Blooper Reel

Saturday is here and time to roll out the old Blooper Reel of photos I took through the week, but didin’t have room to post. Have a great Saturday and we’ll see you tomorrow for Cheeseburger Saturday Night, from Newark, New Jersey no less!

Looks like Matt Lauer is moonlighting these days. Must've had to take a pay cut at the Today Show. Times are tough all over!

Those are sure low prices for kids, but as tempting as it is, I think I'll pass. They always turn into teens and then you really pay the price.

Didn't they hear I stopped doing MAD?

Nova!

Last week when I did my "Dueling Bathrooms" post, someone commented that subway bathrooms are the worst toilets in town. I commented back that I had never been in a subway bathroom, but later that day when I went to Economy Candy, I got off at Delancey Street and...

Baboom! I ran right into a men's room at the station, so I thought I'd check it out.

Not the cleanest in the world, but definitely a step up from the public library.

The toilets a little dirty and there's the mandatory stale urine floating in it, but still, not as bad as the library toilet.

However, if you need to sit down to do your business, you're in trouble. Stranded, branded, stranded on a toilet bowl...what do you do when you're stranded...and you can't find a roll?

When I went to the Impossible Project Space last week, there was a Photobooth and I can never resist a Photobooth, but I didn't have room to post it in that post.

So here it is now. I feel old because it used to be "Four for a Quarter" at these things and now it's "Four for Four Bucks."

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT!

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!
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Bonus Links For Mykola Mick Dementiuk’s New Book
Author and TWM commenter Mykola Mick Dementiuk has a new book out and you can check it out and purchase it at the Barnes & Noble website here: Times Square Queer. And you can read more about it over at Mick’s blog: Masturbating at the Movies.

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Bonus Photobooth Linkage!

If you're a Photobooth fan (and who isn't) go check out Gidget's photos at her blog via today's post: Flashback Friday.

East Of Bowery Reading At Sidewalk Cafe

Okay, I had something totally different planned for today, then I read this post at EV Grieve and those plans went up in the air. Ted Barron was one of the first people I met when I moved here in 1993. He’s a wonderful photographer and supplied photos for one of my first features that got published back in 1993 in New York Newsday about a Puerto Rican All Star Wrestling show that was taking place back in Williamsburg back in those days.

In 2008 Ted and writer Drew Hubner put together a blog called, East of Bowery and that collaboration made it’s way into print via the book, East of Bowery.

I haven’t seen Ted since the Newsday piece came out and he and Drew are hosting a multimedia show/reading from their book at Sidewalk Cafe tonight, and so that’s tonight’s last-minute destination.

It's a nice day, so we'll just walk over to the East Village to Sidewalk Cafe.

As I walk along I turned and saw Cardboard Box Man on a table. He's letting me know he's always there, lurking ... watching ... planning ... Aaaahhhh!

Here we are at Sidewalk Cafe.

Live music and entertainment every night. Sounds good to me, let's go inside!

Of course I'm over an hour early, so the bar's empty. What should I do with this hour to spare? Oh, I know, I'll have a beer or four!

And as I plopped down on a stool, the lovely bartender Katherine serves up an ice cold Budweiser.

Here's a view of the bar from my perch.

Behind the bar is a wall of lit-up booze bottles.

Up front there's large wooden communal tables to sit at.

A photo of a guitar hangs on the brick wall opposite the bar.

Beneath the photo is a long wooden bench that runs along the wall up to the front picture window.

And just in case you've had too many and need a reminder of what you are, they've placed this sign to remind you that you are in a...BAR.

There's a dining room in the space on the other side of the bar.

The stage doors are open, let's get a table.

It's a cozy, wooden-walled room back here.

A neon sign of the Sidewalk logo hangs on the wall above photos and artwork.

They're setting up the stage as people are starting to come in. The room is filling up fast.

My friend's Karen and Jon showed up, which was a pleasant surprise, I didn't know they were going to be here. We last saw them here at the Rodeo Bar, when John's band, Susquehanna Industrial Tool & Die Co. were playing. Check out their post at Edible Queens.

NYC musician Kurt Wolf is going to be playing live music to accompany the reading tonight.

Writer Drew Hubner gives an introduction for tonight's reading. They were going to have Ted's photos projected behind Drew on the screen, but due to a technical glitch that didn't happen. But, I've decided to have some photos of the reading accompanied with text from one of Drew's stories from the East of Bowery blog and you'll be able to click on the text to see one of Ted's photos, creating our own multimedia show here at TWM. The story is called, Next Stop Times Square and you can read it in its entirety here. Okay, on with the show!

My last morning was like any other. I awakened with my mouth open, in the snow, with no shelter to speak of. Some of us called the empty lots behind the old matzo shop, at the corner of Norfolk and Rivington, the toxic waste dump.

Maybe there were fifty or so of us in the lot that night, none of our mothers when they walked us to kindergarten that first day and left us in the parking lot imagined their lovely child would ever end up in a place like this, even for one night.

It was almost an entire block, big enough for a baseball field. Some of us had fashioned temporary bivouac structures out of discards: cardboard boxes, found pieces of wood and orphaned plastic tarp.

The snow had begun sometime in the night as you remember waking up, pissing steam against the brick building side and watching the flakes outlined against the moon’s face like falling keepsakes fashioned by the delicate hands of virgin weavers somewhere who all looked like young Judy Garland and sang as they worked in voices that were plaintive but not yet broken up.

My mother had given me the money for rent.
“I can see you’re trying, son.”
“I promise, ma.”

I turned the rest of the money my mother gave me into dope. My actual plan was to cross the Williamsburg Bridge by foot to the Brooklyn Queens Expressway travelling west and hitchhike south from there.

I stayed on the bench watching the headlights careening into the darkness above me one of the coldest nights of the year until I finally shivered onto the subway, looking for the best place to melt away into nothing I remember riding out to Coney Island and walking on the beach to the edge of the shore, I must have got back on the D train because I was awakened by a cop below Times Square, who gently suggested I move on and just thus ended the chronicle of my first life in the East Village.

After the reading people milled around and chatted.

And after about a 17 year gap, I got to say hi to Ted! It was great to see him again!

And as I left, night had fallen on Manhattan. I love it when that happens!

East of Bowery
The Blog
The Book

Sidewalk Cafe
94 Ave. A (Near 6th St.)
212-473-7373

Further Reading: (Semi) Daily Pixel, Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and No Such Thing As Was.

Time Is Tight.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you! (Photo by Ted Barron)

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Bonus Photo by Danny the Freelancer!
After yesterday’s Polaroid trip to Impossible Project Space NYC, TWM commenter, Danny the Freelancer was inspired to dig up this Polaroid. Here’s what he wrote about it: "This is my favorite pic from the Vava Voom Room, Burlesque. That's the world famous BOB on top, I guess I'm the letter O in the middle and that's Dirty Martini on the left.” Classic photo, Danny, thanks for sending it in!

Impossible Project Space NYC

While Googling around I found a really unusual store/photo gallery devoted to the Polaroid camera and instant and analog photography. I didn’t think you could buy Polaroid cameras or film anymore, but this place called, The Impossible Project Space NYC not only sells Polaroid cameras and film, they have photo exhibitions as well. You can read the timeline of how The Impossible Project came to be right here. The current exhibition at the space is called, “Work In Progress” and features the work of 13 photographers. I thought we’d check out both the exhibit and The Impossible Project Space NYC today. Lights, camera...cameras!

Here we are at 425 Broadway home of...

Impossible Project Space NYC. It's up on the fifth floor, let's buzz the buzzer and go on up.

It's a tiny elevator that takes you up and is the slowest moving elevator I've ever been on. It actually stopped for about 39 seconds on the third floor and I had a mini anxiety attack thinking it was stuck, luckily it started chugging it's way up to the fifth floor and the doors opened up.

And here we are! It's a really nice open, arty space in here.

This is the exhibit that's being shown till May 8th. It's called "Work in Progress" and features these photographers. Let's go have a look.

Here's the exhibit that covers the majority of this wall.

Without even trying, this turned out to be a somewhat obligatory mirror shot along with these two very cool photos.

A shot of a taxi and the other three remind me of a classic shot of light coming in to Grand Central Station, but it appears to be a different location.

This is a great photo exhibition of instant photography, if you're in the area you should stop by and check it out.

Turntables are set up in the back playing music softly. It only makes sense that turntables and vinyl records are part of the ambiance of this space.

I love this wall of cameras!

If they could talk, they'd be cursing out the digital camera I'm taking this photo with.

Let's take a look in the glass counters lining the other side of the space.

Check out the flashcubes in the middle, I haven't seen them in decades!

The film for the cameras they sell is still made in the Netherlands, where the old Polaroid film was made. You can read about this new generation of film here.

Check out these blasts from the past: McDonald's and Barbie Polaroid cameras!

A coffee table book about Polaroid and instant photography called, "From Polaroid To Impossible," by Hatje Cantz.

Impossible t-shirts, buttons and prints are for sale in this case.

Here's a Polaroid One Step 600 camera. I had one of those years ago.

Kyle showed me the camera and was helpful in showing me how it worked. It had been so long I had forgotten. The price was right, so I was sold. Back to the past for me!

I thought it only fitting that the first shot I took was of the Impossible Space. In the old days you would shake the photo til it would dry and the image would start to appear. I started to do this and then Kyle informed me that with the new film you need to shield it from the light and try not to move it at all for a few minutes. So this one is a little fuzzy. One feature I've always loved is that you can write at the bottom of them!

I took this on my way home at the Farmer's Market in Union Square. I love how it looks like it's 1977 in the photo!

This was a lit-up sign on 16th street, another shot on my way home.

And I used a flash on this Polaroid portrait of Gumby. This film is expensive,  so don't expect a ton of Polaroids here, but it will be fun to incorporate some Polaroid instant photography now and again on TWM. Thanks to Kyle and everyone at Impossible Project Space for their help and hospitality!

Impossible Project Space NYC
425 Broadway—5th floor
212-219-3254

Further Reading: npr, Monocle and Mother Board.

If only I'd thought of the right words,
I wouldn't be breaking apart,
All my pictures of you.

Surprise link, click on it...I dare you!

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Bonus Please Kill Me Linkage!

One of my favorite books of all time is the definitive oral history of punk rock, Please Kill Me, written by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. For years I've wondered why there isn't a website devoted to the book and the authors and now there is one! Check it out here: Please Kill Me. There's an interview with Danny Fields, photos of a Ramones museum, Legs remembers Malcolm McLaren and tons of other cool stuff. Go check it out!