Kicked off Memorial Day weekend with a ride to Veggie Castle. It’s an old White Castle that the Jamaicans took over and turned into a delicious array of vegan Caribbean cuisine. To get there you’ve got to ride through Hasidom and deep into the hood, which makes it all that much more worth it.

Veggie Castle is like an oasis in a sea of fried chicken.

Later that night, we put in some time on the fire escape.

Lyssa got in a shouting battle with the kids across the street.

Alex has no intention of getting his tooth fixed.

Craig Murphey is a handsome man.

Who makes awful faces.

Loogie time.

I wonder if ten dollars was a whole lot (not that it isn’t, but a whole, whole lot) when this fire escape was constructed.

The folks at 538 hosted a brunch on Sunday. Kevin is a master of machete tossing.

Xeroxed porn. It’s got nothing on Titty City.

538 roof.

I’ve been waiting my whole life to see an open hydrant.

Alex went into the eye of the storm.

This guy controlled the stream. He was worried about having his picture taken, but still sprayed a fire truck before I coul get my camera out.

Lost in the Flood.

Now that’s a trooper.

One more time.

Brett Nelson invited us to a Memorial Day bbq. He’s from South Carolina if you couldn’t figure it out.

It was Shannon’s house and she rocked the pogo stick.

I have no idea who this is but he was into fun & games.

Engine engine number nine.
On the New York Transit line.

If the train goes off the track.
Pick it up! Pick it up! Pick it up!

This is Indy and he hosts a fine bbq.

The longhairs of 538.

Side-pipe and mammories.

For the dolphins.

Craig tossed up his usual. The cactus with a sombrero and mustache.

This silhouette is Harry who just transplanted from SF.

And that’s Craig in the spotlight. Always in the spotlight.

Last words courtesy of Alex: That’s what summer’s all about.

I thought long and hard about this photograph. When they hang it in the MoMA, I will entitle it Why I don’t chew bubblegum.

Sunset from DUMBO.

We filmed this band called Holy Fuck for a Practice Space and this was their kit.

Because that’s how I roll.

Pavla and Christine graced me with their presence before fleeing to Europe.

Every once in a while, someone wrangles the camera from out of my hands.

The Ichikawa sisters united for one sweet week.

My friend was visiting from Montreal and he’s working on an art project that would end if his name came up on a Google search. So we’ll call him Jeffy McDickerson.

Jacob fell off the boat and washed up on the bank of the Hudson.

He took this picture from my window with my camera.

We skated funspot around the corner from my apartment on a lovely Sunday.

It just looks small because you’re so far away.

I know you’re thinking, how did he even pop that high? He must be bionic.

But the monster ledge conquers all.

Can’t miss McCarren park on a Sunday.

Francis met up and wanted to do some tricks too. Chimpanzee-style trackstand.

I had the most disappointing burrito experience at San Loco. But they tried to make it up to me with a 20 cent taco special. That’s what all those signs behind my head are advertising.

After an hour of waiting for our order, we received a gang of rice or bean tacos. They couldn’t combine them. I hear rice tacos are really popular in China.

Jacob just ate so he played it cool.

Miss America.

We collected Andrew Porter and went back to the park to watch the kickball games.

I love stadium lights and was freaking out about these photos.

There were about five kickball games going on at once. It’s a serious league and we almost saw more than one fight.

But it was all good vibes. Summertime is coming….

This is what it looks like when I work a lot.

I can only go out late at night and hang out with British birds. Chinatown gets very quiet after the fish markets close.

Niki and Lisa have no respect for American law enforcement.

R2D2 is working for USPS these days. What a wash-up.

When we were walking around in Chinatown, we saw two other midnight marauders. One with long hair was vaguely familiar and a block later we found this fresh piece.

Chrissy used to bartend at Taco Cholo and it was part of the weekly routine. This was her last night playing Cocktail.

Lin. Stoned Again.

Lyssa and Craig are really good roommates with very belwildered expressions.

Craig works a lot too, which is his excuse for living in squalor.

Hadas was in town. She used to live here and work for SPIN until she got fired because Christine peed on the carpet during a party hidden in a circle composed of Public Enemy who used blunt smoke to mask the smell of urine. But seriously, the bathroom was three floors down and there was no guarantee of getting back in the VIP room.

Lin and Eugenia throw good dinner parties and make damn good vegan enchiladas.

My heritage illuminated.

This is the new mural at Mama’s.

This is the old tag at Vice.

No-shirt Fridays at the office.

On the weekend, I helped film a show at this old boxing gym called Gleasons.

I can’t give away much, but it involves Thomas here and boxing gloves.

Dominos is like boxing with your mind.

Stay the course.

Collage of killers.

Can you see Mike Tyson’s career in there?

I imagine that Mike Smith is the name of his greatest enemy.

Round One.

Round Two.

Round Three.

TKO.

Thomas wants a piece.

This was pretty much the best thing that happened there though.

We also shot Lissy Trullie. I love these kids.

Vice had a party for the release of Chris Nierakto’s book of “porn reviews” and I was commissioned to be the event photographer at the last minute. Event photography, like porn, sounds pretty awful to me in theory, but in reality it ain’t half-bad.

A bunch of these photos ended up on the Vice Photo Blog and not everyone was too happy about the thought of Vice having their photo. (See disgruntled gentleman far right.)

Like any good event photographer, my job was to get photos as scandalous as possible. Don’t worry fellas there’ll be something for you later.

I’ll be having those souls, thank you.

Do they say chillax in New York?

Oh yeah, the party was at KCDC, a killer skateshop belonging to the lovely Amy.

I didn’t know that was Billy Rohan until hours after I took the picture. And that’s my boss that skates.

Chronologically, it’s still early in the night, but I can’t help but tell this story about Jilleen. After the party, we ended up at some skate bar where she was sitting next to some “lively” girls. I warned her about sitting there, telling her she’ll probably get in a fight if she stayed too long. She did. One of the girls bumped into Jill’s friend and Jill jumped up, punched a couple of the girls and tossed a boot across the bar. It was semi-comical but mostly bad vibes. My camera was out of batteries by then so I got up and slowly walked away during the tiff.

BFF Chrissy Barnes and my main man Moose.

Nuff said.

Ed shreds.

The only thing more ridiculous than beer lines are Colt 45 lines. Billy D. Williams wasn’t even there.

Hot seat. Nieratko was supposed to do a reading.

“Hi, I’m Chris Nieratko and I’m an alcoholic. Booze…blah, blah, blah…tits…blah, blah, blah. Thanks for coming out. Good night.”

I actually used to subscribe to Big Brother when Chris Nieratko was an editor and really like his writing. He’s taught me a lot of what not to do in life.

Being the guest of honor has its perks.

Gavin (cross-eyed) invented Vice.

Along with Suroosh.

Suroosh: “You get a raise for taking such fine pictures.”
Me: “But Suroosh, I don’t even get paid.”
Nieratko: “Sucks for you, dickweed.”*
*That exchange never happened.

Nice kid. Ate a dozen popsicles made of his own cum for $700. Seriously.

I sense a theme.

She’s a really fast reader.

New friends that I will probably never see again. Farewell, Hilary and Erin.

I see this one everywhere.

Aqualung, my friend.

Jillween.

These girls know how to party. Roger that.

For all those brace fetishists.

Remember Sean Stockon. The longtime Berkeley fixture moved to Brooklyn and appears to be doing quite well.

Allen Ying shoots most of the skate photos in New York these days.

Mark from 538 Johnson representing on the sly.

Ummm….

Igei and Kyle have the nicest bikes in NY only because their from SF.

It started raining and made for the prettiest picture of the night.

Look what the cat drug in. Darin was in town from SF on a roadtrip with the DLX boys.

I know that nose. Gerwer.

Dylan Rieder is a good rider.

David Clark is good southern boy and Krooked’s newest am.

When you’re a kid, you think people like Amy and Darin (shop owner and team manager) are the luckiest people in the world because they never have to pay for anything. But I’ll tell you what, son, Dairy Queen don’t except wheels in trade.

When the party was over, I offered to chaperone the DLX boys to Enids with my expert knowledge of the lay of the land. Between the door and the van we picked up these babes. Pia and Leah.

Joe Brook in front of the camera.

Time for some vantics. Did I really just invent that? According to google, pretty much yes. I am a genius.

The girls drew hand hearts.

While Dylan pissed in a bottle.

Oh wait. There we go. Didn’t I tell you that was coming?

Pretty girls love having their picture taken.

Forget the hearts. Pia was pissed that Dylan had a girlfriend.

Some guy offered to take a picture of us. How nice.

He snapped about ten until my battery died. Not so nice. Notice Jilleen’s growing aggression.

When I grabbed my camera back, he wanted to fight me. It was a silly situation but quickly resolved when I explained that I was, in fact, a skateboarder. “Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else,” he said. “One of those Vice faggots.” There was nothing more to say. With good vibes come the bad vibes. But I don’t want to end this on a bad note….

We must remember what’s really important in life. Steamy man-on-man and girl-on-girl action. Alllll night looooong.

I got around to scanning some photos last weekend and found some gems of my old friend Josh Brown. We met in the eighth grade. Before we were even friends he offered me a ziploc bag of pretzels. When I finished the last bit, he told me he had licked the salt off of each one. Jerk/BFF.

Josh is a real mountain man and actually prefers the woods to a toilet.

He’s also very crafty.

We studied abroad together in New Zealand.

He taught me a lot about the outdoors.

This photo is old, but still a fairly accurate representation.

A few laters, I was back in North Carolina for part of summer and we got to catch up.

I used to think his dog Luke was such a shithead that would always try to fuck your face. But we’ve since made peace.

We mostly go to swimming holes and jump off rocks. After years of hassling him, Josh finally made a beard out of the nasty mystery bubbles that collect on the banks of the river. He also ate a worm for $1.30 in 11th grade.

In 12th grade, a bee flew into my apple sauce. I offered it to Josh without telling him about the surprise. I cracked up after his first bite and he immediately inspected the apple sauce only to find nothing. It went down in the first spoonful and I was overjoyed with retribution.

In late 2006, Josh got his first cell phone. He can hardly work a digital watch, so this was pretty astonishing. Somehow he got one of those plans that plays a song when you call rather than ringing. But when he recorded his outgoing message, he sounded like a backwoods grizzly bear and fumbled a button trying to press #. I thought it was so funny that I made a cartoon about it.

It just don’t stop out here. Life spins at a rate faster than my eyes can focus. So I’ve been taking a lot of photos to review what I’ve missed. Thanks for the shoes, Julian.

Elliot’s downstairs neighbors play Chinese poker in the hallway on the weekends.

Sleeping beauty.

The Roth family came to visit me. A clan of sweethearts.

Jake Baker also came to visit. Just look at how good-natured he is.

I got a new lens, a 20mm f1.8. It hasn’t come off my camera since. Here’s one of the first photos. A fine-art purveyor in our posh neighborhood.

Craig Murphey won’t sleep in his bed. If he’s home, he’s on that couch eating salad and watching the commentary on Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest.

When he’s not home, we worry.

This is what happened last time he left town. That boy’s gonna give me a heart attack one of these days. Lordie….

I dragged Francis to McCarren Park Pool.

Francis is one of my best friends in New York.

Therefore, he’ll be a reappearing character.

The pool is massive and could fit 7000 bathers back when it was opened during the Depression. It closed in the sixties and now hosts shows like Les Savy Fav and Spankrock. Bloomberg wants to tear it down and put in a little old Olympic size pool. Question is, will there be a high dive?

We had to crawl through a hole in the fence, but we weren’t the only ones. Check out homegirl’s digital camera. I think it’s the first one ever made.

This is Nelson. The best damn straightedge bartender ever.

Nelson aka xNelsonx aka Newt.

Back at Francis’s house he showed how glamorous the life of a food deliveryman really was.

Maybe we do need that pool with water.

Vic Blue taught me to take pictures of relationships. That wall might as well be rainbow striped.

We went back to the park that same day for a cookout and some volleyball.

There was the most amazing strawberry trifle courtesy of Kristin.

At night I went to 538 Johnson, home of Alex Porta and the Bushwick Brothers. They had a flying trapeze.

Swashbuckling!

The ladies took a swing.

Then we just hung out for a while.

One of the Bretts is on top.

Tri-layered bro cake.

It’s never too early for the Macy’s Day Parade.

A full moon at Union Pool.

We were supposed to film Ryan Adams for Practice Space, but he flaked so hard. Instead we ran into a protest for immigrant rights. I thought I’d snap a few for the NY Times in case their other photogs were tied up.

I don’t like the subway. It sucks up all your money. And you gotta brave the third rail if you ever want any back.

Moose had a cookout last Sunday. We tossed baseballs and tailslides in the street.

Jake Likes Pizza.

Essential cookout tunage.

There were more Newman-Os than we knew what to do with. Chrissy figured it out.

Thanks for the BBQ, Moose, you handsome devil.

Late night return with the roommates. Time for some much needed sleep. Or not.

Some folks from Vice hooked it up so that we could go to the Tribeca Film Festival Premier of Spiderman 3.

They held it in Queens because that’s where Peter Parker is from and it took up the entire theater. All the stars were there, but I only saw Aunt May. What a hottie!

The movie was dope. Venom is a badass and I’ve been inspired to break into nuclear laboratories with hopes of getting some superpowers.

Oh yeah, we went to the VIP afterparty across the street. Men were in suits and women wore backless dresses. It was a swanky affair.

But we looked like jerks in hoodies and sneakers.

Still the open bar doesn’t discriminate. Orange juices for everyone.

The buffets extended from the center like eight legs of a spider.

And then there was a generous dessert cart in the corner.

The dancefloor was just asking for some spidey moves.

My favorite way to approach girls is to ask to take their picture like I’m the Iguanalizard or something.

Works everytime. This is Nicky and Lisa, a Brit and a Mick.

Alice and Josh got things started on the dancefloor.

Bernardo and Mike are editors and can tell me what to do whenever they want.

What a view! This was my first time in Queens, but who knew it was so pretty.

Dana flossin’.

There was a whole lot of this going on.

Two-step.

What a tangled web we weave! Mike was on the dancefloor for 30 seconds before a beautiful leggy blonde commandeered him. Sex appeal and dancemoves are the only superpowers you really need.

Lisa did her best helpless Mary Jane Watson.

Heros.

It was time for our red carpet debut.

Thanks for having us. It really was a charming soiree.

Mike and Sam are the It couple. The Star simply refers to them as Samike.

When Hollywood went to bed, Lisa and I tramped around Manhattan until the wee wee hours of the night. Everything is still a blur….