Hi you guys. Welcome to the blog where I talk about the past. I'm gonna talk about my hospital visit. That's the past, right? The recent past. Oh yeah, I forgot. This blog will be called: Going Long, A Scar, and You Animal.
Let's start with the Scar. I was in the hospital right after surgery. You know, the ICU, which is Intensive Care Unit. I woke up to a nurse giving me a sponge bath. She said, "I'm sorry, what's this?" She was pointing to my scar on my stomach (they had to gain access to a main artery). Well, I thought she was talking about my private parts. So, OK, remember, between the brain injury, the operation, and all the drugs, you're a bit out of it. So I said, "That? Oh, that's where my brain is. That's my dick. Apparently, my brain is in my dick based on the girls I dated." Remember, you're totally out of it. She said, "No honey, your brain is up here," and she touched my head. I thought I was being funny. You know, when you're in a serious situation, you'll have different ways of dealing with things. I always joked around.
Actually, I'm not gonna talk about the hospital visits anymore. They're kind of depressing. Let's talk about Going Long. A photographer I worked for in the '80's always shot with long lenses. He had three particular lenses he really liked. Two of them were in big leather cases. The other one was a huge lens, and in was in a metal case. I was in charge of the lens in the metal case. The other assistant was in charge of the leather case lenses. Well, as we were getting off the plane in Africa, my friend, the assistant, grabbed the two leather lenses and stood up. He almost took a kid's head off. I went to grab him and help him and my lens, the one in the metal case, slid off my shoulder and clocked the guy next to me. Remember, I told you, I was the worst assistant. I think I almost killed the guy. I can't begin to describe the sound a metal case makes when it hits a human skull. The guy wasn't happy.
One time I dropped a lens out of a helicopter, but that's a whole other story that no one knows about.
The other thing I wanted to talk about was You Animal You. For some reason, animals are always attracted to me. It can be a bit of a problem when I'm shooting. One time I was photographing a model in the south of France. We were under a big tree. The model was doing a yoga pose. All of a sudden a cat came out of nowhere and started hanging out with the model. I thought it was cute, but then I said, "All right, All right. Move the cat out of the picture." The model then sat down in a Lotus pose. The freaking cat climbed into her lap and went to sleep.
Another time I was shooting on a ranch. The rancher raised Lamas. The damn lamas kept following me around. Have you ever been followed by a pack of lamas? It's kind of weird. Every picture I took, there was a lama in the background staring into the lens. Oh, and by the way, Lamas spit. Did you know that?
But the best animal story of all was my dog Buster and the Harry Winston necklace. I think I told you this story before. The model was wearing a beautiful Harry Winston diamond necklace. The necklace even came with an armed guard. Well the model was proudly wearing the necklace for a cover shot when my dog walked into the photo. I thought, well, let's put the necklace on the dog, and I did. I put the necklace on my dog and that was the cover shot. The model was pissed off. I tried to get my dog to run home real quick and hoped the armed guard wasn't a good shot. (Just kidding.)
That's all for this week. I hope you guys had a good Valentine's Day. Check out my other blog. You know, the blog about the present.