Hey, I just stepped out for 6 months but I'm back. This photo was taken in Rajasthan. On this day I had decided to buy a new shirt. I was riding in a bicycle rickshaw and was vaguely cranky because my driver had duped me by taking me to a jive shirt shop on the other end of the city that sold scratchy, cheap shirts rather than to the shop I had asked to go to that a friend had recommended to me as the place to buy a really nice, soft shirt in Jaipur.
I bought a scratchy shirt and had agreed to visit the shirt salesman's home village someday up near Delhi to meet his family and have dinner when on the way back, instead of being returned to my hotel I was taken, against my wishes, on a tour of historic Jaipur. The old man who was driving had stalked me outside my building for two days. He knew instinctively what I know and what the shirt salesman knew: I'm a sucker. Be persistent and eventually I'll buy a scratchy shirt and take a goddamned tour of the city in your squeaky rickshaw.
The ego can be the most insidious thing, don't you think? I'm in india for the first time, riding in a bicycle rickshaw for the first time through some of the most insanely crowded and chaotic streets I've seen. My driver is is an elderly man who is pedaling like a drunk teenager, flying around cows, people, cars... It's really fun. I'm in India... but in the back of my mind, I still have a saggy diaper over the scratchy shirt: somehow, a part of my brain actually believes that achieving my goal of purchasing a shirt- a soft shirt- is the most important thing going on in my life at the moment. But the truth is less obvious and goes something like this: I'm alone in a new place, I can't scratch my ass without thirty people staring and smiling and I'm a little scared and defensive because I haven't figured out how to buy a candy bar with confidence yet and I don't want to be taken advantage of... and as I see this, I'm suddenly relaxed and actually smiling at myself. Then, up ahead, I see an elephant walking down the street. I've never seen an elephant walking down any street anywhere, ever. It's the largest living creature I've ever seen and it's just strolling down the street with everyone else, as if on it's way to buy cigarettes. It pulls out into the passing lane and reveals these two guys pushing a car and I take the picture. It's not a great photo but it's sweet and the timing is good- but what I really like about it is this: It reminds me of how happy I was riding around with that old Man that afternoon and how I had been reminded of my first rule when traveling (and when living, in general): Don't have a rigid agenda, be open- and say yes to (almost) everything, even if it means letting other people have their way... and A few days ago, I got an email from National Geographic telling me they're considering running this photo in their magazine in the "Your Shot" section, which somehow makes sense.
June, '12 Ania at JFK
June, '12 Las Vegas has some things and doesn't have other things. Two of the things it does have are pillows and decent water pressure, as documented above. I was in Vegas working on a Blue Man appearance at the Electric Daisy Carnival electronic music festival out in the desert. By the time I took this photo, a coup had taken place at the hotel where the majority of portly, jolly and good natured guests had been slaughtered for meat by wasted, semi nude teens and twenty- somethings who's actual goal for the weekend was to go as ape-shit as possible and to keep going ape-shit until it was no longer possible. I was finding refuge in my room, waiting for my lobby call and taking pictures of pillows as a result. The flip side: riding on one of the best amusement park rides ever at the carnival at dusk that took us up 60 feet and swung us down and back up at high speed for 5 minutes with glowing lights and fire below, the vegas skyline in the distance, purple-blue sunset behind the mountains.
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