May 20, 2025

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about my present.

Hey, Happy Memorial Day to everyone out there. I’m gonna dedicate this blog to my father and my friend’s father, my friend who’s sitting right here. Both our fathers served during the Korean conflict.

Above is a photograph I did when I was in Santa Barbara back when I was normal. At the end of this blog I’ll make a gallery of how I shoot now. I hope you enjoy the photos.

When I was a commercial fashion photographer I would shoot about 60 rolls a day. Now I shoot about 10 rolls a year. It’s not so easy. I gotta find someone to help me shoot. I have to find some film. (If anybody out there wants to send me some camera film, I’d be happy to accept.) I’m old school. I shoot 120 mm film. I have to find a subject. It’s usually my garden. Then I have to find someone to help me mail the film. I guess I’ve got to find someone to do just about everyone. It’s not easy asking for help, but you gotta do it. You almost need a personal assistant. As my friend here said, I guess everyone needs a personal assistant, but I really need one. I mean, I can’t do anything.

Hey, guess what! I got my car. Now I gotta get it converted to hold a wheelchair. I have to send it out to Indiana to get it done. But at least I got the car. Thanks to my sister. She really helped me.

I’m gonna leave it there. I’ll include some photos I’ve been doing. I shoot as I see without using photoshop. Check, it out.

Love and miss you all. Love, B. Nice

May 13, 2025

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about my present.

OK, so I’m gonna vent a little bit here. First of all, I’m tired of sitting down for 15 years. It’s kind of getting to me. Right now I feel like getting up and running and screaming. But instead I’ll just let it all out in this blog.

Now, one reason why I’m kind of upset is because I’m trying to get a wheelchair van and it’s proving to be very difficult. I mean, sure, anyone could go out and buy a wheelchair van. All you need is about $70,000. It’s crazy right? I mean, you’d lthink that someone like me, someone who needs a wheelchair van would get a break, but no. Whoever’s out there charging for wheelchair vans decides we should pay more. Life is hard enough as it is, and now I have to pay more to make things easier. Crazy.

So what we’re doing now, (I say we, because my sister is helping me), we are looking for used wheelchair vans. Even that proves to be expensive. So what we figured out is, I’m under the Traumatic Brain injury waiver, right? I can buy the right van under the right criteria, buy a used van and have it converted to a wheelchair van. The state will pay for the conversion. So basically you’re buying a used car and the state will pay for it to be converted. Now, this is only if you are under the Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver. It’s all very complicated and it can drive you crazy, but it’s better than spending $70000.

The other thing I’m working on is trying to get better sidewalks for people like me. Actually it will benefit everyone. Now you think the van thing is complicated? The whole sidewalk thing is crazy. Everyone seems to pass the buck onto everyone else and nothing gets done. Wait til I hit a bump and go into oncoming traffic. That will open someone’s eyes! The bottom line is, I live in New York State and the government of New York State should look after its citizens.

Anyway, I’ll keep being an advocate for better sidewalks. It might seem simple, but it makes a huge difference when you have a decent sidewalk. Man, who would ever think this would be the case. First, when I was a fashion photographer, I used to talk about where I was on a shoot: Hawaii, the Bahamas. Now I talk about sidewalks. You never know where life is gonna take you, right?

I’ll leave it at that for now. I’m over my moaning. Love and miss you guys. Love, B. Nice

April 1, 2025

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about my present.

Hey, happy April Fool’s Day. As my friend here said, I live for this day. I even called my agency. I told them my health aide set my dog on fire because of a grease fire. My dog now looks like a hairless Mexican chihuahua or a punk rock dog. Then I said, “April Fools!”

Now, back to my blog. I’m gonna dedicate this blog to my daughter. She was just here. We had a great time. She’s awesome. This blog is for her.

I told you I was gonna talk about getting a handicapped van at a good price. Well, this is what you do: Now, anyone could go out and buy a handicap van. It will only cost you $65-72K. So, you can buy one outright, but I suggest you do the following: Now, after some research, I found the best thing to do is buy a used van from a rental car place. A van can be converted into a handicap van. Like a Chrysler Pacifica or a Toyota Sienna. Because I have a traumatic brain injury and I’m on the waiver program, I can get my van converted to handicap for free. The state will do it under the waiver program. (You have to be on the waiver program to do this). It all takes time, but it’s better than spending a lot of money on a vehicle. I find it amazing that they charge you so much money when you’re in a bad way already. It’s kind of like price gouging. It’s kind of like adding insult to injury. Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Like I said, it just takes time. I have a little time anyway. I’m just sitting around.

I’d like to talk about my visit with my daughter. You see, it’s important to have someone around you like this. You know, a family member that cares about you. It’s very important to keep your spirits up. Speaking of keeping your spirits up, don’t look in the mirror if you’re like this. It’s a bummer, believe me. It’s almost as if your body changes because of the wheelchair. Now, I say the mirror is a bummer, but actually it’s a good guide. For example, I wouldn’t know if I slump to the right. When I look at the mirror, I realize I have to correct myself. So I guess it’s a good thing to have around. Just don’t look too closely at yourself.

You know, whenever I get bummed out, I look at photos I’ve taken in the past, before I got injured I was working on a series called “Travel.” I’ll include some images I did.

Have a good April 1st and if you have a dog, tell some it was accidentally caught on fire. My friend here just said that’s terrible, and maybe it’s true. I do have diarriah of the mouth. Let’s blame it on the injury, or maybe it’s just my distorted personality.

Love and miss you guys. Love, B. Nice

March 4, 2025

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about my present.

I’m presently a little jealous of my friend here. She just got back from Hawaii. I used to go there all the time to shoot. I’ll just go there in my memories because it’s far way and I can’t travel by air anymore.

Before I said that being like the way I am doesn’t really bother me, but man, sometimes it gets to you. It’s tough. The only way to really deal with it, I think, is through meditation. That, or excessive alcohol and drugs (just kidding). I mean - meditation not medication - is the way to go. Although, I do have medication for panic attacks. You know, if you kind of freak out. I never use it, but it’s good to know it’s there, just in case.

I mentioned it before, but you have to use your disadvantage as an advantage. For example: I can’t really hold a pencil, so I use water color pencil to try and make a mark. I do this over and over with different colors. The result is kind of cool. It looks very abstract. Then, I was on the phone with my friend. His mother has severe dementia. She does the same thing. She makes colorful marks over and over. She’s kind of like me. She sits in the garden and draws marks of color. It’s an interesting connection because both situations are neurological. Her paintings are beautiful.

I’m really not gonna blog anymore today. I’ll just think about Hawaii. It’s a cool place. The art director I worked with insisted we go there. We went there every February for about 6 years. Get there if you can.

Anyway, I’ll talk to you next week. Love B. Nice

February 18, 2025

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about my present.

I’m gonna dedicate this blog to my friend Patricia. She said she follows the blog, so I’m gonna dedicate this one to her.

Man, when you’re like this, you’re definitely down. You gotta learn how to deal with other everyday things like funerals, statistics that make you sad. I’ll give you an example: so check this out - by the time a kid turns 18 you will have spent 92% of the time you’ll ever spend with the kid. Now, this bums me out because my kid just turned 18. The kid was taken from me when I was in intensive care, so you do the math. I haven’t spent much time with my kid and probably won’t from now on out. Statistics like this bum me out. Anyway, I gotta suck it up and roll with the punches, right?

On another note, I realize that I’m not doing so good in the coordination department. I lean to my right a lot and I’m totally uncoordinated in moving myself around. Then, a friend of mine asked me if I’ve been going to therapy and I said, “Actually, you’re right. I haven’t been going to therapy that much.” (This is due to lack of transportation and the cold weather.) The therapy I’ve been doing was almost like maintenance therapy. My friend is kind of right. I remember when I was a runner, if I didn’t constantly train, I would go backwards and not do as well. So I guess therapy is kind of the same. You’ve got to keep at it to get better or maintain yourself, and therapy at home (doing it yourself) doesn’t really work. You really need a physical therapist. Trying to get to therapy is like therapy itself.

Anyway, I’m gonna leave it at that. I also wanted to dedicate this blog to a family friend who is no longer with us. I just went to his memorial. The guy was a great guy and a good friend of my dad’s. I hired a physical therapist to get me there. You should have seen the guy trying to put me in the car. We looked like two drunk kangaroos. College day kangaroos. Anyway, it was worth hiring someone, and thank god I did.

That’s all for this week. Love and miss you all. Love, B. Nice