Hello From Paris...Soon to Be in Sete!

"7-11 Twins", Jersey Shore, Summer 2009.

I am sitting in the Contact Press office in Paris. My laptop is not finding a connection in Cathy Remy's apartment near the Eiffel Tower.

So, finally, I can share the good news.

I have been invited by the organization Ce Ta Voir to participate in a month long residence in the south of France in the port town of Sete.

I am the first woman chosen for the residency and to make a book in a months time. BTW, the first was the glamorous and my favorite, Anders Petersen. So, I feel honored to be a part of it.

In the spring of 2010, I will return to Sete where they will show my work at the Festival called Images Singulaires, along with other documentary photographers works. Yes, it is a doc festival, not from Arles and less far from Perpignan.

My work would have never fallen into the hands of one of the organizers, Gilles Favier from Agence Vu, had it not been for the curator, Nathalie Belayche who organizes "Food for Your Eyes" in Paris. Last year, she brought my work to show to Gilles at the Perpignan festival and I became a part of a pool of selected photographers for the residency.

And I got it.

I should have brought this up earlier but there was much going on and I needed to apply my french to english translation skills of the information on their website.

Yes, I am very thrilled and excited. Throughout the month, I will be in contact and showing snapshots from my time there.

Here are some pictures that I took before I left. As Miss New Jersey--I write that with pride-- I take photographs every couple of months to go up on the 50 States site. These should be up shortly.

"Slurpie Teens", Summer 2009, Jersey Shore.

"Josh in Front of Trailer Home", Passaic, New Jersey, Summer 2009.

A Short Story From My Memoir, "Tangled Sheets"

The last couple of weeks has been taking care of my dear Moishe. The good news is that he is back in action. A true miracle for the little fluffy who came into my life in 1998, a couple of months before my father died and a year after my mother had died. He changed my life, little by little. And without him and the security and sense of hope he gave me... I would have never been able to accomplish all the things I have been able to do since he arrived into my life.

"Moishe's Staple Stitches After Gastro Abdominal Surgery", 7/09, Jersey City, N.J.

He was only 3 years old. Now he is 14 or 15. No, one knows his story. I adopted him on a hot August day from the ASPA shelter on the Upper East Side. It was a classic love story. I needed love, he needed love...we found each other; he in a cage and me in my own self-made one.

I wrote this following short story back in 2002. I was taking a memoir writing class at Gotham in the West Village. My life was very different and very difficult. I need to remind myself of this when I hit walls or swing up and down, from one mood to the next.

This was the beginning of a series of pieces I have written with the hopes of publishing one day in the future. Blessed ones only know it's a lot cheaper to have a lap top and a ream of paper than it is to work in fine art or documentary photography.


From: "Tangled Sheets", Juliana Beasley

4/12/02

We have a complete relationship. We can read each other’s minds. We have the sort of relationship where we can take a shit in front of each other.

Most of our time we spend in bed, me at her feet or sometimes by her side, my head on her pillow, her left arm folded over my body, our bodies not curved spoons. Over the last four years, I’ve learned a lot about her in bed.

Before she retires for the evening she pops some pills. Sometimes, the orange bottles sit by her side on a nightstand amongst the half-filled water glasses; in worse times they lay on the floor commingling with partially read books, aluminum take-out trays, and empty seltzer bottles.

Her sleep is erratic. I’ve witnessed her suffer through nights of drug induced sleeplessness. She watches late night shows on t.v. where twenty- somethings openly display their libido and stupidity for the all the lonely insomniacs to see. At four a.m. the commercials for sleeping pills come on; she hates the model/actor who raises his blinds and arms, refreshed and ready for a “brand new day.” She frantically leafs through her phone book and looks for someone to speak with in a later time zone and settles on calling Paolo on his cell in Tuscany. 

I’ve heard her talk at night while she sleeps. She has lengthy conversations in broken Russian and French. She laughs aloud and carries on like a dilettante. There are nights, when she’ll awake and pull a strange stick plugged into the wall from under her bed, bringing it between her legs, vibrating and tensing her body until she gives herself over to temporary limpness. But, she still lies awake. Other nights, she turns on the lights, crying and coddling me in her arms. She tells me, “I love you Moish.” and I know what she means. One morning, she awoke from a couple of hours sleep, embracing her pillow and kissing it like a desperate lover never returned.

Late afternoons, she calls the Guayanese restaurant for take-out. The doorbell rings and she searches her bags for money; this is the most exercise she’s gotten in months. She’s just plain unpresentable. She pays the deliveryman and tips him. “Thank you,” she says, and closes the door behind him. He’s the only person she’s had a conversation with all day. She removes the foggy plastic cover, pulls a fork from the overflowing sink and washes it briefly. It’s a fast and gluttonous feast. She’s ordered the largest portion of chicken stew as usual and if I’m lucky she throws me a piece on the floor. Afterwards, she says, “Come up,” and I spring onto the bed of tangled sheets.

It wasn’t always, this good. There was a time when I never saw one scrap. It was a cold winter; our first year together and we lived in the East Village. And then it happened; the depression set in and we went to the local pizzaria. We were standing at one of those circular tables, the kind without the bar stools and I was sitting patiently at her feet while she ate a pepperoni slice of pizza. She looked down on me and I knew exactly what she was thinking--she needed to share with someone, she needed to be a part. She threw me down a greasy circle and that’s how it all began.

We’re a perfect match. I’m an irrevocable beggar and she’s an incurable slob. Even though she tried for many years to reform, her piggishness is inherently coded, a maternal birthright. She remembers the last years of her mother’s life and how her mother had begun to keep her own home clean. The collectables were stored and obsessively labeled. And even if the white tile ceramic floor in the kitchen was hopelessly dirty and the oriental rugs were imbedded with the permanent stench of dog piss, there was a marked difference. Juliana is holding out hope for a similar rebirth. Or possibly she might consider what every one had suggested, especially her therapist—a cleaning person to come in and take care of the basics. 

The meds are working and she sleeps throughout the night. She stores her nighttime pills in the medicine cabinet and her daytime anti-depressants and mood stabilizers in the kitchen. Her home is tidy and organized. She spends hours editing her photographs and writing. She has found a new faith in life.

Better times for her mean longer walks for me. She wakes early and doesn’t feel so alone. I lick her face. We yawn and stretch. I do a downward and upward dog and she twists her torso side to side. Sometimes, I linger in bed until I realize for sure she isn’t coming back. Trailing behind her, we go to the kitchen and she begins the morning ritual, dumping yesterdays coffee grounds in the garbage, pouring in the half decaf, half not. Mornings like these are the sweetest. I can see it in the way she slips from one task to the next. National Public Radio hums in the background and she’s barely paying attention; she’s at her laptop reading e-mail religiously, looking for messages and trying to connect beyond the drawn curtains her last boyfriend put up for her.

This is my favorite part of the day and perhaps hers too. She grabs her shoes and I know right away. I bark and spring in the air, circling a 360. I run for one of my toys and she says in the low scratchy voice her father used when he told her secrets at the kitchen table. She still hears the good ol’ Southern boy in her head. “Go, on boy, get the toy.” We dance to disco music. She’s still in her dirty bedclothes, the thick Polo sweats the ones she cut at the bottom so the elastic wouldn’t bunch at the bottom-- the last thing she wants is to show off her surburban roots. She showers later in the day or every other day. She never smells or that’s is what her friends have told her when they found out it was days before she hit the shower. We are the same, we are as adverse to water as cats who hate the assault of hard drops on flesh. She prefers to soak in the embryonic bath water alone. When she does shower, it has to be incredibly hot, force deep into her muscles. When she bathes me in the kitchen sink, I shrink to half my size and frankly, I feel irritated and simultaneously, tormented.

Springtime is here. We walk out the door together. We’re going to do the usual walking meditation, a yogic trinity around the preferifery of the park. I go and she picks it up with the plastic bag as she watches the showered and gelled nine to fivers walking swiftly and diagonally through the park. They’re on their way to the smothering Path train. She wonders, “How do they do it? How do they go to the same place five days a week and see the same people, playing the office politics game and laughing aloud but not too loud at witty banal jokes? They look so perfect. It’s freezing out here and they’re wearing stylish thin coats while I’m loaded down with two layers, a pair of long johns and a down coat. They’re stronger than me.”

The march of the office workers ends. It’s just me and her and her cell phone. She sighs with relief, stretching side to side. Actually, she’s very fulfilled to be on her own. We sit on a bench in the sun and gaze upon the yellow daffodils.

My Dear Moishe Without Photographs For Now

Dear Friends,

The last two weeks has been a blur of depression and pain. My dear dog, Moishe ingested a dirty tampon (dogs do this regularly). The cotton part was digested, however the string stayed in his stomach and intestine.

After, realizing that he was in serious pain, circling endlessly as if he was trying to run from himself, I took him to my local vet. A sonogram was done during the day and shortly, after I got a phone call urging me to pick him up and take him to the emergency room at NY Vets for immediate attention.

I will tell more of this when I have more time available. I would like to thank all the people on Facebook who sent me thoughtful messages during this time.

The gastroabdominal surgeon managed to remove the string from his pained tummy. I was told that this is not an uncommon incidence. So, I forwarn all women with dogs, you might save your toilet from getting clogged, but keeping a garbage basket filled with used tampons is far more dangerous. I suggest a container that shuts tightly. This is very serious.

The good news is Moishe at 14 or 15 years old is a fighter and survived a 50/50% chance of living from the abdominal surgery. He is getting stronger with every day, although I must say he is just not himself. It's been really hard on him and on all those dear to him.

I have much to do and a trip to prepare. I hope to post soon!

Yours,
Juliana

Never Too Late for Good Trash!

My dear, on the edge, born to be Heidi Fleiss is in the news again!




Part Jewish class A entrepreneur, part trashy gal who liked to hook up with older men. She made a mess of her professional career as the "Hollywood Madame" (please, check out this film and the amazing "Aileen Wournos: The Selling of a Serial Killer" with the ever ego-centric and friendly fun loving, filmmaker Nick Broomfield).

In 1997, when Heidi was arrested for her prostitution ring. She had the hottest bitches in Hollywood or what some might say are... the big names spent big money to roll in the sheets with there choice of lust.

If you were around in 1997...this is no big news for you.

When word came out about her upscale business, she exposed a book of names of celebrities using her services. This was exciting news; enough so, that the famous John's could be seen running down the street holding onto their belt buckles in a tragic act of saving their faces from the National Enquirer.

The Big News:

She's finally tying the not with the king of whorehouses, Dennis Hof, owner of Nevada's Moonlite Bunny Ranch.

How would I have gotten this info being that my life as you all know is stuck in my own head and rests in this first floor apartment in Jersey City. Well, there are certain people who infiltrate this sanctum I call home that I share with famous dog friends, Moishe and Howard.

"Moishe", 2009. Photographed by Jazmin Francis

"Howard", 2009, photographed by Jazmin Francis.

This informer friend of mine would not want to admit it she has some connection to the Bunny Ranch that believe it or not might actually look good on her resume...might even cause a chuckle.

Sad but true...Heidi was living in a trailer stuffed with parrots (not stuffed as in taxidermied parrots).

Simply, in her own words: Heidi said of the wedding to be,

"I'm proud to say that I'm clean and sober, and I'm finally ready to make a commitment to one man - and that's Dennis. It's going to be my first and only wedding, so it's going to be fabulous."

Frankly, and let's be real about this Dennis is a unattractive pig skinned like man who likes to takes on one bunny at the Ranch as his whore of the moment, until a new piece of ass shows up and he tosses the former one to the side.

And Heidi, well she looked like a cartoon exaggeration of Carly Simon with horse teeth surrounded by tattooed lip liner.

I suppose this is just another Hollywood business arrangement.

Fact, is I was always enthralled with Heidi's business spirit and how she brought down the boys club with her...but, of course, as with all witch hunts...who always takes the real brunt. For her it was was 37 months in prison for tax evasion and without saying pandering. What ever happened to Charlie Sheen and Texas billionaire businessman Robert T. Crow who admitted to using her service. And all the others under speculation.

I also am probably one of 12 or so people on Facebook whom belong to the Heidi Fleiss Fan Club. Why do I love her...

1) She a super hot Jewish girl.
2) She had the balls to take on Hollywood and create a lucrative business.
3) She represents the Elia Kazan character from "Baby Doll" ,a dichotomy and a perverse twist.

The young actress was at once innocent, fragile, naive and yet, a hard hitting powerful woman.

O.k., there are some holes in these facts...I'm not foolish to believe that she has suffered terribly and is not the epitome of emotional stability. And perhaps, I am guilty, just as so many men with the boring fantasy of finding the good/bad girl in the bale of hay. But, something about this Lolita icon still fascinates me. An underhanded "manipulapath" with the face of an angel.

Heidi is ready to open a new brothel outside the Las Vegas limits...and it's full of studs for female customers...The Stud Ranch. Check out her website: Heidi Fleiss.

A Fabulous Night at Starlette and the Rainbow Flag

Friends or Lovers? at Starlette!, PRIDE 2009.

"Friends", PRIDE 2009.

Red Ruby Photography my new Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Bisexual event photo business proved to be another great success the night of PRIDE.

Women were everywhere and finally, we made the choice of what images to choose to put up on the blog.

I am also proud to announce, Lush Life Photography for everyone else. We do weddings, private parties and all that fun stuff for both businesses. The website will be up and going to full force speed ahead soon.

Check out both blogs.

We just want to include everyone!

Juliana Photographs at Starlette on PRIDE Night at Angels and Kings

WE SUPPORT OUR LESBIAN SISTERS DURING PRIDE!

The Lovely Ladies of "Red Ruby Photography"

WE SUPPORT OUR LESBIAN SISTERS DURING PRIDE!

Come celebrate pride with us at Angels & Kings' Starlette Sunday on June 28th! Let our all ladies Red Ruby crew provide you with an amazing image to commemorate PRIDE Day, NYC 2009.

We are simply taking RED COUCH PORTRAITS WITH RAINBOW FLAG TO BOOT!

Wanda Owner of Starlette at Angels and Kings and the Super Famous, Marga Gomez., 6/09.

Just take a seat on the a stunning red velvet couch, covered in tasteful plastic. A beautiful rainbow flag behind you! Now all you need to do is sit with your sexy MAMMASITA OR BIG DADDY or better yet, pick up the girl or boy of your dreams and make a fun, very fun memory!!!

This an opportunity for all gender orientations to support the purpose and meaning behind PRIDE. So, welcome! Come away with a keepsake. I've been known to pull out a Sharpie and sign the 4X5" print in front of your face...heee, heee.

Doors open at 7pm till ? !!!

Red Ruby Photography Serves the Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Community in the Tri-State Area. We are available for private parties, club soirees, weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, etc.

"Eyes of Salamanca" at Daniel Cooney Fine Art Gallery

"Two Cowboys #2", Yucatan, Mexico, 2006.

Please join me for the opening of...

I will be showing images from "Eyes of Salamanca", Mennonites from the Southern Yucatan. You can check out some of the images and read some info about this project on
American Suburb X, a super fab blog.

S U M M E R S A L O N
Featuring the works of Juliana Beasley, Felix Cid, Bradley Peters and Rebecca Schrock

511 West 25th Street, #506
New York, NY 10001
212 255 8158

See ya'' there!
Opening Reception: Thursday, June 25th from 6-8pm
Exhibition Runs: June 25-July 31, 2009 (Hours 11-6, Tuesday-Friday)
www.danielcooneyfineart.com

When it Wasn't Raining A Month Ago

"Ma #1", Rockaway Park, NYC. 5/09.

I went out to my favorite place. The place that has become my second home and also a second, if not a first family to me. I did the usual. I stopped into the Kerry Hill Pub and sipped on a double Jameson straight. This is the ritual, I have followed on and off for the last six years, on and off, as a prelude to my shoots out in the Rockaways. I feel acclimated to the environment. Not necessarily high but part and parcel of the once "Irishtown" that Rockaway Park was and is still is.

A strange afternoon, I don't recognize anyone in the pub. On the way, to the pub, walking down and past the retail stores, some closed for business, some hanging on, the blown up dinosaurs and dolphins are hanging from shops, inviting tourists to spend their money. Streams of adolescents with beach towels wrapped around their bellies, a folded beach chair in hand, a arm around the shoulder march up 116 towards the beach. This is their purpose. Summer season alas is almost here.

Then the stream stops for a half hour. I can see it from the Last Stop Diner and then again the beach goers persist from the subway station up the avenue.

I run into several people, I know in the neighborhood. There is Evelyn dressed head to toe in baby blue and white, always so careful in what she wears. She lives at Belle Harbor Residence and in the afternoons takes up residence at the Cash and Carry to hustle change and dollar bills from passers by.

I like her and vice verse...she has chutzpah, a mission towards fashion panache, and a fabulous Jewish NYC accent.

Like so many of the Rockaway Park residents, their dialects and voices...the folklore of years past is dying out. It frightens me and I suppose now, that I am older, these things really matter to me. I can't accept this change of all the beautiful uniqueness and color of the Rockaways. I want to suck it in and embrace it deep in my lungs, but death is death and you are left with ephemeral glances, voices, smells, and tastes of the past. Maybe, you catch a snap shot memory. I try to string them together and make a film.

The pieces are so keen in your mind and in your being and before you know it, the your mind catches onto the next coincidence in and the moments all is gone.

"Last night, I cried in bed. My father was standing at the kitchen screen door, opened slightly. He wore a beaten up Fruit of the Loom v-neck t-shirt. Streams of smoke trailing between the sliver, from his mouth through the crack in the door held steadily ajar with the side of his foot. I could smell the Pall Malls burning the thin paper down. With every drag, he seem like he was inhaling a deep thought.

He dragged on the on the cigarette mid-way down. Rubbing the ashes upon the stoop, holding the half cigarette in his hand. He held onto the rest, saving it for a later smoke. Other times, in the dark of night, he would walk across the Philadelphia flagstones in the backyard, rub the last bits of tobacco in two hands and throw it into a compost heap of rotting vegetables and fruits that decayed under our cherry tree. He was considerate and cheap."

When I watched him from the kitchen table through the screen door, his walking figure slowly disappearing into obscurity.

"Are you coming back?"

"Don't worry." he said, "I'll be right back".

I have come out on a sunny day. Just a day out there and just not enough for me. I'm sad that I will have to return to my home in Jersey City. There are times that I miss this place and the people. The photos will always be my own keep sake, no matter whom sees it.

Was it the last sunny super extraordinary day in Spring before the rains began?

I had photographed at this boarding house before--a hairy chested man last summer sitting with his dog on a hot day. His eyes glowed through his grit and sweaty filth.

I climbed the steps.

"Hey, how you boys doing today. Gorgeous weather, right?"

A group of 3 men sit under a covered front porch.

Grubble, grubble and a couple of crude pot shots at the photographer with a funny old camera.

Jazmin, my intern and I spend a couple of hours there. And somewhere into the shoot, I realize that several years ago, I had tried to photograph in the same decrepit house.

At the time, I walked in the foyer and a man, noticing my camera and pointing his finger down the hallway towards a door,

"You betta' ask the super. I don't know if you can take the pictures in here."

He was in his room. I knocked on the door and asked politely,

"Can I photograph here in the hallway?"

Big..."No!"

What had changed in his mood from several years ago to a month ago...I don't know for sure. But, maybe it was the summery day or the fact that he wasn't in a lonely drunken stupor hiding alone behind the door to his room with the t.v. blaring. Or maybe because it was because me and my Jazmin had been accepted into the clan on the front porch before entering the parched white painted building.

This time, he was excited to pull out a shredded old picture of John Lennon. A photographer was in the house.

"Do you think you can make this look good. Someone suggested that I rephotograph it."

The poor poster looked like it had been through a paper shredder and taped back together.

I realized the scary man was just an older chubby Hippie dude with greasy hair with a drinking problem. He offered me and my intern a coca cola three or four times, until, neither a drinker accepted his over zealous offer.

"Abe and Lennon", Rockaway Park, NYC, 5/09.

We were invited into the room of an older very skin lucid man. I forget his name. Could it have been Charles? I know so, many out there. The room was large enough to fit a twin bed, a fridge, a hot plate on a dresser, a small sink in the corner of the room. Sitting on top of his fridge, leaning up against something--I don't know what--his last will and testament is written with a red Sharpie and housed in a manila envelope.

The bathrooms are always at the end of the hall. They pay around $500. at most to live here. Down the street is a beautiful beach. Like all of this out here...none of this makes sense. I didn't come out here to make sense, but ultimately, I had to understand more.

"Pencil Portrait", Rockaway Park", NYC, 5/09.

"Hot Plate #1", Rockaway Park, NYC, 5/09.

We fell in love with "Ma". Her childish demeanor is bundled up in a dirty pilling red dress gown. Her sweet grandma smile and one tooth gives even this broken building a feeling of a home. Everyone living here calls her "Ma". She smiled and smoked her cigarettes and didn't speak one word or if she did it was not on my sonar level. Her tight-lipped demeanor makes me wonder how she managed to get cigarette smoke down her wind pipe.

Now, I must wait for the warm weather.

This might be my last summer out in the Rock....the thought makes me miserable. I am so emotionally connected that I find it hard to finish this project. I will though. As hard as it was to motivate me some days to go out there, find my creative center, and go into the chaos without being the chaos, I found a home.

Sandra We Love You!

Last night, I was one of the fortunate few females who got to see Sandra Bernhard perform at the Town Hall in N.Y.C.



Need I say the audience was packed with 40ty to 50ty something gay men in dashing garbs?

A one night only affair folks and girl, she can rock and groove. My favorite piece when when she made fun of the cup cake craze in NYC and I assume in other USA city's. Unable, to buy over fifty cup cakes from a disgruntled Magnolia Bakery chef with a tear drop tattoo in her eye crease wearing a dirty bandana on her head, she gave her the good ol' fuck you. She marched on over to D'Agostino's and bought a Duncan Hines cake mix, whipped it together with organic eggs and pleased a roomful of tweens. Yep, that's how it used to be before you bought a mini cupcake for 4-5 dollars and it was still fluffy.

Geez, you should have been there. We love you, Sandra.

By they way, to my friends Gome and others...I'm working my ass over here just like Sandra. I would love to spend a peaceful week sitting at the computer and writing my stories, but I can't do it! And if that upsets you, imagine how much it upsets me. I get a lot of pleasure from this.

I'm not super woman, after all. My dishes didn't get washed until the end of the week and I betta' get it together because come August, I have a roommate coming, who G-O-D willing will pay more than half the rent. Sure, I don't have kids, like this super duper photographer or the other...but, you got to draw the line on sanity somewhere, right?

Even with six interns and dear friends at my side...it ain't easy. Gome, I bought into your guilt. And from the get go, I have never forgot about you once about finishing my Rockaway Park Christmas story.

I haven't forgotten any of you...You all make me feel so good! So, right!

I Hate Photography!

"Ballad of Solitude on Via Cavour #1", Rome, Italy, 2009. (Self-portrait in stairwell in hotel.)

Being in Rome is fabulous. Staying for 3 days is a mean tease.

The quote of the Photo Festival of Rome at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni is when Nan Goldin spoke and said,

"I hate photography." Very dead pan as if she had lost any personal affect and might possibly had been escorted to her chair in a strait jacket.

The same photography that put her on the map. The photo lovers who loved her for her disaster life and for documenting it, sat in the audience obedient and ready for the brazen stings of deep cut lashes upon their love for her. More for her known work as more a photo artist than as a multi-media artist.

Basically, she took a dump on her adoring public. Although, I did not make it to the end of her talk, I can imagine everyone applauded. We will always love the mother of "fuck you" photography? She might have well been a Nancy Spungen but without the super high IQ of 150-160.

I felt like Nan might piss on my head next...so, I left the auditorium and walked back to Via Cavour, got in my jammies and called it a night.

I spent most of my time in the hotel...and so, the following is my "Ballad of Solitude".

"Ballad of Solitude on Via Cavour #2", Rome, Italy, 2009. (Yummy colored faux velvet chairs at hotel on Via Cavour)

I would be wrong to say if I didn't have the same sentiments of despising photography like Nan. Some days and some days even more.

Why have you held me in your grasp photography? Am I your slave girl? Do you leave me forever hungry for more celluloid and pixels? What kind of delusions have you told me over the last twenty years? Is there any truth to the people I photograph if the shutter speed is some fast? Or is it what I want it to be a truth between the subject and myself?

Your, Juliana...well, she did one thing that was positive. She made it through her lecture, with a construction workers tag on pinned to her breast (they did not give me a formal one with my name as there was not one made) got up with a translator and instead, just did her talk in Italian to an audience of maybe 12 members of the audience. Great publicity, right? And yes, I felt so very important.

If anything, I was reacquainted with my love for Italy, reminded of the asinine bureaucracy, and my fantasy of living in Rome was reawakened.

No, I never made it or had the time to go to the Spanish steps. Returning to Jersey City was a bummer, a reminder of the lists of work to be done. And yet, I am very thankful for the dear friends around me--they really do stand behind me.

Non Vedo L'Ora=I Can't Wait!

"I'm flying on a jet plane.
Don't know when I'll be back again!"





I'm going to Bella Roma on Thursday evening. Up, up and away!

Here's why:

Juliana Beasley Lectures at Festival Internazionale di Roma

Host:	Zonettive
Type:	Music/Arts - Opening
Network:	Global

Date:	Sunday, May 31, 2009
Time:	5:00pm - 6:00pm
Location:	Palazzo delle Esposizioni
Street:	Via Nazionale, 194

Phone:	390670473528
Email:	info.za@palaexpo.it

Description

Juliana Beasley will lecture on the making and experiences gained during the six years of photographing in Rockaway Park in Queens, NYC.

Ms. Beasley will tell various anecdotes about her subjects and how she built intimate relationship with them book over the years for the book in progress entitled "Last Stop: Rockaway Park".


I am thrilled. Can't wait to be back in Rome. My first love. I haven't been to Italy since 1998 when I was en route to Albania. I haven't been to Rome since I thought at 24, I would live there and within a week, I would own a Vespa, have a great Italian boyfriend with coffee colored hair, a job in photo and a room in an apartment.

Well, Rome bit me in the ass! And I left went to Florence, then froze in a compartment of a train all the way to Vienna, lived with a sadomasochistic self-cutting artist named Richard whom I had met in Frankfurt. It was so cold that winter, his heat was so not working and I slept next to an open gas oven and obsessed about sticking my head in all the way to put me out of my misery. And then his Turkish fiancee showed up and that really changed the tone of things despite, the friend Marc who was addicted to opium and wanted to get us all high.

I finally left, met up with an NYU buddy, we had sex after drinking to much alcohol after dancing to music on a transiter radio until, we spent the rest of the night bowing over a shared Austrian toilet. The next day we got up early, got on a train down to Belgrade, photographed Serbian refugees from the north. I ate the worst pizza of my life, froze again and then in two days we left on a train back to Vienna. Everyone loved her in Belgrade. It seemed no one cared a rat's ass about me.


But, now in 2009, I have a purpose. I see myself doing a jig, playing the real hee-haw American, charming them beyond the Lawrence Welk shows of my childhood. And then, I will fall into a beautiful opera in Italian about Rockaway Park and all will applaud as if I was far better than Ms. Boil. I will be the personification of the native New Yorker. Just like the song, I'll brake out into the hustle. Every so, often I will say something in English with a strong Italian accent.


On my off hours between interviews and ice cold cappuccinos, I'll sit on the Spanish Steps, write in my journal and wonder why so many men lean on their motorcylcles and scratch their balls through their jeans.

Thank You Mr. Siskind! You Make Me Feel Like a Native New Yorker!

Friday I received the great news!

"Paddy and Seamus", Rockaway Park, NYC, 2003.

"Glamorous Isabelle", Rockaway Park, NYC, 2006.

I am a one of the six recipients for the Aaron Siskind Individual Fellowships of 2009.

The other photographer celebs are:

Eric Gottesman, Cambridge, MA
Deana Lawson, Brooklyn, NY
Andrew Miksys, Seattle, WA
Oliver Nowak, Elmhurst, NY
Lori Waselchuk, Baton Rouge, LA

Fab! 3 women in there! Thumbs up...up women photo folk like that!

Hurrah, Rockaway Park!

The sweet kindness of my friends and sister are credited for their support and seeing me through the good and bad. Of course, I would not have received this grant without the openness and grace of the people who I met over the years in the Rockaways.

Thank you Mr. Siskind for leaving behind your legacy of generosity, your love of NYC and you inspirational works.

This money will really help me during this difficult time. I am ready to finish this story but not without a sadness in my heart that still rests upon the NYC beach facing the Atlantic Ocean. The pubs like the now defunct Palm Gardens and the Kerry Hill are as indelible as all the people I met there over the years and those whom died there over the last six, seven years.

Now for the a bottle of orange soda!

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!

Christmas at the O'Leary's and a Visit to the Joe Mure's Winter Wonderland- Organizations That Help the Folks in the Rockaways!

"Joe Mure, Jr." in front of his Christmas Miracle of Lights on his front lawn in Neponset

in the Rockaways, Christmas, 2008.

I took the night off for some fun and laughs.

I went to the digital scanner at Print Space and scanned 4 hours worth of images from my a couple of summer days spent with stripper acquaintances in a rented trash house of kids in Belmar, New Jersey.

This past Christmas I met newfound friends, the O'Leary Family and Joe Mure, Jr. live in Neposet in the Rockaways. I spent a wonderful zitti filling Christmas Eve in a spectacular home of the O'Leary's and a tourist visit to the well-known Christmas Toyland of lights on the front lawn of Joe Mure's home.

Every year, Joe Mure set's up the Little North Pole. He told me today, "It's a holiday event that has two purposes. One, to put a smile on ever child's face and leave them a memory that we hope to last a lifetime and two, to help a special group of children who need our help those that suffer from juvenile diabetes . Juvenile diabetes is a disease that affects millions of children. Our goal is to find a cure and stop the complications associated with this disease.

The O'Leary Family equally works hard for the underprivledged for the non for profit organization "Rockaway Jetty" in the Rockaways.

The description on their Facebook reads:

SINCE ITS INCEPTION, THE ROCKAWAY JETTY'S MISSION HAS BEEN TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LIVES OF CHILDREN IN THE ROCKAWAY COMMUNITY.

WE DO SO BY PROVIDING: FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FOR MEDICAL OR EDUCATIONAL NEEDS. TUTORING, SCHOOL SUPPLIES, BOOKS, CLOTHING, VACATIONS/CAMPS/DAY TRIPS, AND TOYS.

If you are interested in joining their fight, please, go to the Facebook page and learn more.

"Friends of the O'Leary Family" (names to come) in Neponset

in the Rockaways, Christmas, 2008.

I wanted to get these up so, soon I will come back with more and something to write about this.

Peace on Earth at any time of the year!

Hard Heels Meet Hard Times

"It's really hard for me right now."

"Yes, it's hard for everyone right now," she said. I nodded slowly like a sprouting kvetch.

"Dancer in Manager's Office at Runway 69", NYC, 1993. Juliana Beasley.
Notice money safe in background.

Last night, Amy and I met a the Singe Vert , one of my favorite French restaurants. I rarely eat there, with my tight wallet, I just can't spring for pommes frites like I once could, but I always manage to lubricate or drown--depending on the mood--my taste buds with a dry white wine or two. That's less costly than a meal in than any place in NYC with nice faux French caffe posters and no more than 5-6 points on the Weight Watcher's rector scale.

I can always depend on banter and a cackle with the stunning and down to earth, Maia, a bartender with lovely Caribbean curls surrounding her delicate face. For that moment, that first sip, I am in heaven, and the lure of a drink seems healthier than daydreaming about future negative predictions of me rolled in a sleeping bag on the streets of NYC next winter. I hope, at least, I will take the Greyhound out to the Cali coast before I tank, jump on a plane to Honolulu and go couch surf at my friend, Debbie's apartment.

I am queasy. I've been stuffing my face with bread all day...my first excuse to go to the restaurant and gobble down two baskets of French bread. I arrive at Singe Vert, sit on the bar stool near the open door, and take off my jacket.

"I can't drink," I say as if I am walking around with a gaping bleeding wound.

Maia offers a wonderful potion of seltzer, fresh ground ginger and the bitter stuff in the small bottle. With ice. I sip away and gorge myself away to the other place--Land of Carb Denial. Anything to fill that wound. By the time, Amy (yes, the Miss Amy Stein) has arrived, I have started to rock back and forth on my stool to build up some heat in my body. I'm chilled. It's the first signs of spring and people are sitting outside and the door is wide open. I think it must be 57 degrees out there.

"Jessica and Her Boyfriend", Jersey Shore, 1995?, Juliana Beasley

"We gotta' get out of here. I'm freezing."

She suggests the perfect anecdote, sake in a Japanese restaurant nearby and happiness, it's empty. Empty enough for my nauseous stomach. And better yet, happy hour--sake at half price.

After a couple of petite ceramic bottles of sake and the gush of my latest drama, my stomach feels a lot more basic than caustic. I tell Amy, that just last night, I went to the bathroom half asleep, then fell asleep on the toilet and awoke bruised on the tile floor. I'm really proud of this...that I fell asleep on the toilet; despite the probable indecencies, most nights, I can't find a reason to sleep.

John, her super duper husband (no, it's just not fair and accept it) arrives, we have gone through so many little bottles that we forget how many. One thing is certain, we feel a little giddy--that's normal in each others company--but, not in the least bit stoned. Yep, for $2.50, no matter how many thimbles, we drink, we still sit straight up in cushioned hideaway lounge in the back corner. I, however, now have a headache, rumble through my bag of notebooks, prints and pharmaceuticals and grab for those fast acting liquid Motrin.

John is hungry. Outside, we say good-bye.

"I miss you guys", I say. They walk away and I walk towards the Path.

As I walk away, I remember, I didn't bother to tell her, I chipped an important and private tooth that day while eating a bagel with tofu vegetable spread. I had already sent out the alarms to Tia. She suggests the cheapest place in town to go to have it repaired. NO INSURANCE.

I'm home. I turn on my non digital t.v. with the bent rabbit ears, go into the bathroom and fill it with a think layer of hot water to soak the feet. I have learned how to give myself a pedicure at home. One evening, the kundalini teacher named Gurmukh Khalsa at Golden Bridge Yoga inspired the class to massage and give love to your feet at the end of the day. She and her husband do it together, so, I begin to think I should start doing it to myself. I doubt it's the same as incense burning and lovingly looking into a partners eyes and chanting "Sat Nam", but this is all I might get for a while.
Days past of trolloping off to the East Village nail salon for a mani/pedi. Dancer days done, of scooping hands into a sock drawer reaching for crumpled twenties and dollar bills. Dancer days done, of never having to visit the ATM. Done.

"Dancer Sitting on Customer's Lap", Runway 69, NYC, 1993, Juliana Beasley.

I sit up on the coach. A towel lays beneath my tender freshly soaked feet. I grab for that callous razor, I bought the other day at Duane Reade. I teased and flirted with the cute boy with acne who led me to the foot section.

Yes, I had arrived. I am in the old foot person's section. My pedestrial future ahead of me. Callouses, corns, genetic features of bunions from mother, falling arches, in grown nails. The day will come when I will be a Sleestack.

"If I can't put this razor together, I'm going to come back and you can teach me," I said.

He smiled, said he would be there to help and actually, I thought he looked as if I had brightened his boring evening of stocking adult diapers and tampons, side by side.

April 3rd, 2009. The latest news. Senseless maniacal murders in Binghamton. How many of these murders happen a year in this country, I wonder.

I've done it again. I've applied too much pressure on the handle and the razor shaves off too much. In any case, I'm enjoying this, watching the slivers of flesh fall onto the towel in little perfect Parmesan shavings.

I wake up this morning, a dream fresh in my mind...I will go to esthetician school. I need a job. And in hard times, everyone needs their feet to be groped and coddled.

**I took the above B&W photographs in a NYC club called "Runway 69" back in 1993. I knew one of the dancers from the Paradise Club on 33rd St., also in NYC. I was still shooting in black and white before I moved over to color. I actually photographed very little over the beginning years of making "Lapdancer". I feel inspired to scan some of these negatives from the past.

I want to mention that I put these 5X7's up and 11X14's up for sale at Melanie Flood Projects for meager prices. No one bought anything.

Alas, the other night at the wonderful opening of Shen Wei's opening of the "Almost Naked" show (more to come on that....), dear Rubin Natal-San Miguel of the fab Artmostfierce bought two of the 5X7's that I toted along with me that evening to Randall Scott's Gallery, newly opened in Dumbo. And he has preordered another.

"Three Dancers in Dressing Room at Runway 69", NYC, 1993, Juliana Beasley.