Dave Raphael

sharp flesh buffalo.

I was walking down Broadway the other day when I came across these fine guys building a pothole.  We have them all over the city (potholes), but you never really get all up close and personal with the master craftsmen who ply their trade at expertly destroying the front suspension of my auto when given to bouts of reckless driving, or really, just driving in general.  I regret not introducing myself but at least the next time I get my front shocks into full compression and my shoulder muscles into full spasm I’ll have these fond images hopefully popping into my head as my eyelids clamp shut behind white knuckles on the steering wheel.

I recently bought a digital camera.  Ive never spent such an absurd amount of money on something that a) was so entirely uninspiring and b) havent at least *tried* to use.  So after two weeks of staring at the camera on my table I picked it up tonight upon completing a fourteen hour day on a Warner Brothers TV show.  Fully fried and half asleep, this is the thing that I look at every day, at least once.  Enjoy my first video frame realized by a lens computer of what ordinarily might have been a cool photo had it been shot with a four instead of an eight.  In consideration of its milestone status, I thought I would share.  Now that DC has finished his quilt, he can look at it too, perhaps everyday.

By pressing down a special key, it plays a little melody…

Son of a highly recognized 5th Marine Scout Sniper, Jay rose to meet his own celebrity after a rumoured affair with Brittany Spears.  Together we learned that the cover of the National Enquirer and the cover of Rolling Stone are two very different universes.  One of my old friends made it to the cover of Rolling Stone.  We made the cover of the National Enquirer.  After all that, and careful consideration, Im not too sure which one is worse.

We went to high school together, shared many dreams, played in bands and over the years, have made several records together.  I took these two years ago maybe, during a break from grinding some idea out in the studio.  Many of our best ideas were formed on this patch of grass and wood.  Much of our best wasted time has been spent at this spot as well.  With the bustle and madness of being a grown up, sometimes it takes digging up some old picture to be reminded of who your best friends are in life.  Sometimes you are lucky enough to find those pictures.

I took these photos with an old summitar lens that was made right after WW2.  That lens probably had some incredible history.  It saw fuel go from leaded to unleaded to high octane.  Watched several giant wars come and go.  Saw Hollywood change from black and white to colour.  Watched Americans stop reading and get sucked into Television until there was nothing but apologetic sheep and egg shell walking lemmings left in this country.  Saw the birth and death of Rock and Roll, the US space program and the professional career of the great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.  It’s not a stretch to imagine that even Jay’s dad might have seen a French journalist running around the Arizona Terriroty with a lens just like this one stuck on a Leica while the jungle slowly set in to rot the camera’s leather strap.  Then some guy sold it to me.  I shot three whole rolls of film with it and then immediately dropped it onto the driveway outside the studio, effectively ending the life of such a fine fine lens.  First time I ever did anything like that.  Ive since purchased three such lenses, none of them make pictures that look like these.  Ah, sometimes the good ones have to vaporize back into the ether of imagined greatness.  Thankfully, I have some physical proof of this one’s existence.