backpack)

 

 

Some kind of decorative (?) paper with writing and calendar pages attached to them:

 

Multiple strips of yellow and green mesh……something: 

 

Empty granola and “savory crackers” packages:

 

Large plastic bags with big red, purple and black stains in/on them (yuck!):

 

Excavating all this crap brought me to a beat-up cardboard box, whose side indicated that its former contents were a pair of size 7 black boots from Sears:

 

Surely, that was the actual protection for my package – part of which looked like this:

 

However, the rest of it looked like this:

 

The box itself was not pierced, so that eliminates the possibility that the carrier caused the damage to the package. That means that the package was already ripped when it was initially placed in the box. There’s no other explanation. I was sold damaged merchandise packed with garbage.

 

Oh yeah – UNDER the package in the box was a piece of vegetation – a piece of lettuce, I’m guessing.

 

This garbage-can content was – by far – the worst (and most disgusting) packing I have ever received. On top of that, I got a ripped package.

Speaking of ripped, I was all ready to rip this guy a new one with a scathingly-negative feedback until my eBay experience kicked in. In these situations when someone immediately posts a negative feedback, the seller replies and asks “Why didn’t you contact me first before leaving that feedback? I would have made it up to you.”

My seller had no negatives and a 100% rating from 190 feedbacks, so I decided to give him a chance to fix things. I wrote, “If you make a good offer, I won’t post negative feedback and I won’t identify you on my blog. If you don’t, I’ll do both. It’s up to you.”

His reply: “my daughter told me that she use recycle material as cushion to protection the paper from damage during transport. she always used this method for 4 years without any problem. but you are the first buyer don’t happy with her technique which she learn from youtube. furthermore, she told me next time if you buy from us, please do not open a bag of cushion. a bag of cushion is only for protection of the paper. once again we are so sorry for misunderstand. if you are going order from us again, we will be better package for you.”

Recycled material, my ass. And there was no “bag of cushion”………it was all loose stuff – probably why so much tape was needed on the exterior. There was no mention about my ripped purchase and no offer to make amends, so the link to this post will be his negative feedback. However, I have decided not to identify him here because it would serve no purpose.

So – I ask again: was it recycled packing material or garbage?

 

After-posting exchange with seller:

Him: “why you do it to my family business? you are sick man. we are sorry for damage box. the usps ground service damage during transport. we packed really well but you are really sick to open the bag of cushion. the bag of cushion is all from recycle material. it is only for protection for the ream paper. do you understand? there is some wrong with you man. have a good life. good bye.”

 

Me: “There was no ‘bag of cushion’. If there was, I would have just pulled it right out instead of having to touch all that disgusting loose stuff. I gave you the opportunity to make things right, but you never did – you just made excuses.

REAL recycled material is not garbage. This was garbage. Please learn the difference. You can’t ship garbage to people – even if it’s in a bag.

By the way, I did NOT identify you on my blog because I mean you no harm, but you HAVE to pack differently.”

 

 

(Ignore May 1, 2017 publish date. This was published on July 17, 2019)

No – not THAT one! This is MY collection of signatures………..

 

I’m not a big autograph hound, but sometimes, it’s kinda cool to get an important one when the setting is right.

I witnessed most of these sigs and a couple were sent to me by the artist, so I have no doubt as to their authenticity. Every situation is different, so I’ll explain what I can as I present these chronologically by year-signed.

(why am I getting hungry?)

 

1967/1968

I’m not sure of the year, but it’s the first autograph I went after when this situation presented itself.

I was on 42nd St in Manhattan one evening when I saw a small crowd surrounding someone. I didn’t know who or why, but as I got closer, I heard some of the people mention a name I knew. I don’t think I was ever that close to a celebrity before, so I wanted in.

The problem was that I didn’t have anything to sign. Wait…………my little black book (remember them?) was in a rear pocket. I pulled it out, opened it to the inside back cover and thrust my arm into the mob. I started worrying that somebody else would take it or that the celeb would hand it back to the wrong person.

Someone took it and returned it fairly quickly…………success!

I looked at the sig and felt a bit disappointed. I knew him by another name that was famous all over the world, but he had started using a new name recently and that’s what he signed.

I got over it quickly:

 

 

Madison Square Garden, NYC  November 28, 1974

This was one of the most magical nights of my life. My date and I went to see Elton John and there were rumors of a surprise guest.

The show was a spectacular first date with someone I had met the day before and dated for 2 years and also turned out to be special guest John Lennon’s last public performance.

On top of THAT, our 11th-row seats were right next to Yoko Ono! She signed our tickets and confirmed that John was there and would perform.

We were all standing on our seats, Yoko included, when John came out. I offered my telephoto-lensed camera to her so she could see John better.

I knew she was an artist, but I couldn’t remember if that included photography, so I asked her a question that led to one of the rarest Beatles collectibles in existence that I am the proud owner of.

I asked her to take some pictures of John with my camera.

I also asked her to hold the camera at a 45-degree angle when she took them. There are those wags who suggest that the angle had something to do with her ethnicity, but it was solely to differentiate her shots from mine.

She later wrote her name and address on a scrap of paper (at the bottom of signed ticket pic) she found on the floor and asked me to send her the pictures.

As soon as John left the stage, Yoko left her seat and went backstage where they reunited, ending Lennon’s infamous 18-month “Lost Weekend”. So naturally, I tell everyone that I was the last man to be with Yoko before she went back to John Lennon!

Unfortunately, the pictures didn’t come out well, but this one intrigued me:

It almost looks like a soul rising out of John 6 years before it really did.

I wrote to Yoko to tell her how they came out, but never heard from her again.

Years later, I asked photographer Bob Gruen, who worked extensively with John and Yoko and was in the same agency that I was, to bring a print of the shot to her. He did. I still haven’t heard from her, but I’m happy knowing that she finally has a copy.

What rarer Beatles collectible is there than a photo of John Lennon’s last public performance taken by Yoko Ono with my camera?

 

 

Monmouth Arts Center, Red Bank, NJ May 13, 1977

I took this picture of Bruce Springsteen at the Bottom Line in 1975 during “Kitty’s Back” (as he tried to hide behind Clarence’s back). Two years later, I met Bruce backstage at a show that was supposed to be Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes with Ronnie Spector, who sang with SSJ and the boys on their hit single, “You Mean So Much To Me Baby”.

Unfortunately, Southside was ill, but fortunately, Bruce stood in for him.

Since I happened to have this small print with me (I had no idea that Bruce was going to be there), I asked him to sign it. It’s the first time my work was signed by the pictured artist.

You can find the full story on bobleafe.com by entering 15-091 in the search box.

 

 

1977

I first encountered Billy Squier when he was in Piper in 1977. I had shot their show from up front at NYC’s Palladium and sent some pix to their record company. They liked the end-of-show candid group shot and the band wound up using it as their autographed Christmas card:

I was told I’d receive a second one – a personalized one – and I did. It says, “Dear Chuck and Gary, Thanks for being there.” (right back atcha, guys)

Too bad I can’t find it.

 

 

1977/1978

As some of you know, I used to shoot for mega-promoter John Scher and all his venues (go to this blog’s main page by hitting the red WHOWHATWHY link near the top of the page if you want to read about that). John also tour-managed the Grateful Dead on the East Coast and managed other bands as well.

In early 1977, I shot a band of his called Crossfire that later changed its name to Pierce-Arrow, which was the name of an early-1900s car.

This was a very good band with some talented people in it. The one name I knew right off the bat was Doug Lubahn, who’s the answer to a great trivia question: who was The Doors’ bass player? (they never had one onstage, where keyboardist Ray Manzarek worked the bass pedals). But on the studio albums, it was Doug Lubahn.

He was also in one of my favorite Sixties psychedelic bands, Clear Light (check out “Mr. Blue”). If you ever saw Billy Squier on tour c. 1983, Doug was the lefty bassist.

The other half of the Pierce-Arrow rhythm section was drummer Bobby Chouinard, who later became the other half of Billy Squier’s rhythm section with Doug.

The rest of Pierce-Arrow consisted of folk singers, jingle writers and session players. They made two really good albums, but just could not catch fire.

I found this mounted picture of a Pierce-Arrow car and had the band sign it. Along the left side is “Sky Blue Bobby” (with a star) – Chouinard’s signature.

He died in 1997 of an apparent heart attack at age 43.

 

 

1978

Rory Gallagher was just an absolute wild animal on guitar during his live shows, so I tried to catch him whenever I could. Check out this live version of “Shin Kicker” for a taste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpkvNekADJE

I have no idea where or when I got him to sign this 1978 pic I took at the Bottom Line. He DOES show up on someone else’s signed pic in 1979, but I didn’t have this pic with me…………I had no idea he would even be at that show.

The last time I saw him was in 1991 in NJ’s Club Bene. That’s the only place I would have had an opportunity to have him sign this, but I don’t remember meeting him there.

Maybe…………

 

 

1978

During his “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” tour, Bruce Springsteen had a 3-night stand (September 19, 20, 21) at “my house” – the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ.

After each show, he would come out in the venue to sign autographs for whoever was still around. Everybody knew that he did that, so a lot of people were there.

The program for this 3-night stand had a couple of my pix of Bruce in it and that’s the page that both he and Clarence signed, so this is the second instance of Bruce signing my pictures of him.

 

 

1979

Thanks for the great signature, Patti Smith!  🙁

I think she made the same face when she was signing it.

 

 

1979

This pic was taken when the Who played 2 nights at the Capitol. I think Pete may have signed it later that year when ¾ of the Who showed up on the Robert Klein Radio Hour.

 

 

1979

My girlfriend at the time found this being tossed out at a record store in New Haven, CT c.1977. This highly-reflective and shiny Mylar promo piece was signed by Ray Davies when the Kinks played Bergen Community College – where I was a faculty member – in 1979.

 

 

1979

“How to ruin a perfectly good picture” by Steven Tyler. Well, at least I got a hug and kiss out of the deal.

 

 

1979

And here’s the other signed picture that Rory Gallagher’s in, but the star of the show is Mitch Ryder. You can see exactly what Mitch wrote via my MR note on the pic.

 

You can see it better in this Photoshop-enhanced image:

 

 

1979/80

This is a page from People magazine, which ran a shot of mine of Jimmy Buffett, Robert Klein, Peter Tosh and John Oates that I took on the Robert Klein Radio Hour in 1979:

A closeup of the sig…….I’m not sure if Klein signed it in ’79 or ’80.

 

 

1980

I took the Abbie Hoffman shot in 1980 on the Robert Klein Radio Hour and had Abbie sign it 4 days later when he was interviewed on WFMU.

 

 

1980

Bette Midler was signing her new book, “A View From A Broad” at B. Dalton on 5th Avenue in NYC. When the crowd thinned out , I slipped her one of the promo sheets and she signed it.

 

 

1980

Bram Tchaikovsky – the man and the band – was doing a lunchtime gig with the Joe Perry Project at CBS Studios that was broadcast over WNEW-FM. He wanted to sign this pic that I had taken earlier that year in Tennessee if he could add a couple of words to it.

Have at it, Brammer!

 

 

1980

OK – this is a little complicated. This is a sandwich image: one B&W negative of the façade of the Convention Hall/Paramount Theater complex in Asbury Park that advertised the Hunter-Ronson show at the Paramount AND the Asbury Park Baby Parade (a tradition since 1890) AND another B&W negative of Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson taken at that show. Both pix were taken in 1979.

One negative sat on top of the other, but the performance one had to sit lower so the guys would clear the sign. That’s why the film’s sprocket holes show up on top. This sandwich was put in the enlarger’s film holder as is and this is the result. I’m not sure why there’s a second Ian Hunter signature on the back.

I think I got them to sign this when they made an appearance at Looney Tunez Record Store in Wayne, NJ, in 1980. BTW – Looney Tunez was run by guys who would later become Dramarama.

 

 

1981

Ted Nugent was photographed with the WHCN (Hartford, CT) Walrus on the Robert Klein Radio Hour (I had never heard of the station or the Walrus prior to this – I’m guessing their station carried the show).

I got the pic in People Magazine and the next time Ted was on the RKRH, he signed it.

 

 

1981

John Scher’s company – Monarch Entertainment – put out a small booklet that touted their services: Management, Tour Management, The Grateful Dead Movie, and College Booking. In it, I had pictures of the Rolling Stones at the Capitol Theatre, Ted Nugent at Giants Stadium, and Bruce Springsteen and Jerry Garcia – both performing at the Capitol.

In 1981, the Dead made an appearance on Tom Snyder’s “Tomorrow” show. I had photo and backstage clearance. I also had one of these booklets with me and when I saw Jerry wandering around backstage, I asked him to sign his pic (Deadheads tell me this is a GREAT acquisition and do I want to sell it? [no]).

Oh, look – the Pierce-Arrow logo is on the cover:

 

 

1981

Well, you saw the Piper version of Billy Squier in 1977. As a result, I wound up doing a few things for him in his early days as a solo artist. He also appeared in 1981 on The Tom Snyder Show and I took this picture of him when he was sitting in the show’s backstage makeup chair – the same chair where I shot Bob Weir when the Dead were there (you’ll have to go to my site to see that). This pic became the cover shot for his hit single, “My Kinda Lover”.

 

Toward the end of the year, I was invited to the taping of the very first MTV Christmas video (MTV had started on 8-1-81). Do you remember Billy’s, “Christmas Is The Time To Say I Love You”? That’s the video I was at. My girlfriend was in the group behind him singing along with the original MTV VJs and assorted record company people.

Of course, I had brought the single with me and had Billy sign it………….and here’s THAT picture:

 

 

1982

I took the shot of Eddie Money at the Bottom Line in 1977. I was hesitant to show him the pic because I thought he looked weird, but, apparently, he liked it.

I can’t think of where else he might have signed it, so it must have been when he was on the Uncle Floyd Show in 1982.

 

 

1982

Bob & Doug McKenzie (Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas) signed their album in 1982 at a Sam Goody’s in Manhattan. Bob’s fading sig says, “Beauty! Good Day” and his name:

 

 

1984

There was a guest on the Uncle Floyd Show in 1984 called The Amazing Wid, who would bring in a million unrelated props and use them in a funny word association bit.

Davy Jones of the Monkees was also on the show that day, so I grabbed one of Wid’s props – a humorous 1962 book called “The Monkeys”, which was about monkeys who were to work in an olive grove in Provence picking up olives – and asked Davy to sign it.

He seemed to be very concerned that I thought this book had some connection to his band and made sure to write “The Monkees” under his signature, so I wouldn’t be confused (uh, thanks for clearing that up, Davy).

 

 

 

1984

This was pretty funny, but would you expect anything else from Soupy Sales? He was performing at a club in West Orange, NJ called Rascal’s.

From my site:

I was the beneficiary of some Soupy shtick when I took my first shot of the evening.

As soon as the flash went off, Soupy looked at me, reached in his jacket pocket, and yelled out, ‘Great shot!’ as he handed me an autographed picture of himself that I had supposedly just taken.

Obviously, I didn’t see him sign it, but when he personally hands it to you in front of a packed house, you have to believe it’s at least semi-legit.

 

 

1997/1998 

I didn’t witness these signatures either, but I don’t have any doubts as their legitimacy.

From https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=885:

This is a limited edition (maybe 50?), signed (maybe 10?) Rolling Stones 1994 tour jacket AND a Keith Richards-signed Telecaster (he wrote “Keith Richards BTB/98″ – BTB refers to the band’s 1998 “Bridges to Babylon” tour). The jacket was signed by Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie. Except for Charlie’s, these were great sigs.

Ignoring an original Led Zeppelin “The Object”, these items were – by far – the coolest rock items I’ve ever owned. How I acquired them is a pretty interesting story.

I retired from concert-shooting in 1992 and spent significant time after that trying to collect some non-payments and especially trying to recover some very valuable original slides that were never returned by a number of magazines.

Here’s how that all worked. Each month, magazines would call the photographers with a list of whatever photos were needed for that month. We would send in or deliver them in person to the magazines. Since I live so close to NYC – where many of the magazines were based – I would put together a couple of lists and run around the city delivering them in one day.

After the photo editor made his selections, I took out one of my two-page delivery memos that made a copy when you wrote on it, wrote all the accepted photos/slides down and had him sign it.

One of the common clauses in music photographers’ delivery memos was that if an original slide or negative was lost or damaged, the magazine was liable for a minimum of $1,500 each ($2,500 each if it was a rare one that couldn’t be replaced by shooting something similar on the next tour).

Some mags lost a bunch of my slides and never paid for them, but the editor of one of them had a conscience. He didn’t have the money, but wanted to know if I wanted “stuff” instead. As editor, he was given lots of highly-desirable goodies. He already had the jacket and was promised the signed guitar after he did (and published) an interview with Keith. He delivered the jacket in 1997 and the guitar in 1998.

So now the question was what do I do with these things? How should I display them properly? The only workable idea I could come up with that incorporated both items was to get a mannequin with moveable arms that could wear the jacket and play – or at least hold – the guitar.

I went into Manhattan with a pickup-truck-owning friend and found one with a beautiful stand (most were pretty ugly) for $250. My guitar-meister friend, Danny Shea, gave me the skulls strap, which was perfect, and I topped it off with a leather Yankees cap.

So now I had a new 7-foot-tall roommate – Keef Leafe – who stood by my front door. It was the first thing anyone saw when they walked in.

About 8 years later, I sold the jacket and guitar and the former Keef Leafe now sports my old long-fringed leather jacket, a Western-looking hat that I think is Australian and a cool-looking yellow Strat lookalike with holes (shown in the 2000 post). He kept the skulls strap.

There’s a picture of this now-nameless guy in the 2008 post.

 

 

2016

I wrote the whole story regarding the “reunion” with Robert Klein here: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=2561 You’ll have to scroll almost halfway down the post to get there (it’s right after “Octopups in Outer Space”).

It was a very interesting encounter:

 

 

I have lots of other signed stuff – mostly sports-related – but I bought those at auctions and online. Who knows how many are real?

 

Now that I think about it, I DID get one sports-related signature in person way back in 1959 outside of Yankee Stadium after a game when The Ol’ Redhead – Yankees announcer Red Barber – signed my 15-cent program:

It’s also here: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=2954

 

That’s it! Hope you enjoyed it.

Signing out,

 

 

(Ignore May 1, 2017 publish date. This was published on September 26, 2019)

 

If you’re not familiar with my friend Eric, his story is here: (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=6242). As you can read in that story, he met Rick Derringer last year. This year, it’s Joan. Who will it be next year?

Five years after he told me he had maybe a year or two to live, he’s still going strong-ish and we had another interesting little adventure last Sunday, 9/22/19.

Sometime in the early 80s, his band opened for Joan at My Father’s Place on Long Island. 3 or 4 years ago, he met her backstage at Nassau Coliseum when Joan opened for the Who.

He wanted to see her again last Sunday, when she was scheduled to play at BergenPac in nearby Englewood, NJ…………PLUS, it was her 61st birthday.

Carol Ross is a friend of ours who manages Tommy James and the Shondells (Tommy’s an old friend of Eric and his father – Bob Leefe! – who recorded some of Tommy’s hits back in the day). Carol is someone I’ve known professionally since the 70s, when she was KISS’ publicist (among others). She also knows Kenny Laguna (Joan’s manager/best friend/mentor/producer/keyboard player and a hundred other things) quite well, so she arranged for us to attend the show and say hello to Joan backstage.

The main thing Eric wanted from me was a shot with Joan – just as we had done with others.

We met her before the show in a backstage storage area that was quite dark and wouldn’t you know it – my flash wouldn’t go off……..twice! I tried one more time and it worked, but by then the smiles had faded and they both did NOT look good. You can’t nail down a musician before a show for longer than that, so I did what I could in Photoshop to make something of one of the nearly-black images. They look good in this one, but there’s little color or light to work with, so it’s not exactly up to my standards (but it’ll do).

 

BTW – I know why the flash didn’t go off…………blame the bright doorway behind them.

No such obstacle existed when I took the shot of Kenny, Joan and Carol and that turned out to be the best shot of the night. It’s an especially good shot of Joan on her birthday (he says modestly) – the kind of shot I would have run right over to People magazine or Rolling Stone 30-35 years ago.

 

On to the show………

The wheelchair section at BergenPac is in the last row of the orchestra. If you look at the below seating chart in the furthest two corners from the stage, you’ll see “W C” (WheelChair). I’ve circled our location. The regular seats there are ripped out and there was one folding chair for me and a space for Eric’s wheelchair………..both right against the back wall.

 

The audience stood for 90% of the show and Eric can’t do that, so he saw almost nothing. Shooting from 32 rows back and with that many people in the way is no picnic, so I did what I could just to show him what was going on onstage:

 

I guess things balanced out for him because the last time he saw her, he was in the wings onstage, so……….one good, one bad. He’s happy he got to meet her before the show, but he REALLY wanted to see her perform.

We’re going back to BergenPac on 11-1-19 to see Tommy James and the Shondells and Felix Cavaliere’s Rascals (courtesy of Carol). His connection with Tommy should get him a better viewing situation.

 

To me, this night kind of felt like what I used to have fun doing for a living (minus the heavy camera bag). I also haven’t worn one of these in a while:

 

 

(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on October 15, 2019)

 

TOMMY JAMES WILL BE APPEARING AT BARNES AND NOBLE – CLIFTON COMMONS, CLIFTON, NJ AT 6PM SATURDAY – HE WILL BE SIGNING HIS NEW CD ALIVE and HIS AUTOBIOGRAPHY – ME, THE MOB AND THE MUSIC…..COME JOIN US …..carol

So said the invite from his manager, received the night before…

 

I found this online:

 

Tommy was going to sign his “Alive” CD and his book, “Me, the Mob and the Music”. It’s an interesting read about the surprising stuff that actually went on at the label Tommy signed with in the 60s – one we all knew: Roulette Records.

I was going to meet him on November 1 when he performs in Englewood, NJ, but this seemed like a more-relaxed situation that might make the show shoot easier. I’m glad I went.

I got there just before the 6pm start time and was ushered upstairs to a room that apparently doubles as backstage in a bookstore. I saw Carol and Tommy right away, along with a couple of other guys. One of them was a B&N employee and another was a rapper who Tommy’s been working with called T.O.N.E-z:

 

Nice backgrounds, huh? Looks like a library with lockers. Tommy couldn’t find his book on the Penguin Books display behind him and we couldn’t find a Simon & Schuster (his publisher) display in that room:

 

Carol and I exchanged pix with Tommy:

 

Numerically, you know what a gross is? That’s how many years Tommy and I share on an equal basis………….(egad!).

 

So then it was time to go downstairs to meet the crowd. Tommy addressed the group and – on a whim – I decided to shoot some video. The zoom makes an irritating mechanical noise when used and the little Canon apparently has a problem holding the focus when zoomed in, so I apologize for both of those annoyances.

I didn’t know how long he was going to talk and if I made one video of the whole thing, the file size would be enormous, so I always try to film in short increments and then stitch them together later. This TEN-AND-A-HALF-MINUTE video is comprised of five shorter vids. The good thing about Quicktime (Mac) video is that when stitched together, the file size becomes about one-third the file size of the five segments separately, so the final file size was a manageable half a gigabyte.

I also usually try to place the camera on a flat surface to keep things steady, but the decision to do video was made about two seconds before Tommy started, so I hand-held it and it is NOT steady throughout. Additionally, B&N’s mic volume was low, so crank up yours.

https://youtu.be/QbLgGEExSPw

 

The signing segment commenced right after the talk, so here are a few shots of the people who came to see Tommy:

 

Photographically, this gets old fast and I wanted to get home to watch the Yankees/Astros ALCS Game 1, so I told the guys I had to run, so let’s get one last quick shot:

 

 

So it was a good, quick, productive shoot – just the way I like ’em – and it will be nice to see (and shoot) the show on Nov. 1.

Look for a post about that.

 

By the way, that last shot is the same one I used for the video’s thumbnail. I have no idea why the vid pic looks so crappy…………must be YouTube.

 

 

(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on November 5, 2019)

 

I’ve been going to concerts since 1964. In all these years, I can’t believe I’ve never seen Tommy James perform. I’ve seen Felix here and there – most notably in 1986 when he was part of the house band for a short-lived TV show I shot for called “Deja View”, where I took what I consider to be my definitive 60s shot:

Recognize them all? From left to right: John Sebastian (Lovin’ Spoonful), Felix Cavaliere (The Rascals), Ronnie Spector (The Ronettes), Roger McGuinn (The Byrds)

If you read my previous post, you know that I finally met Tommy three weeks before this show when he made an in-store appearance at a Barnes & Noble in Clifton, NJ. I’ve known his manager, Carol Ross, for over 40 years, when I used to get photo passes from her office to shoot KISS, for whom she did publicity in the late 70s.

Carol was instrumental in setting us up (me, Eric Leefe and his friend John, who drove us there) with tickets, backstage passes and a photo pass.

Eric got tickets in the same handicap seating area as he did the last time we were there (Joan Jett), when he had a terrible time because people stood a lot and he can’t (cerebral palsy), so I was determined to get him a better SITuation.

First, we went backstage to say hello to everyone and take pictures of Eric with Tommy, Felix and T.O.N.E-z (see previous post).

 

Then – before the show started – I wheeled him down the far left aisle and spoke to someone stationed near the stage about getting Eric positioned somewhere where he could see.

Since he had a backstage pass and I happened to mention that he was a personal friend of both Tommy and his manager, the house employee pointed out an indentation at the beginning of the third row where a seat may have once been and suggested that maybe we could fit his wheelchair in there.

Perfect fit!

Eric had the best time rocking out to Felix’s band while I ran around the theater taking pictures, so thank you to that helpful house employee.

 

Between acts, we went backstage again. On the ride up to the 2nd floor backstage area, I saw this inside the elevator:

 

Once out of the elevator, I saw this on another wall (I haven’t deciphered it yet):

 

Backstage, Eric was thrilled to be reunited with an old friend named Brian Jackson – Tommy’s son:

 

Eric, John and I took the elevator downstairs where John wheeled Eric to the stage-right wing where Tommy was getting ready to go on. We had been under the impression that no one was allowed there, but no one said a word about Eric being there, stationary in his wheelchair.

The show started, I took a couple of shots from that stage wing…

 

…but because those tend to look the same after two shots, I went out into the house. John did too. Eric – in his absolute glory – stayed right where he was and didn’t miss us one bit. I’m glad.

John and I pretty much camped out against that stage-right wall up front with Carol and T.O.N.E-z. A few times, I went to the opposite corner (stage-left) for some variety and even took some shots from that 32nd-row handicap area.

At one point, Tommy introduced T.O.N.E-z to the audience. He was standing next to me, one person closer to the stage. I zoomed in on Tommy as he started to point in T.O.N.E-z’s direction and got this shot, which I – of course – made all about me (in a slightly self-deprecating manner):

 

In the next shot, a spotlight was on T.O.N.E-z so the audience could see him and applaud. Fortunately, I now had both Tommy and T.O.N.E-z in my frame and – with both men illuminated – was able to get this:

 

I spent the rest of the show roaming around as I did during Felix’s Rascals. Here is a sampling of what I shot:

(Two from the 32nd row):

 

Hey! Quit moving my watermark!

 

In the latter part of the show, Tommy comes out into the house and interacts with audience members, who mostly take selfies with him:

 

The last time I recall seeing something like that was over 40 years ago at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ, when this guy – Bruce Somebody-Or-Other – ventured up the left-middle orchestra aisle with his guitar during a song. No selfies THAT night.

 

Tommy eventually made his way back onstage and did a few more songs before the show ended:

 

He ends the show by handing my watermark to an audience member:

 

I guess that means I’M done too.

 

That free publicity aside (thanks, T!), it was a really good show. Tommy’s voice was strong and his band was tight.

Meanwhile – back in the wings – Eric was ecstatic over having seen his friend perform so well in such proximity to Eric’s unique seating location. THIS was exactly what we were hoping for at the Joan Jett show, so everyone was happy that things worked out perfectly for Eric on this night.

SO……….a huge THANK YOU goes to Carol Ross for making it all happen.

And special thanks to my little pocket Canon for fooling people into thinking that I still might know what I’m doing when shooting a concert.

Now if Canon could only figure out how to eliminate that 0.29-second shutter lag time…………..

 

 

Now a week later, I just decided to add these two short video bits that I put together: