(Ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on April 30, 2020)

 

OK – “photo passes”:

 

I’ve been somewhat hesitant to feature this collection, but a few people (very few) have asked about it and – as it turns out – my arm is highly-susceptible to being twisted when it comes to my career. Plus, I got to create something approximating art with regard to the containers of my work (plus one VERY dusty old door).

 

Speaking of that door, here are some closeups of some of the more-interesting passes:

No one ever believes me when I tell them that I once shot the mighty U2 as an opening act. Here’s the proof from almost 40 years ago in Florida (and with my barely-readable name misspelled):

 

These two passes sort of go together:

 

These two definitely do not:

(Manilow, not White…………..or Goldwater, who gets a mention later)

 

These were two 1982 shows I shot in Queens, NY. Musicourt was an interesting mashup of rock and tennis (look up “Musicourt ‘82” on http://bobleafe.com/) and the Clash opened for the Who in a powerful show at Shea:

 

Speaking of the Who:

 

Meat Hall & Oates!

 

……….and Blondie!

 

An interesting foursome at the bottom of the door:

BTW, the Springsteen pass – despite what it says on it – was not from a show in Europe. This show was one of the 6 nights when Bruce opened up the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, NJ in July, 1981 – the first stop on the Homecoming leg of “The River” tour, which followed the European leg of that tour, so these were leftover passes from 16 shows in England in May and June and 18 prior shows in 10 other European countries in April and May.

 

This is the pass from the final night of Bruce’s legendary 3-night stand that I shot at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ in 1978 on the “Darkness on the Edge of Town” tour:

 

I have a site that’s dedicated to that event here:

http://bobleafe.com/darkness/enter.html

NEWSFLASH: This just came to my attention as I’m writing this post the day before posting (and hours after I entered the above link). Someone has put out a Springsteen bootleg picture disc album – supposedly recorded at a 1973 show at a club called My Father’s Place on Long Island – and the picture on the disc is one you just saw on the main page in the above link and I shot that on the same night as the previously-shown pass: September 21, 1978! I have not posted this picture anywhere larger than what you just saw in that link, so it had to have been stolen from there (and it looks like a bad blow-up).

This is not uncommon (I’ve been “blessed” with a few other similar rip-offs), but it’s nearly impossible to find out who did it.

 

Meanwhile, back to the door………there are also about 40 Capitol Theatre (Passaic) and Boardwalk (Asbury Park) passes – John Scher venues – on this door.

Additionally, I have dozens of heavy-paper Capitol photo passes that don’t display well. Here’s one from 10-13-78:

If the name in the authorizing signature rings a bell, she was shown singing in the “Sounds of Asbury Park” show I featured in the “Collections: Asbury Park, NJ” post of March 25, 2020. She’s also the woman who handed me more photo passes than anyone else in my career – a woman of many talents.

 

Back to the file cabinets…………

Here are some interesting passes and groupings of passes from the near and far sides of the cabinets:

 

NO LONGER WITH US (as of April 30, 2020)

 

ONE OF TWO REMAINING (also as of April 30, 2020)

 

GROUPINGS

Poor Luther Vandross…………surrounded by all that hard rock and metal:

 

You may notice in some of these images that I fill up some empty spaces with tiny, unsolicited stickers I got in mailed offers from magazines and elsewhere:

(Geez – 18 years into my career, you’d think KISS could spell my name correctly)

 

Here are various other passes I got, mostly from John Scher’s Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ:

 

This is a Giants Stadium pass for a Boston/Todd Rundgren and Utopia show in 1979:

 

At some shows, I had to wear multiple passes. Here are 3 of the ones on my file cabinets that I had to wear one day in 1988 to shoot the Monsters of Rock show at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia (backstage: is that my case I’m pointing to next to the Van Halen trailer?).  😉

 

LAMINATES

Since I didn’t tour with bands, I don’t have as many laminates as you might think and a few of these aren’t even from concerts, so here’s what I have in order of importance (in my opinion):

 

My photo passes for the first two MTV Video Music Awards ceremonies in 1984 and 1985:

 

My photo pass as MTV’s official stage photographer for the 1984-into-1985 New Year’s Eve Ball:

The pictures and stories for the 2 VMAs and NYE can be found on http://bobleafe.com/ under “MTV”.

 

This is my pass for the 3-day Us Festival in 1983 in Devore, CA. This was a MASSIVE event and all the pix and stories are on my site in the “U” section:

 

This shows both sides of my pass for another 3-day event in California……..the Foundations Forum 1990 metal convention in LA. If you were considered cool by a certain Epic Records metal guy, you got a “DUDE” sticker on your pass. I don’t recall what – if anything – I got out of that, but I humorously immortalized that metal guy on my site in the “Foundations Forum” listing:

 

This is my photo pass for the 30th Annual Grammy Awards – the only Grammys I ever shot. Bet you can’t guess where to see those pix:

 

This is my 1982 NYPD-issued pass for the Nuclear Disarmament Rally in NYC’s Central Park. I spent most of my time there backstage shooting a WIDE assortment of people. Here’s who I shot (as sequentially-listed on my B&W contact sheets):

Abbie Hoffman, Bella Abzug, Orson Welles, Mayor Ed Koch, musician John Hall (from the band Orleans), Alan Hunter (MTV VJ), Peter, Paul & Mary, Jill Clayburgh, Native American activist Russell Means, Susan Sarandon, famous pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock (who wrote the book that told Baby Boomers’ mothers how to raise us), Roy Scheider, Yoko Ono, Coretta Scott King, Dick Gregory, NYC Comptroller Harrison Goldin, Jackson Browne, Gary U.S. Bonds, Stiller & Meara, Linda Ronstadt, Bianca Jagger, Allen Ginsberg, Barry Commoner, and probably a bunch of other people I didn’t recognize.

Busy day……………

 

A couple of other gatherings:

 

Six shows:

 

Two parties:

 

One Deep Purple press conference:

 

This last one isn’t really mine, but it’s in the family. Consider it a shout-out to Mom – her 1964 one-and-only (as far as I know) “laminate” photo pass as staff photographer for the local Barry Goldwater For President HQ in Teaneck, NJ. Though she never photographed Barry, she DID photograph Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, George Romney (Mitt’s dad)…………and a Pope at the Vatican.

 

And thank you for not taking a pass on this post.

 

 

(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on May 15, 2020)

 

I couldn’t count the number of times in my life that I drove up Madison Ave in Dumont or Knickerbocker Rd from Englewood and went around “The Circle” – the one with “The Monument”……………..and never knew why a monument was there.

Having been born and raised (and with a good education) in the same county, you would think historically-important local things would have been ingrained in the brain at an early age – not after age 50!

But that’s what happened.

It’s pissed me off that I never knew the story of George Washington and his troops burning down “the bridge that saved America” and camping out across the Hackensack River from the pursuing (and frustrated) British troops TWO MILES from my house and TWO MILES from my supposedly-superior Catholic grammar school education! How could that little detail not be mentioned in history class?

Jumping from the Revolutionary War to World War I, the little detail of a huge military camp (770 acres) that covered parts of SIX towns (Bergenfield, Tenafly, Dumont, Cresskill, Haworth and Demarest) that are within 5 miles of my home in Teaneck was also uncovered after my 50th birthday.

Looking at the above picture, you can see four of those towns mentioned in the vicinity of the monument – the CAMP MERRITT MONUMENT, which was placed in the geographical center of the where the camp was located.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about the monument:

To honor those who passed through Camp Merritt, a monument was erected at the intersection of Madison Avenue and Knickerbocker Road at the border of Cresskill and Dumont The 66.6-foot (20.3 m) tall granite obelisk, modeled after the Washington Monument is inscribed with the names of the 578 people who died at the camp during the war due to the worldwide influenza epidemic of 1918. Robert Ingersoll Aitken sculpted the relief sculpture of a helmeted soldier on the one side of the base of the monument. The monument was dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, 1924, with General John J. Pershing giving the dedication address to a crowd estimated at 20,000 people.

 

 I’ll come back to the monument later.

Camp Merritt only existed from 1917-1919, but about a million soldiers passed through it in that time, going to or coming home from war in Europe.

As for the camp itself, it’s kind of difficult to take a picture of something that big – especially back then – so the biggest I could find online was about 5’ long:

 

So, I got one of those:

Can you guess which end was closest to a window?

I never framed it – not my décor – so it’s still rolled up in the container it arrived in in 2000.

 

Actually, the only Camp Merritt item that’s semi-displayed in my apartment is this……..pillow sham(?)

 

You can see the opening in the lower left for a pillow or stuffing or something:

 

A better idea might be that since 578 soldiers died in this camp from the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic, it might be a tribute of sorts 102 years later to store Coronavirus masks in it (props to my friend Elaine for the props):

 

While I’m on the “material” side of things here, I have this silk that has a doily look to it that I’ve never seen before and I can’t find another one online:

 

The silk has a couple of tears in it going through the greetings on top and right across the poem on the bottom:

 

I found the poem online:

Sunny be thy springtime

air with sweetest flowers

Brighter yet thy summer

with its golden hours

And when an autumns twilight

round thy bath is drawn

Hope be near to whisper

of a fairer dawn

 

The word “drawn” looks like “draton” on the silk.

 

 

A couple of metallic entries:

1. A flattened penny advertising the 27th Annual Bergen County Coin Club Show and illustrating the Camp Merritt monument for some reason (“POE Camp” stands for “Point of Embarkation Camp” – next stop: shipped to Europe from Hoboken).

 

So not only was currency defaced, but it was further defaced by covering de face of Lincoln with the ad.

 

2. You wouldn’t believe how many eBay sellers thought they were selling a Boy Scout medallion – they couldn’t tell a Scout from a Doughboy. I shouldn’t complain – I probably got this cheap because of that error:

 

Here’s the story of how this medallion came about:

A sergeant who appreciated the efforts of the surrounding community to make the soldiers feel at home, proposed that a medal be struck and distributed to local schoolchildren. The idea caught on. Funds were collected quickly and, in January, 1919, officers and men visited 147 Bergen County schools and distributed 37,624 medals saying, “Boys of CAMP MERRITT are grateful to you, 1919”.

 

 

On to the ephemera!

 

The monthly Mess Kit (published by the enlisted men):

 

Two Mess Kit ads:

 

The inside back cover:

 

 

The weekly Sapper (published by the enlisted men in the 318th Engineers [sappers]):

 

Sapper ad:

 

 

Camp Merritt – The Camp Beautiful booklet + Pg. 1 (16 pages of information and photos):

 

Camp Merritt – The Camp Beautiful booklet centerfold:

 

Camp Merritt – The Camp Beautiful booklet last page:

 

 

THE MONUMENT

 

I took these photos on June 30, 2015.

The monument with Knickerbocker Rd going around it behind – this is the pic I cropped for the first mage in this post (superimposed on the map and looking nothing like a monument):

 

Closeup. What’s on the ground in front of it is the next picture:

 

An almost-Braille-like depiction of the Camp and all of its buildings……….the monument is the green dot just above the middle:

 

The engraved names of those who died in camp during the 1918 Influenza epidemic:

 

The Camp Merritt monument plaque:

 

The adjoining flagpole:

 

 

POSTCARDS

 

Here are 93 of the 113 Camp Merritt postcards I have (the other 20 are duplicates):

  ————————————————————————————This is NOT “Jerssey City” (nowhere is).

Most of the cards are unused. A few are used, but either unreadable or boring. I wanted to include at least one interesting message from a soldier to a loved one – who, in this case, is “Grannie”.

This is the flip side of the “HELLO – Just Got Back” card in the above upper right. Incidentally, the word balloon the soldier drew next to “his” caricature says “Hello, Miss Liberty!!”.

His message was in pretty faint pencil, so I made it a B&W and applied lots of contrast to make it readable:

 

 

 

 

So this is what you do when you’re deprived of important local history as a child – you over-compensate as an adult.

 

Ahhhh……………I feel so much better……………except I just noticed one duplicate pair of postcards in the above 93. Now I’ll find out if anyone’s paying attention.  😉

 

 

(Ignore publish date of May 1, 2017 – this was published on May 25, 2020)

 

I never actively collected any of these records, but I have accumulated a few interesting ones over the years.

 

PICTURE DISCS

1. This is a great story, thanks to an FM thief and an AM radio station.

In 1978, my girlfriend was temporarily living with two other young women in an apartment in New Haven, CT, while she was taking a class at Yale.

She missed listening to NYC’s WNEW-FM when home in NJ and had bought an FM converter for her AM-only Mustang. It was small (4-5” long and maybe 1.5” tall), hung under the dashboard and looked something like this:

 

One night, someone broke into her car and stole the unit, so she was forced to listen to local AM stations in the car.

A week or two later – actually, August 25, 1978 – I drove up to New Haven to see her. She started telling me about some AM station up there – 13WAVZ – that she discovered and really liked, so we listened to it in the apartment.

They had contests going on and if you were the 13th caller, you’d win the prize. They announced one particular contest while we were listening and it had a really good prize, so I decided to try my luck and call.

I dialed all the numbers except the last one and waited. “What are you waiting for? Finish dialing!”, she said. “No…………not yet.”

Finally, I hit it and…………….I was the 13th caller! (timing is everything!)

As I spoke with the DJ – who was recording our conversation to play on air right after a commercial ended – he kept admonishing me for not sounding excited enough.

I finally passed his excitement test just in time.

I don’t know what we used, but somehow, we recorded what soon came out over the airwaves (crank your volume up):

 

 

THIRTEEN (actually, fourteen) brand new “Darkness on the Edge of Town” Bruce Springsteen picture discs! Good thing the station didn’t call itself “2WAVZ”.

I couldn’t believe my good fortune! UN-fortunately, I wouldn’t be around during the week to pick them up at the radio station. Fortunately, Sue would.

Here’s the note that was on the stack of LPs at 13WAVZ:

(I never saw a letter on their stationery)

 

“$75 each”? That means this haul was worth over a thousand dollars…………..and that was 42 years ago. Today? As I write this, they’re running from $100 to $325 – some opened, some not – on eBay. And there are fakes out there………

Here are both sides of the disc, one side of the enclosed lyric sheet and the back cover:

 

In 1995, I brought one sealed disc to the FX television studios in Manhattan and was a guest on “Personal FX – the Collectibles Show”, where appraisers guessed a value and you could accept bids from viewers if you wanted to. You can see what happened here:

https://youtu.be/iilMvxL8WuQ

No Bruce fans tuning in that day, I guess.

 

You’ll note that one appraiser didn’t agree with my statement that 1,000 of these picture discs were made – something I’ve always been told. I just found this online:

 

4+ decades after winning at WAVZ, I still have 3 of the picture discs left and two of those are still sealed:

 

 

2. No big story on this one. I shot a ton of shows for Cleveland International, which managed Meat Loaf and the Ian Hunter Band (with Mick Ronson). I’m guessing I walked into their office one day and somebody handed me this…………..twice.

 

Shown are both sides of the still-sealed discs:

 

 

3. I have NO idea where I got the GN’R disc from. It’s opened:

 

 

4. Who else do you know who has a 1980 Slim Whitman promo picture disc? Want one? It might set you back 7 bucks or so on eBay.

It’s a nice picture on the back cover, but it doesn’t work well on the back of the disc (nose ring? snotball?).

I don’t remember this, but it says that he was also managed by Cleveland International. How did I miss out on that?

 

 

COLORED VINYL LPs

1. Brownsville Station – I know they were smokin’ in the boys’ room, but I don’t recall them shortening their name to Brownsville:

 

2. “Mirror Star” was a hit for the Fabulous Poodles in 1978. In 1979, I shot them at the Bottom Line in Manhattan on Valentine’s Day, walked outside after the show and saw a big fire two blocks down Broadway…………..it was the Infinity Disco burning down:

 

3. Red for Meat’s Bottom Line show on vinyl. Shown are the front and back covers:

 

4. No Wave New Wave in cyan:

 

5. I still can’t get over that cryptic message on Moonie’s chair on an album that was released 3 weeks before he died:

 

6. When it comes to colored vinyl, NOTHING tops this 12”, 45rpm disco record. Since I’m allergic to disco, this has never been opened. It doesn’t matter to me WHAT music is on it – this is the coolest-looking vinyl I’ve ever seen and was happy to plunk down 3 bucks for it:

 

7. LATE ADDITION: After I had everything written up, I woke up the next morning and couldn’t shake the thought that I had one more colored disc and that it was buried in my album collection and unseen for decades. For some reason, I saw it as being yellow, but what band or artist was it? Slowly a name came to me, but I wasn’t sure, so I searched the album cabinets. I had 8 of this act’s albums. I knew it couldn’t be any of the good ones (the first 4) because I had played them too often back then and would have remembered if one of them was colored vinyl.

Sure enough, a goldish-yellow, 47-year-old LP was found in #8 from that self-proclaimed American Band – Grand Funk Railroad (“Grand Funk” by then):

 

 

SEALED/UNOPENED

 

1. Not sure why I decided to buy this LP at the late, great Korvettes. I know it says “includes LIMITED EDITION EP”, but it doesn’t feel like it contains an LP AND an EP:

 

2. I DO know why I have two promo copies of this album and kept one sealed – Swan Song gave me two:

 

3. I think I got snookered on this one. Reading the sticker, I probably thought that it contained an LP and a 45. Doesn’t matter………….I’m sure my 42-year-old unopened one is a lot more valuable than my opened one:

 

 

BOOTS (one with colored vinyl)

 

There are only two bootleg albums here and not only are they from the same band………they’re from the same show.

I’ve never been that into bootleg releases, but these were special. Not only was I at the show, I also shot it. This is water landing on the front rows a split-second after Mick Jagger tossed a bucketful at them:

I had to dig deep for this one…………it’s never been published before.

 

When the biggest band in the world plays a rare date at your favorite 3,200-seat venue where you’re the house photographer, it’s kind of a big deal.

 

When you remember Mr. Jagger saying certain things that stuck in your head and that you KNOW you’ll hear on any boot of the show, like “New Jersey’s in the country, ain’t it?” while performing in VERY urban Passaic, NJ…….

 

………..and ESPECIALLY when you recall finding out that the master tape had been stolen directly from the soundboard RIGHT after the show, you KNOW that the resultant boot would HAVE to be very high-quality and you want it.

 

Garden State ’78 (Smilin’ Dork Record Co.) came out only 3 weeks after the show! It was the whole show (19 songs) and it DID have excellent sound:

 

Some time after that, Out on Bail came out on Lurch Records (love these names). Same show, but only 10 songs. However, this one also contains a 45 on yellow vinyl (or “yellow wax”, as the liner sheet says) on Pugsley Records. The songs on the single are “Sweet Little 16” from “New Jersey 1978” and “Satisfaction” from “Phila. 1978”).

Note that neither Out on Bail disc ever mentions “The Rolling Stones”. They both say “The Greatest Group On Earth 1978” on red labels (though the same liner sheet shows a picture of the Stones).

 

If either of these items interests you, save your money because the whole show is available on YouTube and is worth an hour-and-a-half of your time:

Whole 1978 Capitol Theatre (Passaic, NJ) show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV8amYn9K_o

 

Enjoy!

 

 

ONE-SIDED RECORDS

 

There’s ONE other unusual type of album-sized record I have that I almost forgot about: one-sided records that were created – in this case – to send to radio stations. Actually, two LPs were sent, but the material covers three sides, so one is blank – a one-sided record.

I used to shoot the Robert Klein Radio Hour at RCA Studios in Manhattan when the show aired from 1979-1981. It was a LOT of fun with major stars at almost point-blank range. There are a whole bunch of Klein Show pictures on http://bobleafe.com/ under “K”.

The announcer was old pal Dennis Elsas from WNEW-FM in New York, which aired the show at a later date. So did a lot of other radio stations around the country. They were all mailed heavy-cardboard boxes that were about 13″ x 13″ x 1” and contained everything the stations needed to air the show.

Here’s one that I have that was never sent anywhere (more on that later). You can see that I wrote the names of the stars who where on that particular show: Bill Murray, David Johansen and Richie Havens. “36” is the show number:

 

Inside are the two LPs with 3 sides of material:

 

Closeups of two of the labels:

 

The show taped on June 9, 1981. The stations were to air it on June 28. This included sheet tells the stations what to say in their on-air promos in advance of the airing:

 

The show’s cue sheet:

 

The confirmation-of-airing sheet and the envelope to mail it back in:

 

I only thought of all this because one of my album cabinets has this sticks-out-like-a-sore-thumb stack of horizontal cardboard boxes amidst all the vertical cardboard album covers:

 

How I got them is an interesting story.

One day in late 1981, I was in the office of show publicist Sheryl Gordon, who told me that the Klein show was over. Ended. Finished. Kaput.

“Oh, no!”

After our conversation about that, I happened to ask her what the dozens of square heavy-cardboard boxes on her shelves were. She told me they contained the Klein shows that were sent to multiple stations to air. Up to that point, I had no idea how they accomplished that. “Actual LPs were sent out around the country?”

“Yep. Take what you want. I’m not gonna need them anymore.”

Wow – I was a kid in a candy store, but with no pockets. I didn’t have my car with me, so I jammed whatever I could into my shoulder bag and carried the rest. I had to walk from E. 51st St to the Port Authority Bus Terminal on W. 41st to get home. If I had my car there, I would have taken one of each……….and there were 62 shows. Without it, I was fortunate to get 18 of them home.

I just took a look on eBay and found a couple of used ones for sale, but none with the box and most without the paperwork, running as high as $150.00.

Mine are mint – I’ve never played them and they’re complete.

Robert Klein is probably my favorite comedian. I shot 40 of those 62 shows, so I’m glad to have the official recordings of a lot of them.

 

Robert and I reconnected in 2016 and that story is must-read (and listen-to). Go to https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=2561 and scroll down less than a third of the way. It’s the first story after “OCTOPUPS IN OUTER SPACE”.

You can’t miss it (and you shouldn’t).

 

 

OTHER

 

Unconnected to any of this is a fun kind of picture disc that I have ONE of: a double-sided WOODY WOODPECKER one. I’ve never played it and have no idea what’s on it (though the 3.5 x 5 “Family Album” card gives a clue or two):

 

I’ve just always liked Woody Woodpecker and thought he looked better than the guys on the other picture discs. Unfortunately, it stood for years behind something that let most of the front image be bathed in direct sunlight, so you can see the original yellow background on only a small percentage of the disc:

 

The back image is interesting (I had forgotten that it was even there) and is unaffected by the sun:

 

PHOTO BOOTS

There’s a type of vinyl bootleg that’s not limited to LP-size and that you may not be familiar with, but I am, unfortunately. It doesn’t involve recorded shows or ANY recorded music, but rather plays interviews. What’s bootlegged are the PHOTOGRAPHS……………MINE!………and all unpaid and uncredited.

 

Here are four examples:

1. Most of the companies involved were shady, illegal ones from England and most of the photos involved were never published (they’re too crappy-looking to send out). So how did they get them if I didn’t send them? I had strong suspicions – there was only one place that had access to my work, but I had zero proof that they were the culprits. Besides, it would have been VERY expensive to have my copyright lawyer try to sue that kind of company in another country and with no proof. I might just as well have flushed the money down the toilet.

To add insult to injury, of course they never sent me a copy of whatever they created that used my work, so I had to BUY all of these items wherever I found them – usually in Manhattan record stores that had no idea they were selling ill-gotten goods.

Let’s start with the one (actually, FOUR) that pissed me off the most from the biggest of the English slimeballs – a company that identified themselves as BAKTABAK.

They put out a 4-disc “interview picture disc collection” of Guns N’ Roses. The outfits and background tell me it’s from a shoot I did with the band at San Diego State University in 1988. You think the band was happy with me after seeing this? You think I was happy that this crap was out there? I’m probably better off that they DIDN’T credit me.

 

BTW – the same pic that’s on the back of all four discs is not mine. I wonder who they ripped off for that one:

 

2. While researching this post, I came across this unopened, orange-y CD package. Hoping that it was only the casing that was discolored by the sun, I opened it up. The good news is that the contents were good as new:

 

The bad news is that this was another uncredited shot of mine that was taken at the 1987 Texxas Jam (that’s how they spell it) at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. The band was Whitesnake – NOT “White Snake”, as these oh-so-hip English thieves wrote on two pages of the four-page booklet:

 

3. Next up is everyone’s favorite little Runaway, Lita Ford. Finally – a good picture! This was taken at Manhattan’s Hard Rock Cafe in 1988 at a record-release party. Lita was wearing a very-tight rubber dress and boy, did it add to her…………..uh…………..(what’s the safe word I’m looking for?)……..um, her photogenicity (yeah, that’s it!):

Still, however, this IS a stolen image use. These clowns didn’t even have the decency to position the disc so the photo would be straight in the sales rack. I had to turn it 45 degrees to make it look right.

 

I had forgotten that I have two of these and had positioned the open one in front of the unopened one for at least 20 years – a pleasant surprise – and you can see what the sun did to the front one:

 

BONUS: I took this picture of Lita’s manager at the same party. I’m pretty sure you all know her name, but maybe not what she looked like 32 years ago. If you think you know who it is, guess in the comments (I know a certain manager who’s gonna get this).

I’ll acknowledge any guesses:

 

 

4. This picture of The Knack – which I took in 1979 – is actually a legitimate use, but they didn’t credit me. Thank you Guitar Techniques in – where else? – England for this “big boost” to my career:

 

 

The news isn’t ALL bad, thanks to a certain Jersey guy we all know, Jon Bon Jovi (or maybe it was his cousin Tony), who put out a CD in 1997 called “John Bongiovi: The Power Station Years 1980-1983” (Jon hit it big in 1983):

 

Prior to that, well, you can read the story here:

 

Whenever photographers asked me for any advice during my career, I always told them to shoot ALL opening acts – ESPECIALLY the ones you never heard of or don’t care about. It sure paid off in this situation.

In 1980, I went to the Fast Lane in Asbury Park to shoot cute jailbait Rachel Sweet. The opening act was The Rest, who I had never heard of and really wasn’t that interested in shooting. But when an opener sees a professional photographer sitting at a front table that’s covered with camera equipment and isn’t touching it during their set, it can’t be very inspirational to that band.

Fortunately, this band had an interesting guitarist (Jack Ponti) who was jumping about and flipping off people, so that got me to start shooting……….and oh-by-the-way, I took a couple of shots of the 18-year-old singer.

Three years later, “Little Runaway” was a smash hit and a band called Bon Jovi was suddenly opening up for big bands in arenas. Holy crap! That’s the singer in The Rest!

I wish I had taken a lot more photos of him at the Fast Lane, so always shoot opening acts, future music photographers!

Anyway, my pix turned out to be the first professional ones of John/Jon performing, so when magazines put out chronological retrospectives on the band, mine were usually first.

I’m guessing that when this CD was about to be put out, the call went out to the agencies for photos. The two that were used (twice each) in this CD came from my agency. I’m not sure why they used a 1987 photo, but I’m glad they used the 1980 one (which, BTW, is black-and-white – not green, as it appears on the CD):

 

It’s my only credited picture disc.

 

 

There’s just ONE last type of picture disc to feature here. It’s along the lines of the 1963 MAD Magazine cardboard one I featured in https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=6748. This 6″ x 6″ Flex-Disc is from 1964 and featured a real person, actor Lorne Greene, as his Ben Cartwright (“Bonanza”) TV character, plugging the 1964 Chevrolet line. My father worked for Chevy at the time, so Bonanza was ALWAYS on:

 

I noticed the stamped name, dealership and phone number of the salesperson who originally handed these out: “Howard Whitehead, Foley Chev. 695-1271”.

This was from over 60 years ago. Could ol’ Howard still be around? The phone number had no area code, but I did find a Foley Chevrolet in at least 3 states, so that narrowed it down a bit.

When I added Howard’s name to “Foley Chevrolet”, I got ONE result – a great one from the state of Washington in 2017:

\

 

I couldn’t find an obituary for him, so I’m hoping he’s a happy almost-103 now.

 

I think that’s a nice note to end this on.

 

 

(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on June 8, 2020)

 

Whaddaya mean there’s no sports during the pandemic?

I’ve been watching all kinds of sports from my living room window for years: baseball, football, golf…. and a few you’ve never even heard of – all in the municipal parking lot behind my building.

The pandemic has forced a few gym-deprived individuals in my neighborhood to get out of their residences and head for fan-free Municipal (lot) Stadium, where I have the unique perspective of an upper-level, temperature-controlled central suite.

And since the Olympics won’t happen this year because of the global Coronavirus threat, I decided to document all the local action in stills and video – my own Wide World of Weird Sports, if you will – and blend it all to become the Hackensack, NJ, Pandemic of 2020 Municipal Parking Lot OhLimpPix.

 

BACKGROUND

I’ve lived above (and photographed) this parking lot for the last 32 years. As boring as that may sound, the goings-on there and the people passing through have kept me quite entertained.

To add legitimacy to this particular venture, I’ve created a Hall of Fame of sorts with annual best-ofs. Without going through EVERYTHING I’ve shot in the lot over 3+ decades that could very-questionably be labeled as a “sport”, I’ve limited entry to digital images……….THAT way, I don’t have to scan anything. And since I’m in my tenth year of shooting digital (it took me a long time to give up on Kodachrome), we’ll begin with 2011 (and please note that tongue is firmly planted in cheek regarding many of these……….um, “inductees”).

 

Hall of Fame 2011

This year contains more “sports” than any other. Let’s start with “Fishing”:

 

Senior Citizen Motorcycling:

 

Shopping:

 

Indy Racing Pit Crew Training (apparently, it takes a village):

 

Fashion:

 

 

Knot-tying (an offshoot of “Fashion”):

 

Track:

 

Digital Communication (ships in the night…………..well, day):

 

Bathing:

 

Most Obnoxious Parking (NY plate beats NJ plate):

 

Whatever-the-heck-this-is:

 

 

HoF 2012

Design:

(more on this at the end)

 

Fashion (Again? Hey – fashion’s always in fashion):

 

Yo! Cookiepants!

 

Meteorology:

 

Pediatric Towing:

 

HoF 2013

Baseball (the Pitch, Catch and Hit Competition):

 

Heliumball:

 

 

HoF 2014

Cap Toss and Catch:

 

 

HoF 2015

Skateboard Curb-Jumping

 

 

HoF 2016

Basketball

 

Swifferball:

 

Exercise (This guy just ran all over the lot, half-took off his shirt, did pushups, fully-took off his shirt and then ran around on the lot’s periphery sidewalks – non-stop.):

 

Protective Headgear:

 

 

HoF 2017

 

Stretching:

 

Pointing:

(Well, look who she’s pointing at………..how could I not include her?)  😉

 

 

HoF 2018

Basketball

 

Football – the Pass, Block and Receiving Competition:

 

Immature Go-Karting:

 

Ballooning:

 

Fine Dining:

 

Impressing Your Child (Not!):

 

 

HoF 2019

Bawling:

 

He-Man Sidesaddle Racing:

 

Carcinogenic Tennis:

 

Juvenile punt-returning and placekicking:

(Pssst! Hey, kid…….NFL kicking tees are only 1” high)

 

 

2020 OhLimpPix Stills

On most of these, I concentrated on video. They only cover a period of 2 1/2 months (late March to early June), so there aren’t that many. Let’s take a look:

Calisthenics (this man leads off the video):

 

Basketball (talented young lady):

 

Golf (the links were closed, so legendary golfing pro Arnold Palmhair came to Hackensack):

 

Skateboard Curb-Jumping (reminiscent of the 2015 HoF entry – same place, same result, different athletes) This gentleman is not in the video because I prefer to shoot stills for good stop-action results……….it keeps my timing in tune.):

 

Soccer (A family – at least I think it’s a family – showed up in the lot on two successive Saturdays)

Two footballs!

 

Extreme social-distancing:

 

The kids work on their skills:

 

Mom(?) and one of the kids do pushups:

 

Family hydration:

 

Foot injury? (or maybe an itch):

 

Time to head home:

 

 

THE 2020 OhLimpPix VIDEO:

 

(crank up the volume!)

 

Well, I can’t have the final scene of the parking lot be pitch black, so the Closing Ceremonies for the 2020 Hackensack Municipal Parking Lot OhLimpPix will be represented by my favorite shot of the lot – also taken at night.

The sport?

Painting With Light (MY favorite sport):

Here’s the full story of this 1992 image: https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=824

(scroll about 2/3 of the way down)

 

 

And here’s hoping that the 2021 Olympics go off without a hitch.

I can’t do this again.

 

 

(Ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published om June 9, 2020)

 

The last important rally I photographed was the 2018 – Hackensack NJ Rally/March for Our Lives, 3/24/18

It’s nice to get the closeup shots of the participants and their signs, but you also want to somehow step back and above to get an overview of the crowd and its size. But unless you have a drone that you can legally use or your own mini-chopper, it’s just not possible at ground level.

Two years ago, I was able to get slightly above the crowd and shoot from the courthouse steps, but, to fit everyone in, I had to take 5 side-by-side photos and hope that they would stitch well together (they did).

Two weeks ago, George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis and there have been huge nightly rallies shown on TV from every major US city ever since. You’ve seen a million pictures from myriad angles. Strictly from a photographic standpoint, there’s not much that hasn’t been seen dozens of times already.

I knew it was a matter of time until these George Floyd/Black Lives Matter gatherings filtered down to almost every city and town. One happened last week in Hackensack that I didn’t know was going to happen.

The photographer in me welcomes the challenge of capturing something different, but I didn’t feel all that bad about missing out on this recent event because it’s really all been done before. PLUS – you really don’t want to be in a big crowd during a pandemic where many people have lowered or removed their masks to facilitate slogan-shouting, which propels an exponentially-increased number of micro-droplets into the surrounding air.

That’s just asking for trouble…………and maybe death.

So I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I’d probably be sitting out this type of event.

……………..UNTIL a couple of days ago (June 6), when I took a break from working on another blog post to have lunch. I started hearing chanting outside. I looked out of my living room window and saw a lot of people gathered a block away in the parking lot of a closed-on-Saturday pediatric dentist (!). The chants sounded very familiar.

Binocular (and zoom lens) time:

 

Omigod! It looked just like what I’ve seen every night on TV for the last week-and-a-half. But why here on a side street in a small lot?

I checked online and found out that a rally/march was planned to start that day at that time (Noon) in a Sears parking lot a couple of blocks away and that they would march at 1pm down Main St to the County Courthouse, a mile away (I later found out that Sears never gave permission, so this must have been a last-minute re-arrangement).

“Shoot first and ask questions later” is NOT good advice for police, but it works very well for photographers, so that’s what I did.

People were pouring in down Ward St – the street on the side of my building – and State St, at the far end of the municipal lot outside my window. BTW – it’s possible that the event was switched to that E municipal lot, but because everyone parked there, they may have had to improvise and move it across the street to the State Street Smiles parking lot (And Ward St AND part of State St):

 

Even from this distance, I was able to see (and photograph) some of the little things I would have wanted to shoot up close. I found this shot of black and white children being photographed on Ward St by black and while adults particularly poignant and something I would have missed if I was up front where the action was:

 

I also noticed this guy walking down Ward St with a whole bunch of handwritten protest signs under his arm. I immediately thought of a vendor at Yankee Stadium yelling, “HEY! GETCHA HOT PEANUTS HEAH!”:

 

Rather than think of him as capitalizing on national sorrow, I think it might be more likely that he was the official sign-maker for a group of his unartistic protester friends.

 

Somewhere in the midst of this chanting mob,

 

I managed to locate the man with the mic (white shirt):

 

This pic seems to indicate to me that the march will be stepping off soon:

 

Sure enough, the march begins down State St at 1pm. You can see the mass of humanity marching from left to right – something I would not be able to show this well if I was in their midst:

 

If you look in the upper right, you can see that the march has made a left turn off State St and is a half-block from Main St (well, maybe you can’t see that part, but trust me):

 

Except for the digital camera and the masks, this might have been a young me showing my pictures to all the babes:

 

All along the way so far, I’d been taking little videos of some of the things you’ve seen, but haven’t heard, so I’ve stitched about a dozen or so of them together from the chanting to the marching. Notice how the crowd thickens as you go on:

VOLUME UP!

 

Being as it was a very hot and humid day, I’m glad I stayed home to work on the other blog post. I shot an amazing amount of variety, considering I was a block away and 7 floors up, so thank you Sears for making everyone change their plans, which let me shoot this rally and part of the march from the comfort of my home. I don’t think I could have asked for a better way to shoot a big rally and march during the Coronavirus pandemic.

 

And I’m not done yet. All those people had to come back a few hours later for their cars or to walk past my building to get to wherever they came from and would still be carrying their signs. I would still be able to get some closeup shots of them if I could yell loud enough out the window, “SHOW ME YOUR SIGN!”.

Here’s how that went:

 

I’m still not done. I know how serious these events are and how incredibly rare it is that ANYONE would have a reason to smile at one of them, so I REALLY like these two photos (I didn’t know that anyone smiled until I saw the pix later that night):

 

I’m going to finish off with a double image that shows two different people with signs that have the exact same message on them and were coincidentally held in the same manner by two apparent students of the Trump University School of Bible-Holding:

 

NOW I’m done.

 

 

 

(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on June 19, 2020)

 

Some are hanging on the walls, some are leaning against the walls and some are hanging from doors. So what do I pick for my lead shot? Something that’s none of the above and isn’t even displayed in my apartment.

It’s a 35-year-old promo piece for AC/DC’s “Fly on the Wall” album:

That’s maybe kinda sorta appropriate, right? It’s still on the card and in better shape than my walls.

 

BACK ROOM:

1. Aside from a TON of suspiciously-missing money belonging to dozens of photographers, this is what’s left of the agency I was with for the majority of my career. It breathed its last in 2006. This 28.5” x 29” framed shot of the Jimi Hendrix Experience was on their wall for as long as I can remember. The brass plate that sits atop it is what graced the agency’s front door:

 

2, 3. The sign is 43.5” x 48” and the clock is 18” x 23.5″. The small paper attached to the bottom left side of the clock is an auction ticket. I don’t recall where I got either of these.

 

4. Cubby’s is a BBQ restaurant in Hackensack. Someone gave me the jacket, but I’ve never worn it, The second pic is me there in 2013. The carrier bag is mine from the early 60s when I was a paperboy (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=272). Both of these items hang from the door of my abandoned darkroom. Next to it is a 1935 picture of a NJ State Trooper on a motorcycle:

 

BATHROOM

1. Remember this pic from https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=6541?

 

2. Aside from the mirror and the light fixture, this is what’s hanging on the wall:

The car was in my parents’ house – also in the bathroom – so since my father worked in automotive management (and since the THINK sign was also his), I kept the pair together.

My parents did not play with cars in the bathroom (or anywhere else), so what purpose did this one serve?

It was an AM radio. One spare tire was the on-off switch and the other one was the tuner (let’s see………the WMCA Good Guys were at 570, WABeatleC was at 770, Murray the K at WINS was at 1010 and Peter Tripp (the curly-headed kid in the third row) was heard on WMGM, 1050. How’s THAT for a memory?)

 

HALLWAY

It’s a small hallway – one side’s for history and the other’s for fun.

Hanging on the history side is a 3’ x 2’ repop 1896 map of Hackensack, complete with 35 illustrations of some of the local estates and businesses of the time:

 

Leaning on the wall below that is something very similar, 30” x 20”, NOT a copy or a repop, but MUCH more interesting (and 20 years older). It comes from what is considered to be the “bible” for local historians – the Walker 1876 Atlas of Bergen County:

 

Someone I was involved with offered to buy me one of these Atlases for my birthday 16 or 17 years ago for $500. I said “NO! It’s WAY too much money to spend!”. I just did a search for one and that’s exactly what I found……….ONE for sale……….for $2500!

Oh well.

 

It’s considered serious sacrilege among historians to buy these books, dismantle them page by page and sell individual pages on eBay (or anywhere), but when people see the pages of their town for sale, they figure the damage has already been done (by someone else), so it’s OK to acquire it (guilt-free!) and frame it for their walls.

A very-related story: twenty or so years ago, I was buying up everything in sight on eBay that was Hackensack-related. I was an extremely efficient bidder and lost very few auctions.

That changed a bit one day when I started noticing a bidder who had the same interests and he was beating me. He didn’t seem to care about price…………the guy had bucks to spare.

I noticed that his eBay ID had “430” in it – the address on my building. Coincidence? A couple of weeks later, I was picking up my mail when another tenant came by, said hello and then mentioned some detail about an auction I lost…………….TO HIM!

Motherjumper!

Needless to say, I didn’t exactly bond with this guy over our shared experiences.

A few months (or maybe it was a couple of years) passed when I got a call from his roommate telling me that the guy died. He also told me about the guy’s obsession with beating me (I didn’t know it was THAT serious).

Anyway, he then said that he didn’t approve of his roommate’s actions toward me and asked me if I would come downstairs to their apartment………..he had something for me (?!)

I went downstairs, expressed my condolences and was presented with this:

 

It was (framed) pages 52 and 53 of the 1876 Walker Atlas, showing the part of Hackensack I live in! The roommate didn’t want it and was moving out anyway.

I graciously accepted and felt quite guilt-free because I didn’t pay for it and support whoever dismantled a perfectly good atlas……………my eBay enemy did.

I examined this map very closely and circled the corner where my building stands………..where houses were back then:

Houses also stood where the churches on either side of me are today. The church across the street was there in 1876, but Anderson Park is about a third of a block longer than it is today.

You’ll note that two doors south of me (to the left), it says “Geo. DeBaun”. Would you like to know what Mr. DeBaun did there?

So if I lived here then and my horse or buggy ever broke down, I wouldn’t have to go far for repairs, but then I wouldn’t be here to tell you about any of this today.

 

On the fun side of the hallway wall, we have Van Camp’s Pork and Beans – not the actual food, but original cels created for advertising.

The first item is the original sketch with added hands holding product. I could find no reference to a name for what was referred to in one online auction as “a dancing hot dog for a 1980s TV commercial”:

 

This is actually two separate cels: the dancing hot dog and the store. This is how I originally positioned them. Yeah, I know that the store is upside-down, but I liked the products and their crimson carrier standing against the yellow better than against the much-darker blue):

 

However, the upside-down store started getting to me and now it’s the way it should be:

 

KITCHEN

Well, where else would you put melons? Speaking of double-entendres (was I?), I’m pretty sure that “melons” were featured in most 42nd Street movies in the 70s:

 

LIVING ROOM

You may remember this Muhammad Ali-signed image (with the Beatles) from a recent post:

 

To counter the effects of the back-room Coca-Cola, I have this tribute to Pepsi products (the Mountain Dew lighted sign/clock was featured in the “Collections: Signs of Illumination” post (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=8452):

 

If you look towards the bottom of the Pepsi machine front plastic piece, you can see the opening where bought cans of soda were dispensed. I inserted a relevant sign.

I attended some kind of “cool stuff” sale on its third and final day. I saw this piece listed for $45, thought “maybe” and kept it in mind while I looked around at everything else.

Later, I decided to buy it, and as I approached the seller’s table, I saw him sitting down and writing something on the sign. It must have been Final Day Markdown Hour. It pays to wait – I got it for $25:

 

I’ve never worn this jacket (or chawed that tabacky), but they look kinda cool together. I can almost envision some guy wearing this jacket with a pouch of Yankee Girl chew hanging out of his right rear pocket while I’m mentally begging him to NOT turn around so as to not blow the cool image with a bunch of dried tobacco spit stains on the jacket’s front:

 

Uh-oh! Am I in trouble now that Quaker just pulled Aunt Jemima from their products (AND that I’m publishing this on Juneteenth)? I DID try to balance that with the album cover I shot for the (all white) Uncle Floyd Show:

(I’d better hide my Amos ‘N Andy tapes!)

 

I wrote about my one and only pinball machine in the 1998 post (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=885):

 

I was so enamored of this machine that I tried to buy anything I could related to it. Of course, eBay came up with something unexpected – a brand new playing field:

 

You never know when I might wear the old one out. The seller had a bunch of these and I got one for a lot less than the sticker price:

 

Even if I never needed it for my machine, I could envision putting it in some sort of box with flashing lights of various colors in or behind all the holes and colored lenses – a possible art piece.

It hasn’t exactly worked out that way so far, but I DID plug my 7’ roommate’s guitar into it and added some other connector. I don’t know what good it’s done for him, but he hasn’t complained:

 

Of course, the pièce de résistance is usually whatever you want framed and hanging over your sofa. This is one of the best pictures I’ve ever taken:

 

Got time for the story?

From my site:

Taken from good ol’ New Jersey (Liberty State Park), Jersey City, NJ 1985

Probably my favorite shot, a golden-framed, poster-sized copy hung over my parents’ fireplace for a dozen years and now hangs over my couch.

NOT doing what everybody else did got me this shot.

It started at the Hard Rock Cafe in Manhattan where WNEW-FM was doing a week-long series of afternoon broadcasts featuring appearances by various rock stars, called ‘Shootout at the Hard Rock’.

The grand finale, called ‘Shootout in the Sky’, was a fireworks display on both sides of Manhattan in the Hudson and East rivers together with a stirring musical broadcast on the station that was coordinated to the fireworks.

When we finished shooting at the Hard Rock on Friday afternoon, some of the other photographers said to me, ‘C’mon – let’s go down to The Battery and shoot the fireworks’. The Battery is the southern tip of Manhattan (partially obscured in this picture by what I think is a dark Ellis Island).

I didn’t find that to be a particularly well-thought-out idea………..you can’t shoot the fireworks from BOTH rivers at once from there and you’d only have dark New Jersey or Brooklyn for a background, meaning they’d look like any other fireworks shots.

‘No thanks…………see ya’.

Off I went to Liberty State Park, set up a tripod and a radio, and took these shots with the added bonus of a full moon rising between the towers of the World Trade Center.

The Empire State Building is on the far left. What appears to be a horizontal sky scratch AND a squiggly blue line at the waterline are the lights of a small airplane and a boat that were moving and which ‘painted’ on the film while the shutter was wide open – in this case, probably for about 8 seconds on Kodachrome 64.

Post-September 11, 2001 comment: My favorite photo with the 2 fireworks was suddenly ‘the World Trade Towers with 2 explosions photo’ and it freaked me out a bit having it as my main living room picture.

After a few weeks, it evolved into the more-benevolent ‘the anti-September 11 photo’, because it was bright and celebratory, so all is right once again………………at least it is in my living room.

UPON FURTHER REVIEW: Freakout Factor #2 – There are actually TWO planes in the sky!

The one mentioned before has a flight path that’s either going away from or heading toward the upper floors of Tower 2! A second plane’s flight path appears to be going through the smoke under the left firework and is either going away from or heading towards the upper floors of Tower 1!

 

 

GRAND FINALE

I have one more corner where I’ve got stuff hanging in my living room.

East Wall – an old family picture taken by my brother Ed hangs above an event clock commemorating the 16th Annual Peanut Pals National Convention in Mahwah, NJ in July of 1995 (I didn’t attend, but I DID once get a degree in Mahwah). The banner being waved from the ’57 Chevy convertible in the lower left corner says, “MAHWAH OR BUST”. The 45 single is Neil Sedaka’s, “Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen”:

 

Northeast Corner – This is an “antique” thermometer made by the company whose film propelled my career:

 

North Wall – This is a poster that commemorates a very important event we all (well, most of us) remember from 45 years ago……an event that I was fortunate enough to shoot:

 

Put them all together and you get a space that’s comfortable enough for me to come up with whatever it is that I do these days:

 

……and it’s all brought to you by our friends on the monitor, “FLORIDA DRUGS & LIQUOR” – a photograph I took in……………………where else?…………………..

 

                                                   PATERSON, NJ!

 

 

 

(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on June 23, 2020)

This picture is from the last time I saw these cousins all together – 1998………….and it wasn’t taken in MN or NJ or NY. It was taken with their tootsies in the Atlantic Ocean in Emerald Isle, NC.

They don’t all currently live in MN, but they might be surprised to learn that I have a MN collection.

It’s a small collection and I’ve been looking for a way to present it and blending in a family connection is all I could come up with, so thanks, guys!

Conveniently for me, the impetus for this collection is the very city I live in and if you thought you’ve heard a ton about Hackensack, NJ, get ready for:

 

HACKENSACK, MINNESOTA!

 

Yes, there is such a place and wouldn’t you know………….it was founded by two guys from Hackensack, NJ.

Unlike the NJ version, whose population is pushing 45,000, the MN one is just over 300. Its literature says it’s the gateway to lake paradise (127 lakes within a 10-mile area? I guess so.)……….a “land of summer comfort”.

Its most-famous “resident” was born in the early 1950s, is 17’ tall and she’s Paul Bunyan’s “sweetheart”. Until around 1991 when her head blew off during a storm, she was VERY homely, had no hands (arms were joined at the wrists) and had a HUGE sideways bulge in her “skirt(?)” in the right knee area. I couldn’t tell you if she was hiding some sort of monstrous growth or maybe the football team was in there.

 

Oh, HER NAME!…………LUCETTE DIANA KENSACK! Long ago, there was a contest to name her and a woman from Iowa came up with the winning(?) entry (runner-up: “Landa Happy Waters”).

Fortunately, I don’t have to write everything I’ve learned about this place. I have TWO nearly-identical brochures from 1963 and 1969 (guess who’s on the cover):

 

When you partially open it, you get these two pages:

(a fishing contest held at a “hi-way trading post”?)

 

(an “Indian POW-WOW every Thursday night”?):

 

The centerfold (Baby Lake, Kid Lake, Woman Lake?) (click to enlarge):

 

The back cover:

I posted about this in 2009: http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,1062

By the way………..her new face is a bit more human (and she has hands!), so I’m guessing that Paul visits more often now – especially now that there’s a Paul Jr standing next to her:

 

Well, I can honestly say that we’ve got nothing like ANY of that in my Hackensack.

 

On a somewhat less exciting note, I’ve also got a small Hackensack, MN postcard collection:

 

This is the front of that last card. According to the postmark, it was written 70 years ago:

 

We close the collection by raising this 4.75” glass to 17’ LDK and her severely-misshapen skirt:

 

Back to the cousins: their father was my uncle AND my godfather. For some reason, he didn’t seem to appreciate me calling him “godfuncle” (“Simon and…………”?)

 

That minor bit of creativity is his own damn fault. He wrote lots of personal stories and is the relative from whom I inherited the writing bug (thanks, Joe!).

 

 

(And on a personal note from eldest son to eldest son…………I’m still hoping to enjoy that story of his I asked about regarding his trip to NJ in 1997.)

 

 

As for the rest of you out there, for putting up with this, I promise not to write about Hackensack Mountain in Warrensburg, NY or New Hackensack, NY, which is part of the town of Wappinger, which also includes the village of Wappingers Falls, where I once lived for 9 months in 1969.

 

Deal?

 

(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on June 26, 2020)

 

Just before 5pm on June 24, 2020, I heard a lot of loud horn-honking. I didn’t even have to look to see what it was. It was the Graduation Honk for some local student who got gypped out of the proper ceremony by the Coronavirus. My camera was in hand before I got to the window. The video’s a little shaky because I didn’t have time to put it on a tripod. This is 4:40 of 11 or 12 little QuickTime files sewn together:

 

Interspersed amongst all these little videos being shot were my attempts at also documenting the event in stills. It’s not an easy juggling act, but I’m happy with these 10 shots:

 

I don’t know the girl, but she lives on my building’s side street, so maybe I’ll run into her or her parents and introduce myself.

 

A little over a month ago, another resident of that building had a similar drop-by ceremony that I posted on a site I moderate:

http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3922.msg13934.html#msg13934

 

 

(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on July 1, 2020)

 

So what were you expecting – this?

 

“Tie Tacks” just looks really boring to me…………..and – for the most part – these are fairly unboring.

In the collection, I found some non-TT flatties (the “etc.”), so let’s get them out of the way.

 

From GM in 1954:

 

From my career camera brand and my state:

 

I think the Hackensack one – which commemorates a very sad day when five of Hackensack’s bravest lost their lives – was a tie tack because a mark in the middle of the flip side appears to show where a post had broken off:

 

Same thing with this former TT:

 

This is a 1.5” pin:

 

…..and here’s its story:

Dunno where I got it.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever used a TT with an actual tie, but maybe 3 or 4 of them have found their way onto my cap, particularly one ol’ reliable that’s been on it for two decades.

“What’s that gold thing on your cap?”

 

“Something I found on eBay.”

 

I even found a backup (bottom left), but I have no idea what the initials originally stood for:

 

This is the longest at 3.25”:

 

…followed by the sub at a little over 2.5”:

I can’t imagine what kind of occasion would be appropriate for either of those two on a tie (Haters of ’57 Chevys? Lovers of Russian subs?).

 

I’m not Canadian, but I AM a Leafe:

 

Is this supposed to show an outline of New Jersey? Or some unidentified region that’s familiar to no one? Either way, it looks severely misshapen:

 

Other NJ TTs:

 

Animals:

Felix the Cat & Felix the Car (it’s in LA):

 

Pin the tail on the………target?

 

Arachnids:

 

I don’t wanna know what this is:

 

I think I know what these are:

 

Oops! I missed one of their friends. The Yankees seem to be vouching for her (“OK”):

By the way, “OK” was Chevrolet’s Used Car Division when I was growing up. This logo was everywhere:

 

Jesters and Sliders:

 

Reddy Kilowatt and Bendix:

Reddy Kilowatt is a cartoon character that acted as corporate spokesman for electricity generation in the United States and other countries for over seven decades. He is drawn as a stick figure whose body, limbs, and hair are made of stylized lightning bolts and whose bulbous head has a light bulb for a nose and wall outlets for ears.

As for the other one, my grandmother worked at the Eclipse-Pioneer Division of the Bendix Aviation Corporation in Teterboro, NJ.

 

Reddy seems to be selecting an underage cheerleader to hang out with instead of Yosemite Sam or SantaSpidey:

 

Looks like a ring, but it’s a TT:

 

SKYY vodka brings you “A Drunken Kodak Cat” on RTL-TV, co-sponsored/co-mixed by/with 7Up (“I’ll have a Seven and SKYY”):

 

Bob’s Big Boy sits on Bob (ouch!):

 

You KNOW I have to have a couple of music-related ones, right?:

 

After the ride, throw potato salad at the clown (what else can you read into this?):

 

The week leading up to Y2K (Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Y2K):

 

It’s TIME to buy an IMPALA that has a full tank of AMOCO?

 

A CADILLAC TAXI with a Chevy 427 engine?

 

I’d be hard-pressed to think of an occasion where this would work well with a tie (this IS a TT and not a pin):

 

I have no idea where this/these came from (maybe the tooth fairy?), but if someone wears this on their tie……………

 

…………I’m wearing this on mine:

 

 

 

(ignore May 1, 2017 publish date – this was published on July 10, 2020)

Annoying facts:

Included are 227 images I photographed on 177 of the 182 days of Jan-Jun. Not counted as more than one are the ones with multiple images in them that range from 2-8 (you KNOW I hate to nitpick). A full 70% were taken from my apartment (why do you think I like living here? It’s a lazy photographer’s dream).

 

It’s become a MAJOR chore to do this on an annual basis, what with me taking an average of about 18,000 photos a year. I DO try to lessen the load with daily placement of good pix into folders of varying subject matters and editing those folders on a monthly basis, but still…………

And instead of just throwing everything I shot into monthly categories to show some semblance of order, these will have a daily sequence.

To make this MORE time-consuming, I’m adding information to most of the images because I get a lot of “Nice pic – what the hell is it?” questions.

So let’s see how it goes for the 2020 halves. Feedback is appreciated.

 

January 1 – For more than a decade (and no matter how hung over I may have been), my first shoot of the year is always a noontime Ecuadorian religious “Our Lady of the Cloud” procession.

Fortunately for me, it’s been going right past my building for the last few years. I shot this from one of my bedrooms:

 

 

January 5 – These residential towers are “The Modern 1 & 2” in Fort Lee, NJ and are almost next to the George Washington Bridge This sunrise shot was taken from my living room about 5 miles away:

 

This van has been sitting with a couple of flat tires in a bank parking lot two blocks from home for the last few years:

 

 

January 7 – These guys are working atop a 5-story construction site (395 Main) a block away straight out from my living room. It looks like a ribbon-cutting ceremony:

 

 

January 12 (busy day) – As I went to take this picture of the mega-crane at the 150-170 Main construction site, a hundred or so pigeons flew into the frame:

 

From the same spot, I noticed something else flying around in the distance. I couldn’t tell what it was, so I zoomed in as much as I could and got a small image of a plastic shopping bag with some helium balloons in it:

 

Another angle of the 150-170 Main project:

 

New Club In Town:

 

Not a fan of smelly speedsters:

 

 

January 15 – Sparking for higher meter rates:

 

Windy day:

 

 

January 18 – Making donuts in the snow:

 

Making clones in the snow with a clonephone:

 

Making stupidity on the sidewalk (how are the tenants supposed to get in and out of their building?):

 

 

January 20 – Speaking of parking stupidity………….

 

 

January 23 – Lunar New Year………I think the buildings are in Jersey City and the fireworks are on the Hudson River:

 

 

January 24 – Geese fly past The Modern 1 & 2:

 

 

January 25 – May be my best umbrellas shot of the year:

 

May be my best after-the-rain strong double-rainbow shot:

 

 

January 26 – May be my highest-altitude birds-in-flight shot of the year:

 

 

January 27 – The Empire State Building’s colors honor recently-deceased Kobe Bryant:

 

 

January 29 – Feast in the parking lot:

 

I was waiting for him to drop some of them. Damn sure-handed guys spoiling my shot………….

 

 

January 30 – Strange sky-driving:

 

 

January 31 – Smoke drifts toward Fort Lee:

 

 

Oversize postcard gets delivered by USPS crane:

 

 

February 1 – Only the best in studio lighting for his woman:

 

 

February 2 – Man, is this ugly!

 

 

February 6 – let a tailgate be your umbrella:

 

 

February 9 – Inside a closed bed store (“Bruce the Bed King”, Hackensack):

 

 

February 14 – Dual cement pumpers dating on Valentine’s Day:

 

A Valentine’s Day high-five with smart phones on the roof at 395 Main (actually, it’s the same guy, but you didn’t hear that from me):

 

 

February 15 (another busy day shooting from home) – The 395 Main roof overflown by geese cruising past The Modern 1 & 2 – three towns away:

 

Lonely man contemplates………………something:

 

Strong mom rescues daughter from seeing the horror of the next picture:

 

AAAGH! MY EYES!!

 

Maybe this will help. It’s a multi-image photostitch showing Manhattan from the southern border of Central Park down to the Battery (click to enlarge – NOTE: On all stitches, click once. If your cursor becomes a + sign, click again for full enlargement – you may have to scroll laterally at this point and cursor will become a minus sign. To return to normal, click once and then hit your return button):

 

 

February 16 – Dancing fool (girl looks REAL impressed):

 

 

February 18 – Note on an apartment door (“on board”? Is a car in there?):

 

 

February 19 – This is a little tighter photostitch showing midtown Manhattan at sunset (once again, click to enlarge):

 

February 21 – Cement pumper encloses Sears at the 435 Main project:

 

Crane pickup work at same site:

 

 

February 22 – Couldn’t fit that HUGE motorcycle in one of those teeny spaces, huh?

 

He’s got every tool you could imagine, but it appears that someone stole his tire and wheel:

 

 

February 23 – Behind the Hackensack War Monument on The Green (the base of the monument presents four relief sculptures of war scenes: General Washington at the Battle of Monmouth, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World War I) is the 50 Main St project:

 

Meanwhile, up the street, a broken heart is for sale (and it’s got one of my feet in each half…………sorry about that) :

 

 

February 24 – Found along the banks of the Hackensack River:

 

The new pedestrian bridge over the river between the Teaneck and Hackensack campuses of Fairleigh Dickinson University:

 

Trying to land on the Sears tower:

 

Discrimination against a toilet-trained gull:

 

This is a video still showing a leaping squirrel:

 

 

February 25 – They can’t BOTH be right:

 

 

February 28 – If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s nonsense from my bread:

 

 

March 1 – Another goose squadron heading for my apartment:

 

I never did find out if they got the huge sofa through that small door, but I kinda doubt it:

 

The squadron travels to take in another Manhattan sunset:

 

 

March 3 – How often do you see one of these machines being passed by another? The driver of the nearer one is on the far left in the green shirt. It’s all bucket-controlled:

 

 

March 4 – My side job:

 

Cushion-chucking into his truck:

 

 

March 5 – The Channel 11 chopper snoops over Hackensack:

 

Maybe it’s watching the bird on my bedroom A/C:

 

I saw this gentleman coming and going on March 5 and 8:

 

 

March 7 – This is the saddest conversation I ever saw 6 guys have:

 

 

March 8 – Hey kid! Football season ended last month:

 

 

March 9 – This was the first time I saw someone from my window wearing a mask. He looks envious of the supermask that’s riding by:

 

For some reason, my little camera has difficulty focusing on the moon………….but not tonight:

 

 

March 10 – They’ve all got a mouthful:

 

 

March 12 – Cement pumpers: apart and together

 

 

March 15 – The 395 Main project………….it’s gettin’ there:

 

Meanwhile, spoolin’ around in the back………..

 

I found this a block away from where it’s supposed to be:

 

 

March 20 – Keeping my timing sharp:

 

 

March 21 – Gull harassment atop the steeple next door (this scene is about 3 or 4 floors higher than my apartment):

 

The skateboarder is back:

 

How incredibly-stupid is this parking job?

 

These images were taken 14 minutes apart:

 

Interesting design on the car, courtesy of the sunlit building it’s parked in front of:

 

 

March 24 – When 435 Main is done, I won’t be able to see the Sears tower, but that’s OK because Sears just announced that the Hackensack store is closing:

 

 

March 26 – Workers at 395 Main:

 

I went out my building’s back door and this was staring me in the face. I froze and slowly dug my camera out of my pocket…………..click!

 

I’m not sure what this guy’s about, but I’m glad I’m not him:

 

I’d like to know what transpired here that would result in a scene like this:

 

A steel plate is being lowered into the road at the 435 Main project:

 

 

March 27 – BUSY day!

 

Talking to himself:

 

These only bloom for a limited time and – short of having a drone – this was the only way to show them on two different streets:

 

This is the day I walked a mile each way on Main St to document all the Coronavirus “closed” signs on the businesses. It’s all posted beginning here: http://www.hackensacknow.org/index.php/topic,3922.msg13850.html#msg13850 it’s 3 posts covering 2 pages, but here are 3 images that caught my eye:

 

While I was there, these two unrelated images caught BOTH eyes:

 

Back home, I took these very similar images one block and 34 minutes apart:

I wish I had framed this better. It really looks like this guy’s weight is tilting the front of the truck upward (maybe he parked on the curb).

 

 

 

March 29 – You think that’s bad in March? As I write this in July, the wreath’s still there!

 

 

April 1 – My roommate ain’t no April fool:

 

Neither are these 395 Main workers washing their hands after work:

 

 

April 2 – From my living room a half-mile away, I got this shot of a cement bucket being brought into position at the 150-170 Main project:

 

April 3 – Did small children make these masks? Well, at least they’re wearing something:

 

 

April 4 – Does she have rocks in her hand?

 

The NJ governor ordered all flags to be flown at half-staff in honor of all the people who were lost to Covid-19:

 

Interesting selfie:

 

Colorful shopping (and what’s that on his head?):

 

Nothing special……..I just liked the way the light hit it:

 

 

April 5 – The Yelling Guy gets a visit from two masked men (nothing happened):

 

 

April 8 – The sun bounces around The Modern 1 & 2’s towers for 15 minutes:

 

 

April 11 – Just played a hunch that 8 pictures taken on a windy day might be interesting together. You decide:

 

The Sidewalk-Mopping Brigade?

 

Quick! Get him out of sight before somebody sees him!

 

 

April 12 – How to wear a face mask………….on your cap:

 

 

April 13 – I wish I knew what it was she was drawing……..

 

Interesting sun reflections:

 

 

April 14 – I’m just glad I wasn’t behind this guy…………but I’m not exactly thrilled with this angle either:

 

 

April 15 – Perfect fit (and it sat there for a couple of months):

 

 

April 16 – Worker carried out of 395 Main. I heard that someone “fell”, but that’s it. Never could find out what happened:

 

 

April 18 – Windows day (get a Mac – it’s easier):

 

 

April 20 – Two new Corona messages from a railroad station and a laundromat:

 

 

April 23 – Goose on a roof:

 

 

April 25 – Man with no face (or two masks?):

 

SDS (Social-Distancing Soccer):

 

The kid’s afraid that his friends will see his doofy helmet:

 

Just before his pants fell down (I’m guessing………I didn’t wanna look):

 

 

April 27 – Info regarding the next day’s flyovers:

 

 

April 28 – The flyovers:

 

 

April 30: Electronics delivery day at 395 Main? In the pouring rain? You can tell from this photostitch (click to enlarge) that the truck on the right is an old one because it says that PC Richard has been in business for 105 years old, while the other two say 110:

 

 

May 2 – I like to walk along the Hackensack River Walkway. These first two scenes were taken on the pedestrian bridge mentioned on February 24:

 

Wildlife:

 

I had walked past an older couple and I wasn’t sure if pre-Corona acknowledgements were still in style when masked (the park had just reopened that day). Surprisingly, the woman gave a big raised fist salute – in a “free at last” manner that I immediately understood.

That stuck with me during the walk and on my way back to my starting point, I saw them ahead and took this shot:

 

When I caught up with them, I introduced myself and told them that her gesture probably expressed what everyone there was feeling that day and asked if they would pose for a celebratory shot (Joy the dog didn’t feel free, being on a leash):

 

Back home, I saw a young woman coming up the street and two guys talking where she was about to approach them. I kind of figured they would take notice and react after she passed. Duh!

 

Sometimes, ripped jeans look good…….

 

 

May 3 – If you saw the Hackensack Coronavirus OhLimpPix post (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=10343), you may recall the golf and hopscotch athletes I featured. Here are two stills of them:

 

 

May 5 – Sun not bright enough?

 

Let’s hope no vehicle takes this detour:

 

This one appears to suggest that maybe we should all go to hell:

 

Masked and unplugged:

 

Chalkster-extraordinaire Mom is at it again. I’m glad I took this picture because rain washed it all away the next day:

 

Remember the dazzling broken heart for sale in a Main St store in February? It’s taken them 3 months to come up with a dazzling cure:

 

 

May 6 – It’s just an alleyway between two Main St businesses, but in this slice taken from Moore St is Main St, City Hall on State St (with the Oratam seal) and the high-rises up on Prospect Ave.

There doesn’t seem to be much distance between the last two, but look at the aerial view on  the right:

I’m located on the yellow line between the green and red circles. You can see Main St crossing the yellow line inside the red circle. City Hall is inside the purple circle on the yellow line on State St. Prospect Ave is at the top end of the yellow line, which goes through the building shown at the top of the photo.

Quite a Hackompressed distance…………..

 

 

May 9 – Busy window lady:

 

Totally fenced-in on two sides……………and the gate is locked! How will it ever get out?

 

Oh, come on, lady – that’s a church! How could you let him do that?

 

Speaking of peeing dogs………it’s incredible how many stupid people think that because the back of an apartment building faces them, NO ONE COULD POSSIBLY SEE THEM.

BTW – the unedited version is available to any interested law enforcement.

 

Guess who and guess where………..

 

Clouds potentially peeing on Manhattan:

Overall, it was a pretty wet day (and the sun was shining).

 

 

May 12 – Another flyover occurred today. This one had F-16 fighter jets, a KC-135 refueling tanker and came up from the Shore. As they passed low over Teterboro Airport – about 4 miles south of me – they started bending to their left to make an inverted “U” and head south again.

That worked to my advantage. They had split into two groups. I managed to capture the first one – an F-16 and the tanker – from a bedroom window as they started to climb to altitude after the Teterboro pass. I couldn’t get the second group.

This is the closest shot I’ve gotten from any of the flyovers:

 

 

May 14 – Interesting-looking trio………

 

I don’t think you’ll ever see a guy doing this in a truck commercial:

 

May 15 – …………or this:

 

Think you might have dressed differently when the temperature feels like 91 degrees?

 

 

May 16 – Colorful outfit:

 

Get this sandwich lady a cart!

 

THE FIRE ON MAIN ST

 

Walking over there:

 

There:

 

Photostitch (click to enlarge):

 

 

May 17 – Ugly freight train:

 

The flag at Foschini Park:

 

 

May 18 – A little Clydesdale has joined the group:

 

 

May 21 – “It fell off a truck!”

 

Before/During:

 

After:

 

May 21 was Red Nose Day:

 

Which would YOU rather be doing?

 

 

May 23 – I always wanted to try one of these…………it was absolutely tasteless:

One and done on a sesame seed bun.

 

Two shots on the FDU pedestrian bridge after it rained:

 

 

May 24 – Some lucky girl gets flowers from a straight-A guy (Adidas shorts and an ALDI shopping bag):

 

 

May 25 – May be the only real athlete in the Hackensack Municipal Parking Lot OhLimpPix:

 

 

May 27 – Installing 395 Main window coverings (someone forgot to install a facial covering):

 

May 29 – Ever see those Progressive Insurance commercials that feature “Motaurs” (top half is a man’s head and torso, bottom half is a motorcycle)? I photographed something similar locally, but I don’t know what it’s called. Same deal on top, but the bottom appears to be protection from wayward cars for an electrical box:

 

 

May 30 – This appears to be the “before surgery” shot to the above photo, but I took it the day after:

One of life’s little mysteries…………

 

 

June 1 – Trying to get some old lady’s pet tiger down from the tree? Just a guess…

 

Must have been something funny inside that sweatshirt:

 

 

June 2 – I had no idea what the big cocoon-like truck was carrying/hiding, but it turned out to be a tree truck, whose contents were to be installed around the outside of the building:

 

Oh good – they finally got masks. Maybe that box contains instructions on how to use them:

 

 

June 4 – On the minus side…………..

 

 

June 5 – Haven’t we been told all our lives to NEVER mix drugs and alcohol? Here’s a business whose name appears to encourage it! What kind of crazy location would allow that? You guessed it…………….

Paterson, New Jersey!

 

 

June 6 – I was working on a blog post when I heard some very familiar chanting going on nearby. A big crowd was forming in the small parking lot of a pediatric dentist (closed that day). It was a Black Lives Matter rally in the making…………great, but why there?

Turns out that it was supposed to form in a big Sears parking lot two blocks away, but permission was never granted, so it was quickly shifted to this little lot (and expanding onto two cross streets).

The whole story is in a previous blog post (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=10401), but here are a few of the more meaningful pictures of the assemblage, the march stepping off and some returnees coming back from the courthouse rally:

The gathering:

 

Black and white children are being photographed by black and white adults:

 

“Hey – getcha signs heah!”

 

The march to the Bergen County Courthouse begins:

 

Returnees:

 

 

June 7 – A screened bee:

 

 

June 8 – An interesting gentleman:

 

 

June 9 – An exciting pile of dirt:

 

Unanticipated candid stop-action (not easy to frame and capture):

 

 

June 10 – Our old friend, the Yelling Guy, is………….actually, I have no idea what he’s doing. Blindly filming something? Auctioning off some gadget?

 

 

June 11 – There may be an anaconda in there:

 

They sure do a lot of window-cleaning at 395 Main:

 

 

June 13 – Lotsa photos today (and a few comments):

 

I though he had a towel in his, uh……….cheeks (I think his friend is taking a closer look to see what the hell’s going on with The Man in Black):

 

Interesting outfits, especially the raincoat(?) and galoshes(?) on a bright, sunny day:

 

June 19 – Wouldn’t it make life easier if he just tied a rope around the bundle?

 

June 20 – If I’m not mistaken, that’s the same woman from 2 pictures ago. Ladies – whatever you do – don’t dress-shop where she does:

 

 

June 23: We do?

 

 

June 24 – From the Parking Lot Graduation post (https://iaintjustmusic.bobleafe.com/?p=10561):

 

 

June 27 – The extremes of guy-dom:

 

Local delivery:

 

Next-door neighbor at sunset:

 

 

June 28 – This guy really struggled to get across the lot. Whatever his problem is, I hope it’s temporary:

 

(Later that same day) Maybe this photostitch is a good sign for him (click to enlarge). It looks good for 395 Main on the right, but not for Sears, which announced a day or two later that it’s closing the Hackensack store:

 

Closeup:

 

 

June 29 – Awwwww!

 

June 30 – Big and little clouds:

 

On to the second half of this horrible year where, so far:

                          19 has kicked 20’s ass!