Chapter 83 - January 3, 2013

Do you want to get married again? OK. Do you want to go to Australia? OK. Hey, it's nice here in Australia. Do you want to stay? OK. That was from my first marriage. I ended up staying there for 10 years. It was a great place to live. I loved it there. It was a great place for a young photographer to start. You know, the magazines had no money so they would do a deal with a resort. For example, I went to an island off Australia. What the magazine did was they would provide a space for free advertising in exchange for travel, accommodations, food, etc. It was a win/win situation for everyone. We got a great location and the resort got good advertising. Anyway, I was on this island and we got done eating at a local restaurant. There was an apple on a plate on a round table. There was a spotlight on the apple. It was like a shrine. It was a special apple because they normally didn't allow fresh fruit on the island. It had to clear special customs. Anyway, as we were leaving, the model, in her infinite wisdom, grabbed the apple and bit into it. Well you'd think the girl bit into a small child's arm. The whole restaurant went crazy. The rest of the shoot was so bizarre. Everywhere we went we were greeted with half hearted smiles and as we turned our backs, they'd whisper and point at us. Even more bizarre, every few hours or so, a bus of mentally challenged people would drive by, whisper and point at us. And then we went to a house to shoot. The owner of the house had a pit that went down into the darkness. He said he would go down there and because of the optics, and because the pit was so deep, he would see stars. He said, with a half hearted smile, "Do you want to come down and see?" Needless to say, it was a bizarre trip. But, you know, that's one reason why I loved working in Australia. You would go to places you would never imagine going. I went on some great location shoots.

I did some things that make me not sleep at night now. One time I was on Bondi Beach. I had to shoot swimwear. I was with one of Australia's top models. I ran into a friend who ran the local surf club. I said, "Hey mate. Let's take the girl out in one of the boats." I was such a young idiot. The boats are huge. The waves were huge. I said to her, "Do you mind going in the boat?" She said, "OK." We could have died. It was crazy. But you know, the shots were great.

Another time, I was in Sydney, around Fleet Week. They had an aircraft carrier full of sailors. I happened to be shooting that day, and I saw the aircraft carrier and I thought, what a great location. So I asked the captain if I could shoot there. And he said, yeah no problem. The captain let us use his cabin for hair and makeup. The hairdresser, his hair dryer broke, so the captain said, "No problem," and he called up some electrical technician. The guy spent hours on the hair dryer trying to get it to work. Then I looked down on his shirt. He was a nuclear technician. He worked on nuclear weapons. The guy couldn't even fix a hair dryer.

Anyway, I used to love to adapt to situations that just came up. Sometimes it worked out. Sometimes it didn't. I guess it's kind of like the way things are now. You have to learn how to adapt.

This week has kind of been a bummer. You see, I have a chest cold. It seems anytime you get something like a cold, it affects you 10 fold. It really brings you down, but, you know, you gotta stay positive. Get your mind off it. My friend here asked me if there are any stories from Aspen. I'll tell you one story. My girlfriend at the time, she came along on the photo shoot. We stayed at an amazing resort. Little did I know, my room was haunted. I don't know if you believe in this stuff, but after what happened, I can tell you, I believe in it now. She was taking a shower, and the pocket door in the bathroom slammed shut. She was washing her hair in the shower. Her legs were outside the shower and the door to the shower slammed shut on her leg. She said, "What are you doing?!" I said, "What are you talking about. I'm in here, in the other room." It freaked her out. Freaked me out too. Then I thought, it's just the wind. Then as I was going to sleep, the door to the bathroom slammed shut again. There was no wind outside. Just another day in my life. Never a dull moment.

P.S. I forgot to say I dedicate this blog to my friend in western Australia. It must be plenty hot there. High Summer and all. Anyway, I just wanted to say hi.

Talk to you guys next week. Love, B. Nice