Day Two: Crack Smoking in Corozal
Corozal is a laid back town, not even close to being as dodgy as Belize City. Even the crack smokers are more relaxed here, as demonstrated by this guy enjoying a pipe on main street in broad daylight.A few moments later, he crooned for us.You've got to respect a crackhead unafraid to relax publicly. As long as he keeps away from your bicycle, that is.

Belize Day One: The best laid plans...
...Of mice and men, or so begins some bit of advice against making plans in the first place. Wise words in Belize, where serendipity is prayed for and logistics is a dirty word. It was no surprise when my plans for the day - to explore Corozal, where I landed late last night - had flown out the window by ten AM, replaced by newer, better plans. Two Canadians working on a real estate development across the bay were taking two potential clients in a private boat to their property, just a mile south of Sarteneja. They'd be back by one, two at the latest, and there was room for one more in the boat. Since I needed to check out Sarteneja, a fantastic strip of jungle-on-ocean I'd visited while re

The matinée photographer
One afternoon in December of 1983 I was wandering around the Bowery, either heading to or from CBGBs for a hardcore matinée. Though I have no solid recollection of the event, apparently I ran into a young photographer and film maker named Drew Carolan, who had set up a makeshift outdoor studio, some white cardboard, maybe some sheets or something like that on a wall and sidewalk. Drew was doing a series of photographs of the kids who made up the CBGB's hardcore matinée scene from 1983-1985 on the Bowery in New York city, and since I was one of those kids I posed for one of Drew's pictures. Being a budding teenage alcoholic at the time, I promptly forgot all about it.A year or

Truimph of the Ordinary
A video I made for my pal Rick during an all too brief visit the group made to Watts Towers. Built by Italian Immigrant Sabato Rodia, the towers are a sight to behold. The phrase "Triumph of the Ordinary" comes from Juddson Powell, our excellent tour guide for the trip. The Wiki Page for Watts Tower, which is attached to a small arts center offering arts programs to students. Watts, south of downtown LA, is known best perhaps for the race riots that nearly destroyed the area in the late sixties. As a result, Watts is not normally on the LA tourist's A-list, which in many ways is a shame as the Towers and joined Arts Center are well w

Struck dumb in the presence
We are being driven back downtown through thick traffic from the Getty Center, and the van we're in is moving as slowly as my brain. The Getty fellows spent the full day at the museum of the same name, spending the morning in meetings with curators, executives and, most interesting to me restorers. A restorer is a specialized artist, one whose job is to clean decades, even centuries of grime, smoke and decay from the face of a painting. After this has been done, they (or another artist) will set to work carefully replicating the exact brush strokes of the original painter, channeling, if you will, the hand and spirit of some long-dead genius.I found the process spel