Juliana Get's Out of the House With Bryce Gruber

"The Inner Sanctum #1", 40/40 Club, NYC, 2009.

"Very Important #1", 40/40 Club, NYC, 2009.

Dear Bryce,

Thanks for inviting me out to the ultra VIP 40 40 Club! I had a blast! Yes, I, Juliana Beasley entered the inner sanctum of the possibly only Mod decorated sports club in the universe. Alas, I got through the locks of heavy gates, walking pass the gargantuan bodies of guards to the nether kingdoms.

I stood at the entrance of the 40 40 Club, as we had arranged. A text message came through...she would be out in a moment to gather me. Five minutes later, a delicate white hand appeared out of the vault door and I hear, "Juliana?". With one heel out the door, bracing herself with the other heel inside the door, she grabs my hand. She dwarfs me and I feel like a child dangling from a mother with a mission. She is 16 years my minor.

"Waiting on Line #1", 40/40 Club, NYC, 2009.

Bryce passes me a fluorescent orange hospital band as we march through an eager plebeian crowd into the first room. Ready to snap and roll, three line deep rows of paparazzi sit center stage, gazing upon a bright white foam core backdrop covered in logos. All cameras are in vertical position meeting the guidelines of Getty and other agencies who might shun my horizontals and squelch my files in virtual garbage cans.

She directs me to my spot, off to the side, on a diagonal. This is where I am to stand and capture the terrible glare of beaming lights upon my lens. I need the freedom to move and mingle, I feel like I am standing in a block of cement.

Between bright lights and darker interiors, the exposure choices promise to be difficult for anyone who veers away from the door mat posing as red carpet imprinted with the soil of past and present posers, shakers, love makers, and sudden flash of the real deal celebrity. I can not tell the difference between who matters, who does not. I have two channels on my t.v. The bent rabbit ears and the coming of digital only will leave me to my permanent place of pleasant disengagement.

"Manager #1", 40/40 Club, NYC, 2009.

"Posing #1", 40/40 Club, NYC, 2009."

Bryce is the kind of girl you want to be friends with. She's fresh faced, beautiful, friendly and ballsy without the appendages.

"Bryce and Friends", 40/40 Club, NYC, 2009. Bryce is on far right.

...and also, the girl I never would have gotten to be friends with because she was in the cool group and I wasn't. In fact, she has about 3K plus friends more that I have on FACEBOOK. It is so large that even my DSL service will not allow me to crack into it.

I met Bryce, the bright-eyed young woman, the CEO, maxi Leader of Intensity Global and website entrepreneur of a Luxury Spot on her birthday....Bryce was it 25?

Bryce is just a nice person. I don't know her and although, I cannot confirm with the 3K friends on FACEBOOK would say the same, I would assume they might venture to say the same thing. One thing, I can say for sure is that the evening I met first met her, she was not surrounded in the cushion of models and ass lickers. As it seemed, she was in the company of sincere friends.

The Luxury Spot CEO and employees are described to be "fun-loving, posh New Yorkers with a penchant for better living." I would unfortunately never enter the realms of this inner circle. My place is a mess, I can be morose, yet positively excitable and my nails are filthy. I lack the skills of daily feminine hygiene and simple care. At best, I have some expensive hair products for my problem hair and I eat spinach and red cabbage almost every day.

"Luxury Rental", 40/40 Club, NYC, 2009.

So, what could a top woman like Bryce do for the femme in me? Could the Luxury Spot offer me a personal hygiene assistant for at least 2 months free or until I could catch on to daily self-nurturing and beautifying schedule?

"Sidelines #1", 40/40 Club, NYC, 2009.

Back at club 40/40, I finally make it through the the multi-layers of bodyguards, opening one Ukrainian egg doll after the next until finally, the last bodyguard throws up his hands. He let's me and all the other stragglers and late-comers enter into the final destination. I have arrived... to what looks like a basement rec room. People stand either looking down at their text messages or glaring around at the room, trying to spot anyone, oh, just if only one celebrity or the likes of one celebrity who can calm their disenchanted hearts.

"Boys in the Rec Room", 40/40 Club, NYC, 2009.

Random Photos From the Rockaways, 2009.

"Boy Waiting for School Bus", Rockaways, 2009.

"Red Couch", inside a home in the projects of Far Rockaways, 2008.

"No Trespassing", outside a crack house in Rockaway Park, 2008.

Juliana is On The Boat Baby!

This might get the feeling right! I'm on a boat baby! Please click here to get to the You Tube page for a fun and exciting ride.

If you read this before Monday or Tuesday next week...hee, hee...just wait!

Here I am alone, happy as my dog Howard, sitting in a lounge chair looking outside the window like an old woman watching the urban action from above. Occasionally, a dog and his human companion will walk by and Howard will turn and spin and bark in madness...death to anyone who intrudes "his" territory.

I look around and my desk is scattered with papers, my bedroom floor disheveled in a mixture of winter and summer clothes. Transition.

In the break of a storm...I just need to hold onto the boat baby. And pass through another stretch of chaos before a couple of weeks might settle into the realm of routine and the peace of morning coffees at 5:00 am.

For now, it picking up pieces and putting them back where I think they belong. But, really who knows for sure?

Putting away my toys and amassing and compiling a to do list from all the scribbled notes on envelopes, yellow legal pads, and organizers meant to make me more organized. I consider all that is terrifying about the future seemingly planned out to perfection. But, that list always gets curtailed by someone or something that pops their messy heads in the way of certainty. And then again, I'm back in this never ending cycle of putting things back together again. This is what the Buddhists call Samsara. This is what I call a pain in the ass.

No sillies not the perfume!

Or what my mother would have called a "shit kicker".

I wish Edward Gorey could draw a picture of the irony and insane quality of my life, of all of our lives. I would have to ask him,

"Can I be the ballerina from the "Gilded Bat" steady on one toe and yet utterly bored?"

And then I would place it over my bed, replacing my original copy of the ever hopeful "Paper Moon" poster--tough little Tatum and the wheeler dealer Daddy, Ryan sitting in the crook of the moon.(a joyful surprise of winning the Oscar. Please follow "Tatum" link to see this awesome and sickly cute clip.

Winner of 1973 Oscars! I was 6 and in love.

Not tonight. I'm up on the mountain. I'm on the boat, baby!

Shen Wei's Limited Book Edition!

Dear Shen!

I have been a very naughty girl. I promised to post this as I admire your work. This insane lifestyle took me away from my bloggies doodies. I look around and everyone makes it seem so easy...just like you.

Xo, Juliana

Everyone! Let it be known that Shen Wei's fabulous work entitled "Almost Naked" is now a premier limited book edition. Entitled the same name for which his series of images of strangers he approaches and asks to photograph them in the nude or just simply intimately. His secret for convincing the most unlikely of subjects is his own.

The edition has a series of unbound 25 images settled into a wooden box...can this act get even classier? Wow, there is even a certificate of authenticity. This is a charmer from days past when things were made with the best ingredients.

Get in there and make it before the 218 edition is a thing of the past.

"Fishbowl" at Sasha Wolf Gallery in the Nymphoto Group Show

Hot information!

I will be showing my photograph, "Fishbowl" at the Sasha Wolf Gallery starting at the opening tonight from 6-9pm.



For all information on dates of show and location go to: www.sashawolfgallery.com

You can also check out: http://nymphoto.blogspot.com/

The mother ship that has taken on all of these fab female photographers in the show.

Nymphoto has published a super fab collection of some of the photographers that have been featured on their site. What makes it even cooler? They have included not only the photographs but also the writing and interviews of the fem-photographers.

Here is the roster:

Michele Abeles, Juliana Beasley, Rona Chang, Nina Büsing Corvallo, Candace Gottschalk, Jessica M. Kaufman, Klea McKenna, Michal Chelbin, Talia Greene, Maria Passarotti, Susana Raab, Emily Shur, Tema Stauffer, Jane Tam, Garie Waltzer & Jennifer Williams.

As soon as we are up and going over at Chez Beasley (btw, Moishe and Howard are back with me for the month of May)...I have some exciting news to share with all. Also, my computer is sick and in for repairs.

Hope to see you tonight... suggestion.. GET THERE EARLY! There will be many great women artists showing there work and lot's of groupies.

For Gome and My Beloved Readers

Hi Gome!

I apologize! I do plan on finishing my story about Butchie entitled "Merry Christmas Rockaway Park".

Butch is a great guy and I miss him. It's been at least 4 years since I saw him last. I finally found his beat up home across the street from the old deteriorating bungalow houses out in the Rock. I had written the directions to the whereabouts to his home on a napkin in a local pub near 116th and not until this winter did I find his place, but no one home.

Gome, I got side tracked for a bit...maybe too Long. The next couple of installments--and I hope to make it in with more frequency-- will several events that are meaningful to me. Also, talk of a book. But, ssh, that is all I can say for now.

In the meantime, watch another mulittasker at his best. This one was sent by the fabulous Dustin Ross over at Contact Press Images. Thanks, Dustin! Check out his fabulous Blog, The Feral Eye



Bruce Lee at His Best!

Once that is done, I promise to you Gome that I will get back to my Christmas story. As most of us, photo folks out there we are manning many boats at once, not to mention trying to relax on the given day and maybe even socialize with our loved ones. No, kvetch, here, but thems the facts.

Night out With Jackie and Charlie

"Mr. Jackie Mason", NYC, NY. April 2008.

Early morning after the club left out, we walked down the avenue and stopped into a diner in the midst of no open restaurants...only bars full of late night drinkers and stink of spilled beer.

A blessing was bound to happen. Yes, it was a real slice of New York life...something that reminds me that some things are still around even if not forever. Things that remind of the old New York before every restaurant put up french doors and cheap posters of Montmartre and Pigalle on their walls. A reminder that a decent, just decent meal should cost more than 12 bucks at most.

There he was...Jackie Mason. As much the same as he is on television. We talked or rather he gorged me with a kind litany of interest and questions about my family and work. Across from him sat the gentile, Charlie. Scribbles and notes covered a paper in front of the writer who jotted down the charm and old Jewish wisdom and comedy of yesteryear's.

"Charlie" late night Diner. NYC, NY. April 2009.

I was happy to meet them after a night of plastic bodies and the "Gossip Girl" masses lost realities shadowing over the lost and fashion bent youth. Plastic vs. chutzpah. Chutzbah wins!