Fast forward to just a few weeks ago. My friend Bruno (in snowy Michigan…wait…is it still snowing there? I can’t remember) sent me a package. Two years ago, Dan Worley and I had the pleasure of recording Bruno’s band, Collateral Damage at the Good Noise Studio. After much (much!) pestering, I persuaded him (finally) to send me the latest iteration of the record so I could have a listen. A couple weeks ago, I get a box (not an envelope, a box) with the “in process” CD enclosed. With packing peanuts. And, a small slip of paper.

This requires a little explanation. You see, a couple years ago, I started running live sound at this dive bar in Ypsilanti Michigan called TC’s Speakeasy. And there was this guy, a real hard case, who went by (like Madonna, and Prince, and…) Only One Name, the name of Bruno. And there was this one time, when I had (maybe) had a little to drink, and was in conversation with Bruno near the bar. Emphasizing my point (whatever it was), I went and poked the guy’s chest.

[Freeze]

Collective intake of breath. Beer, whiskey, wine, midway to lips: stop. Eyes turn toward us. Eyes turn away…what’s going to happen?

Thank God. [Exhale] Everybody laughs. And…a good joke is born.

Getting this package in the mail (well UPS actually)? Totally made my day. I laughed a long time.

Yes, I shaved my Van Dyke. Yes, I am letting my hair grow. Just don’t call me a hippie.

A closeup ofthose quick fingers:

I stayed with my cousin Karen on the lower east side, nearby to Moby, apparently. Sunday afternoon, as the sun was setting, Stacy and I went for a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. Here are a few of the things we saw…The Statue at dusk, keeping watch over the harbor, as she always does:

This is Stacy, smiling at me as the sun sets over Manhattan:

Brooklyn gets kind of a bad rep in the rest of the country. It’s somewhat like NJ in that way. As a matter of fact, northern NJ is more or less like a 6th borough…(wups, did I type that out loud?)…What I mean is that everyone who doesn’t live there seems to have this idea that all of New Jersey is like Newark International Airport, or like Patterson. Well, it’s not. I grew up in rural north Jersey…and it’s one of the most lush and beautiful places I’ve been.

And, in that same way, not all of Brooklyn looks like the first thing you see when you get off the Brooklyn Bridge (highlight courtesy of me in Photoshop):

One of the funnier things I noticed on the trip.

Hope you like!

I mean, come on now. What more needs to be said?

I am of the opinion that cities are at least as fascinating by night as they are by day…so I always try to make it a point to take my camera out for a walk late at night when I’m new to a city.

In Vancouver, there is a steamclock. For all I know, the only one of its kind. It does the “Westminster Chimes” (you’ve heard this if you’ve ever heard a grandfather clock chime the hour and quarter hour), but instead of bell tones, it uses a steam whistle, like an old fashioned coal-fired locomotive. At night, it’s a pretty cool sight:

I also ran across a few of my “potty humor” shots.

Somebody (same somebody?) in both Vancouver and San Francisco had a similar sense of things regarding their graffiti vibe:

The image below was taken right at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. There was a bunch of construction going on, and these big signs were used for “educational” purposes, as well as to keep the unwashed masses out of the waterfront construction sites. You may have to click on this image to get a bigger one in order to read it properly:

No, it wasn’t me, don’t even think it.