End of Season #2

 "Tristan #1", Rockaways, Queens, NYC, Summer 2012. Juliana Beasley

"Little Girl with Doll in Stroller", Rockaways, Queens, NYC. Summer, 2011. Juliana Beasley

End of the Season

"Skateboarders Under Elevated Subway Track", Rockaways, Queens, NYC, 8/11. Juliana Beasley

I photographed these two young skateboarders under the elevated tracks in the Rockaways one late afternoon. They weren't from the neighborhood and lived--I believe-- out in the Far Rockaways.

I owe them a photo. So, Chris and friend... just to let you know, I will be back out there in about a week and I will leave a photograph with your friend, Jose. Thanks for taking the time to pose for me. And I hope you did get flooded out and you are safe.

Juliana

Vite! Toute suite! A Quick Taste of Summer.

"Young Hotel Maids", Quebec, Canada. Summer 2011. Juliana Beasley.

Here are a couple of photos I took recently this summer. No, words... just photos. Each one deserves an explanation. For now, they stand alone without words and hopefully tell a story.

A couple of words.

I went to Quebec for a one week holiday last week.

I bought a new digital camera and am enjoying it.

The summer went too fast.

"Eviction Truck", Rockaways, NYC, Summer 2011. Juliana Beasley

"Young Woman in Front of Walmart", Quebec, Canada, Summer 2011. Juliana Beasley.

Year of the Purge

"Boy #1 at Storage with Back of Car Seat", Jersey City, NJ, 7/2011. Juliana Beasley. He was moving out with his older brother. Him and his brother had stored the back car seat in a storage room.

I would love to spend several hours working on an intricate blog post about how horrible my move out of storage was yesterday. Blow by Blow how the day unfolded. Unfortunately, as some bloggers know, time does not permit me. I will say one thing on this passage to freedom: getting lost on the Jersey Turnpike during rush hour will make even the most peaceful of devotees boil over into a fit of road rage.

This is the year of the purge. Now, instead of two storage spaces, I am a proud owner of one very organized storage space far out in Hudson County. Chances are I won't visit my storage space for another 10 years. However, all the stuff... photographs, books, clothes, kitchen ware and the boxes assigned as miscellaneous are no longer in some vague and esoteric holding space. All is now packed sky high in my parlor level apartment. As a friend said to me upon seeing the piles of banker boxes and Hefty Heavy Duty bags, "thank God you have a large apartment.

"Storage Spaces #1", Hudson County, NJ, 7/2011. Juliana Beasley

  

"Storage Belongings #1",,Jersey City, NJ, 7/2011. Juliana Beasley.  Bag of recyclable bottles, Rocking Horse, and filled garbage bag were some of the few random items stored for one owner. These were the belongings being removed from one storage space yesterday.

"Storage Space Elevators", Jersey City, NJ, 7/2011. Juliana Beasley

Now, comes the worst part or the selling, haggling and then finally disposing the remnants of whatever doesn't exchange hands from me as seller to buyer. The point is to get rid of it as quickly as possible. The point is to ignore subconscious infantile feelings of loss, pain and suffering that can come with the emotional attachment of material items or the disdain of an object that once held so much love and promise. Soldier onward! Ruthless I must be!

"Phil in U-Haul", Hudson County, NJ, 7/2011. Juliana Beasley

I am downsizing and downgrading. "More is less"is a cliche fits but fits here. All those Buddhist and self-help books on tackling procrastination, ADD, and organizational tactics for the right brained challenges that plague me have planted a seed of freedom and sunshine that I hope will greet me on the other side of the chaos.

Pictures of chaos to come soon. I was waiting for the morning light to take the photos.

"My Mom's Film Projector", Hudson County, NJ, 7/2011. Juliana Beasley. Keep! This stayed in storage.

"My Gum Ball Machine", Hudson County, NJ, 7/2011. Juliana Beasley. Keep! This stayed in storage.

Thanks to dear friends who lift heavy boxes, drive U-hauls, and are left brained and no how to pack a storage space for best access. Without you guys, I would be sitting in a pile of shit. Literally!

Sisters

"Lisa", Rockaways, NYC. Spring, 2011. Juliana Beasley.

I met Lisa and Sandra four or five years ago out in the Rockaways. They are sisters.

I took these photos one day at the church where their foster father Pastor Gary presides in the Rockaways. I wish I had more time to spend with them, but they were rushing off with their family to lunch after services. 

"Sandra",  Rockaways, NYC. Spring, 2011. Juliana Beasley.

Joanna' Summer Luau Party!

"Baby John Running", Rockaway Park, NYC, June 2011. Juliana Beasley

I had a 10 hour photo blast shooting two Saturday's ago at Joanna's 8th birthday party at her Uncle Mike's house in the Rockaways.  My work in progress, a very new work in progress that began in the last week of May revolves around the Water sisters, their children and their children's children and their friends. The work will be a part of a group show entitled "Family Values" in a couple of weeks at Michael Mazzeo Gallery in Chelsea which opens on July 7th.

"Jean", Rockaways, NYC, June 2011. Juliana Beasley

I am excited to show off this work so early in the process.

"Joanne and her Grandson", Rockaways, NYC, June 2011. Juliana Beasley

Meanwhile, my book dummy of "Last Stop: Rockaway Park" is close to being bound together... By whom? By me!!!

Aloha!

Baby Toe Tag

"Baby Toe Tag", Rockaway Park, NYC, 05/11, Juliana Beasley.

I went out to the Rockaways a couple of Sundays ago with no particular agenda, just a camera, flash and film in a knapsack. I ended up sitting on a stool in a local pub that I often frequent when the owner, Carmel told me that Margie's (one of the bartenders who works there) granddaughter was being baptized that afternoon. I jumped on a local bus and scurried down several streets and into a church full of babies and their respective families sitting in pews. I had just missed the baptism. Just like I had missed my nephew's one hot summer day over a decade ago.

"Baby Ava in Her Baptism Gown", Rockaway Park, NYC, 05/11. Juliana Beasley

Little Ava had just been blessed. Margie invited me to a party after the baptism. I got in a big SUV with the family and was shuttled to an anonymous reception hall.

Slowly, the room began to fill. Ava was taking a break, sleeping in her stroller before all the guests arrived. I looked down at her little foot and noticed we had something in common. We like to hang one foot out from under the blanket when we sleep. I hear it's called the Irish foot.

"Photo Album and Baby", Rockaway Park, NYC, 05/11. Juliana Beasley.

More photos coming soon. Just gotta' warm up that scanner.

Pictures Without Stories?

"Father and Son at Bar Mitzvah", Paris, France, 2008. Juliana Beasley

Here are a couple of mixed random shots that I took in 2008 with my beloved Contax T2.  Each photo has a story. If I don't know the story, I can make it up. I have no other choice. Give me a picture, any picture and I will tell you there is a story to be told.


May 18th, 2011

Today, when I left my apartment, I shoved the my Contax T-2 into my knapsack and headed towards the Path train, making my way from Jersey City to the WTC stop in Manhattan. I'm not the sort of photographer that carries a camera with me at all times. I have special days when I plan to photograph something somewhere and then I have the other days. Sometimes on those other days, perfectly absurd and ironic and beautiful moments have appeared and happened before my eyes. There I am, empty handed and thrust into a storm of regrets, a world of ghostly photographs that never would be and never were.

"Flowers and Purse", Paris, France, 2008. Juliana Beasley

The excuses:

My make-up case and gel already weighed me down.

Did I have to choose between my personal journal, my agenda, my "project idea" notebook, my i-pod?

Oh, yes, my umbrella. It might rain later.

A hoodie. It might get chilly later if I stay out past sunset.

And I couldn't leave out my bottle of Diet Coke or Poland Springs or that extra large bottle of Ibuprofen. God only knows, I could get a headache at any given moment.

The camera was too bulky. I couldn't do it. I could easily convince myself that the chances of the lost photo op were much too slim. So, why bother? I could always take the camera with me tomorrow when I wasn't rushing out the door late on my way to an important appointment.

Out in the streets of Manhattan, I had already forgotten the small titanium bodied beauty at the bottom of my bag strapped over my shoulders. I went uptown to the upper east side to the podiatrist's office and then downtown to Chelsea to do some errands: the copy shop for laser prints, Staples to buy a stapler, Adorama to order some 4X6" prints for some of my subjects. I turned up the volume on my i-Pod and the Pet Shop Boys carried me effortlessly from one task to the next.

"New Jersey Businessman in Subway Station", NYC, NY, 2008. Juliana Beasley

By the time, I returned to my neighborhood in Jersey City and exited the Path Station, the sky was a surly gray. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and pulled out my umbrella, prepared for what looked like a downpour.

I walked up Mercer towards Jersey and half way down the block, I noticed an older man with dyed black hair and very high cheek bones eyeballing me. He was sitting in car in the driver's seat like a taxi driver waiting for a customer to come out of a building. His slender figure was accentuated under a loose blue satin jacket that matched the color of the interior of the car. I stared back, smiled and kept walking until several stoops later I set down my knapsack on one of the steps. I unzipped my bag and for a moment, I hoped my camera was in my bag. I worried that perhaps, I had only dreamt packing it away with me that morning before leaving the apartment.

I reached inside and felt the compact case and pulled it out. I got it!

"Abandoned Bungalow in the Rockaways", Queens, NYC, 2008. Juliana Beasley

Spazio Labo Brings Photography Workshops to New York!!

 Photos from last year's workshop 2010 by Erica McDonald.

I recently found out about "Photography Workshops in New York City" from fellow friend and photo comrade Erica McDonald when she asked me to come and present my work during a workshop she is co-teaching with Andrew Sullivan. Others presenters include Amy Stein, Spencer Platt, and Amy Touchette. How's that for variety?


This is the second year that under the umbrella of Erica's very multi-faceted photo organization, DEVELOP  teams up with the Italian photography association, Spazio Labo to teach a documentary workshop from May 22nd to May 28th. Spazio Labo is also offering two other photography workshops from May 4th to June 5th.  Just a note here: The DEVELOP link here is the You Tube Page. Erica has informed me that the DEVELOP website will be up soon... so, hold onto your hats kids! But, what a teaser!


Spazio Labo’ – Center of photography- is a cultural non profit Association founded in Bologna in January 2010 with the goal of spreading the culture of photography in all its many meanings and uses and to be a planning and production photographic centre, a real source of creation and exchange of proposals, an independent reality open to sharing the passion for photography.


The idea of the "Photography Workshop in New York" originated from the personal experiences of Laura de Marco and Roberto Alfano, founders of Spazio Labo’ – Center of Photography in Bologna, Italy. After both personally learning the in and outs of the NYC photo scene, they decided to put together a workshop program that would put students immediately in touch and in tune with the same experiences they developed over time. Their idea is to impart valuable information on students such as:  contact networks, training methods, creative atmospheres, possibilities for professional experience; all elements of the vast cultural offer characteristic of the city that can be considered as the current capital of the art of photography.


Here is a list of the three workshops being offered:

“In Plain Sight” with Donna Ferrato, May 14-20 

You can check out and read about Donna F. dazzling and inspiring her students on their blog. Fantastic Donna!

“The Personal Documentary” with Erica McDonald and Andrew Sullivan, May 22-28 

“New York Reports” with Davide Monteleone and Maurizio Garofalo, May 30 – June 5 

Big Heart

As I begin to write this piece, I lack a desire to labor over words and sentences that might not only look precise and meaningful, but that tell the entire story behind the photograph. My mind can not hold steady or remain focused long enough to create the kind of colorful descriptions and anecdotes, I often try to tell when I present a photograph. I am unsettled. My dear Moishe, my lovely dog is very sick.

"Frontal X-Ray of Moishe's Heart", Jersey City, NJ. April, 2011. Juliana Beasley

For those of you who have read my blog or have in the past, you are familiar with my dear companion, Moishe, a little white Bichon Frise/ Terrier mix that I adopted from the NYC ASPCA back in 1998. He was 3 years old and needed a home and I was 30, had just lost my mother without warning. I needed unconditional love and some laughter and I needed to take care of myself by taking care of another.

Moishe was diagnosed years ago with heart disease, as well as lung disease. Now, his condition has progressed. Days are spent monitoring his behavior, his demeanor, his eating, his sleeping, and now the short walks that end midway down the block. The last days, he has not had the enthusiasm he normally has when I pull out his harness and shake the dogs tags to his typical delight, a signal which he knows means that he is going outside. I am only giving you a rough sketch. The sort of sketch a clinician might write in a patient's records and yet, I see it also includes the pain that is watching a loved one die when you foolishly believed they were going to live forever.

Moishe's has a big heart. It is growing larger and larger. Literally and figuratively. This muscle is expanding so much that now, it presses up against his trachea and makes his breathing labored and renders him exhausted after little activity.

He still has bushes and grasses to sniff and treats to be devoured. And he has the warmth of our mutual love and the abundance of years of our coexistence in three different apartments in two different states.

I have lovely stories to tell about Moishe. And heroic ones too. We lived a whole life that we shared exclusively with one another.

Louise in the Courtyard of Her Pousada

"Louise in Pousada Courtyard #1", Brazil, Summer 2010.

Dear Louise,

I am still looking for you.

I was foolish not to take your e-mail or your home address the morning before you got on the bus with the other Swedish tourists leaving for the airport. I searched all over the internet for you and cannot find any information. I found you on Facebook, but I see that you rarely visit your page and you do not accept requests for friends.

Your beauty and quiet soulfulness are imprinted in my memory. I can see no other way besides us meeting once again. Strange and as deceptive as a photograph can be, I feel that you are still somewhere close to me and that we have not lost one another for good. Maybe the next time we meet you will be walking without your crutches as you have always wanted and I will be free from generations and past lives of karmic suffering.

However, brief our encounter, I feel a strong connection to your desire to heal, your strength beyond your 18 years, and your deep conviction to hold onto faith. When I look at this photograph, I am reminded of all the possibilities that lay ahead of you. I imagine your reserved, timid yet courageous aura and all the inspiration of a full peaceful life that radiates from you. You inspire me just like the cool tranquil blue tiles and the painting of a flower in bloom that  paint the background behind you.

I hope someone will see this photograph who knows Louise and let her know that I am looking for her.

We met on a ship in the middle of the ocean, two strangers but bonded through our sisterhood in our desire to heal and to make the impossible become possible.

I hope you have found peace and healing.

Love, Juliana

The Day After Osama Bin Laden's Death

Here is two of the many photographs that I took yesterday at the World Trade Center the day after Osama Bin Landen's Death was announced. Many tourists and New Yorkers  overtook the streets and pathway around the WTC site to catch of moment in time with cameras and mobile phone cameras in hand. To look at others go to Contact Press Images website.

 " Photographer at WTC Site on 05/02/11 #1", NYC, Juliana Beasley

"Photographing Flower Left In Memory at WTC", NYC, 05/02/11. Juliana Beasley

Photo for Sunday May 1st, 2011

"Genevieve In White", Brazil, 2010. Juliana Beasley.

As I look, at this photograph that I took of Genevieve, the daughter of my newfound friend, Madeleine with whom I share an e-mail correspondence, I am reminded of the simplicity of what life might be for me without so many "things" to clutch onto. Maybe it is a childish fantasy but I do believe somehow that it exists, if not for me, for others who perhaps have found and accepted the truth that life does not have to be so complicated.

I can only hope for more calm, more time in this next year to allow me to step away momentarily and remove this costume called "Juliana". I will return to Brazil, in body or mind, wearing a white dress brilliant and pure in the hot afternoon sun. I will search out the rough touch of tall grass upon my legs and the cool breeze that dries the sweat collecting in between the hairs of my brow. I hope to find the quiet and the inexplicable which was always here. 

Photo for Saturday in April 2011

"Two Yemenite Brothers", Rockaways, NYC, April 2011.

I love meeting new people out in the Rockaways. Sometimes, it feels like a second home or a vacation getaway if I'm in the right mood. On a day's visit, I typically run into at least four or five people who have let me photograph them over the years. Last Sunday afternoon, I was introduced to the two brothers in the above photograph. They live across the street from Lulu, the woman who runs the boarding house behind the chain link fence. On a warm day, she spends enough time sitting outside in a sun chair with her husband and the friendly visitor drinking and idling on the cement steps to her front door. I suspect she knows most of what is going on or going down in the neighborhood.

"Come here, "she motions at two boys as they were walking up the street towards the boardwalk.

"They are brothers", she informs me. "Their country is at war. Yemen, right? Isn't that right?" she questions them. 

They nod.

"Take their photograph."

I do.

  

I Love the Night Life. I Want to Boogie. aka My Polaroid Love Affair.

"Jesse(aka Juliana) and Suzi Sazuki", Honolu, Hawaii, 1994. Juliana Beasley

This Polaroid was taken in between my half hour dance sets while I was working as a stripper in Hawaii. The club where I worked had once been a theatre complete with faded and worn red velvet chairs bolted to the floor in a half circled amphitheater. In it's present state, the dark and grungy space had barely been renovated or converted to suit the needs or demands of a clientele with more than a couple of hundred dollars to blow on a night of anonymous laughter, smiles and fake intimacy with some woman possibly half their age. Management, at the request of the cheap and wealthy owner, projected vivid, and graphic low end (meaning low budget) porn on the wall and highlighted various "feature dancers" and porn stars who would come to the club and perform for a week at a time. In memory, this club certainly scores in the top three most gruesome shit holes where I had ever worked in the seven or eight odd years as a professional stripper. This, however, has no relation to the amount of  money that I made in this place or any other dive. Actually, it defies it.  

Elated fans would come to see showcased performers and if they had the extra money, they could spend it on a instant photo, personalized with her signature and/or a scribbled flirtatious and salacious comment. They could leave the club with a lasting momento of posing next to or possibly holding their favorite sex starlet in their arms.

Here I posed with Suzi Sazuki, a mid-career porn star from Japan. 

I stood on line like the others waiting for my turn. I didn't pay though. She wouldn't let me. She was nice and her English was close to terrible.

I had dyed my hair blonde with hopes of making more money in the clubs. It's true. Blondes are more in demand in the stripper subculture. That evening, I wore my heavily padded push up bra filled only with the deception and lies of a more fruitful bounty. I also wore wearing a pair of bandana patterned hot hot shorts that I fondly called "my money-makers" since I always made high earnings when I put them on.

I remember that my golden hair glowed like a lightning bug under the black lights. I believed it attracted more attention from the customers--and therefore, made me more earnings--than did my natural dark brown hair. I  learned later in my career when I had reestablished myself as a true brunette that this Barbie logic was indeed not true at all. 

"Anonymous Dancer in Dressing Room", NYC, New York, 1992? Juliana Beasley

I do not remember this anonymous dancer that I photographed with my Polaroid camera. I do remember one thing though. She only worked a week or so in this particular club because she was on the road traveling from one club to the next. One evening, a doorman helped her carry in a large black suitcase into the dressing room. The rest of us stood to the side so she would have enough room to pass through the small space. Finally, she found a small empty corner to stake out as her own and set it down. 

When she opened it I could see that it was filled with expensive looking costumes each one rolled up and wrinkled in careless bundles. I remember that she changed her costumes after each dance set unlike the rest of "house girls" who were to lazy to change our cigarette infused stinky outfits more than twice in an evening. This is one of my first Polaroids taken in a strip club at the beginning of my career as a stripper in 1992. 

"Wanna Dance?", Las Vegas, Nevada, 2002. Juliana Beasley

I took this Polaroid with my Joy Cam in Las Vegas while shooting for my book, "Lapdancer". At the end of 2002, I flew out there, after a quick stop to visit, not only a dear friend, but also to photograph in some of Colorado's "finest" clubs. By this time, my dancing career had already been over for several years. I was on a photo work trip without the benefits of a due salary. I traveled through several states.  I was determined to make some last strong images before my book would be published. I was still fresh and naive and believed that I could make a living as an photographer telling stories through my photographs. 

I planned the classic weekend 24/7 trip to Vegas. I banked on the fact that many clubs--like the casinos--remained open around the clock.  The doors remained perpetually open to eager customers, except for the obligatory occasional few hours when the janitorial service would come in to disinfect mirrors, carpets and chairs with industrial strength cleaning products. 

Soon after I arrived at McCarran Airport, I settled into my room at the Lexor Hotel on the strip. I quickly washed my face and then called around town for the permission to shoot in as many clubs as I could find listed in the Adult Entertainment Trade Guide. Several owners or managers agreed, but most did not.

At this particular club where I took the above Polaroid, they allowed me to come in and photograph both the customers and the dancers in the club, depending on whether each individual agreed to it or not. The club was beautiful; most dancers wore full gowns, inferring that the establishment was "upscale" or otherwise referred to in the business, as a "gentlemen's club". I can still remember two flawless shining black dance stages that reflected a warm glow upon the stripper's bodies from light beams up above.

I also remember seeing a lot of very stocky men wearing enormous cowboy hats and smoking cigars that early spring weekend. 

The two dancers in the Polaroid above were "tag-teaming" or rather, they doubled up in order to hustle a customer into buying a sexy private dance with not only with one girl, but two, and with that the added treat of watching two girls caress one another. 

"Someone Wants Me One Day", Ft. Myers, Florida, 2002. Juliana Beasley

I took this photograph while I was in Fort Myers, Florida. My friend, Lisa introduced me to a strip club that she often frequented as a female customer in her home town. She had also become friends with some of the dancers. The women danced topless only, but were obliged by law to wear a see through tape over their nipples. In the city of Ft. Myers, it was illegal to expose this obviously, obscene part of a woman's body. Dancers were expected to mask their nipples with a flesh-toned tape. Customarily, they would put make-up over the barrier to conceal it, so that it recreated the illusion that conversely, their nipples were indeed exposed.

This dancer allowed me to photograph her. She stood out because she worked with her glasses on. As unusual as this was to typical stripper accessorizing, she wore them. Perhaps, contact lenses irritated her eyes or she just simply fancied them. Maybe she wanted to monopolize the naughty secretary market. I don't know, but I could see that in her case,  it didn't seem to be working for her. The day my friend escorted me to the club, she was idling and standing alone leaning against a table. She wasn't hustling. She wasn't sitting on some customer's lap. She appeared to be in despair. I assumed she couldn't get a private dance or rather, no customer would give her twenty dollars for something more up close and personal. She confided in me that this happened often. Despite this, she was cheerful and very chatty, speaking to me in a thick southern accent.

When I asked her if I could take her portrait, she was surprised.

"Really, " she said. "I'm not that pretty."

Afterwards, I gave her a Sharpie and asked her to write in her own words what she was feeling at that very moment. She wrote possibly with hope and longing, "Some one wants me one day."

"Jolie", Unknown City in Colorado, 2000. Juilana Beasley.

I took this photo out in Colorado. I was staying with a friend who was close to ending her career as a dancer. She had recently moved out there from NYC, but had decided to continue working as a stripper until she was making more money in her chosen professional career in the sciences (She was also intent on buying a home out there before quitting for good). 

I came out to visit with her with two motives: I wanted to reconnect with her and secondly, I wanted to begin finishing Lapdancer.  She drove me out to some anonymous town to a club hidden amongst the evergreens, where she worked part-time. I wanted to ask the management whether or not, I could photograph in the club. I got the thumbs down on photographing the customers, but was allowed to shoot the dancers with their permission only.

This is Jolie. I still don't know why this beat up couch was parked in the club where it had no place. This strange ambiguity made it the perfect place to take a Polaroid of her dressed up in her Lolita-esque majorette skirt.

Station Break! System Breakdown.

Peter Finch won the Academy Award for Best Actor posthumously for his portrayal as Howard Beale, the irate anchorman in the film "Network".

I woke up this morning a little cranky. No, big deal. Actually, simply for one reason. I feel like I'm getting a full on cold, something that I've been able to keep at bay several times this winter season with mega doses of Vitamin C, combined with Vitamin E and more rest time.

I am listless and manifesting the beginnings of a common cold. No, fever. Just a dry cold, not a wet cold. I am completely dehydrated, tired, a little weak and yes, cranky. Sick gets in the way of productivity. Sick can make me feel useless even if I know this viewpoint is completely exaggerated and distorted

Clearly, this is an insensitive standpoint that I take against my poor immune system which is failing, as well as a delusional way to treat of myself. Fact is without any prior notice, my stressed out body decided to take a well-needed vacation. For reasons that still allude me I refuse to listen to my body and mind's pleas for attention. Possibly, the reasons I am still sitting in my PJ's can be blamed simply on my relentless and cruel and emotional stressful expectations I put upon myself. I have worn down my natural antibodies. There is little recourse except to sit my ass down and take my medicine. Sleep, pop more Vitamin C and E, put on my kundalini gong music and relax.

Possibly someone reading can relate to these "issues"?

Here are the facts:

I am not a Type A person.
I am acting as if I am a Type A person.

Left unchecked, the the pretense of being a Type A personality can lead to anxiety, low grade depression (a.k.a. dyshymia....look into the your DSM, whether it be V, V, or VII or maybe DSMVI for the latest precursors for a self-diagnostic check-up), and physical ailments.

So, bottom line. I was intent last night to wake-up this morning and go to the gym and have a productive work day. I am sure for many of you readers who are in the arts or in photography or the combined version realize that our work week is often seven days and not five.

I am sick.

I am angry.

Not so angry but, more disappointed angry.

But, if "you feel me?" anger means ugly. Some say, it will not set you free from mortal pain.

On a personal journey towards forgiveness, I have attempted to find salvation through countless books on good karma and enlightenment (**look into authors such as Thich Nhat Hanh, Jon Kabat-Zinn and Sharon Salzberg) by those practicing Buddhism. Not to mention, I have also doused the "tiger within" by partaking in local dharma groups both in Jersey City, New York City and several costly retreats. I have learned that these strong and unsettling human emotions will not set you on a path of lovingkindness towards yourself, your friends, your enemies, and those unknown to you around the world. Anger has always been pinned as "dirty" word. It always has been.







Anger. Freud said something like "depression is anger turned inward" as opposed to homicide which is anger turned outwards. Many western psychologists will tell you that anger is a natural and very human response to the unbearable, the annoying, the painful, etc. I believe this to be true. This is what I have faced and embraced in countless sessions with my therapist, Natasha. In fact, anger can be transformed into great works of art, running countless marathons and creating necessary political revolutions, as we witness in todays newspaper headlines.

I am left and here is the kicker, still lost and confused and still on the search towards freedom and good mental health. Buddhism would respond to this indecision by telling you that you or I am on the right path. We are left duly with unanswered questions. I want to throw my hands up in the air.

So, with that said, I felt inspired when I got up this morning by the following famous and outstanding quote from the movie, "Network".  Peter Finch's superlative performance as the sweaty, furious, insane anchor, Howard Beale who rants at full volume first, with his head stuck out of the window and then on live national television.

"I AM MAD AS HELL AND I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!"

Surely, I'm not as angry as Howard Beale. I am just cranky. I don't plan to go on national television and scream any feelings of malcontent. I will not hang my head out the window and scream either, as I am a considerate and quiet neighbor. And I just don't think it is a helpful mantra. Although, at the right times, it might be spot on. Just a necessity.

A dear friend's therapist suggested ranting loudly into a plastic bottle. My personal penchant is a Diet Pepsi bottle.



Howard Beale's full commentary. Just change a couple of words here and there and you will notice that the sentiments and worldy dilemmas that have passed between 1976 and 2011 are a mere discrepancy.

Why Did They Take My Polaroid Camera Away?

"Pee Wee", Tampa, Florida, 2001. Juliana Beasley

Yes, I know many of you feel the same way.

Just today, I was in a fit of Polaroid inspiration when I looked at Doug Rikard's, (the genius blogger and photographer behind the blog, American Suburb X )  "These Americans".  I was deeply engaged in the Polaroid images of a blonde woman in lingerie, posing for the camera in classic pin-up fashion. The photographs are under the subtitle, "Amateur 1990's".

What I find fascinating about these and other Polaroid images of this genre is simply more than my own natural voyeurism to take a peek at a half-dressed woman, but more specifically, the curious story between subject and photographer. I am left with a feeling of wanting to know about the nature of their relationship. Was the photographer her lover, were these photographs taken to obtain work in the sex industry? These amateur photographs make me consider more the intentions of the person behind the camera than the person in front. And yes, the relationship between the two. I want to know story behind the photo shoot.

"Gypsy Rose", Honolulu, Hawaii, 1997. Juliana Beasley

I am intrigued with the "no pretense reality" of the Polaroids because the lighting is so poor (in particular, flash under florescent lighting) that very few flaws can be hidden, not to mention the poor color correction intrinsic to the film. The scene all looks so cheap, despite the young blonde woman smiling for the camera and the character of her young  innocence it projects. There is a raw sleeziness to the images which also, makes me consider whether or not she was coerced into the photo session. These photos leave me with many questions. Possibly banal and mundane but somehow, I am intrigued and question why these images feel so personal and real, more so than most intimate photographs taken by professionals.

And lastly, Polaroids give me a creepy sensation of death. The subject's mortality is somehow reinforced with the click of the shutter. And yet, I am still drawn to the perverse quality it evokes.

"If you don't know...", Las Vegas, Nevada, 2002. Juliana Beasley

Here are some images from my Polaroid collection from my project "Juliana's Secret Stash". I took these images during the time I was working on my first book, "Lapdancer".  Now and in a previous post on this blog, I have begun to show them. I took these images with the lovely JoyCam. Others were taken by club management with the standard SX-70.

"Someone Wants Me One Day", Ft. Myers, Florida, 2002. Juliana Beasley

The concept was simple. As part of the fanfare, strip clubs sometimes offer the customer a Polaroid of themselves with the dancer or "feature dancer" (an erotic performer who has a fan club and following) of their liking. After the Polaroid is taken, the dancer or "feature dancer" signs something titillating at the bottom with a Sharpie. The customer then can return home with with this souvenir, a piece of memorabilia of the night in the club with their favorite performed. I decided to photograph the dancers alone on their free time with my JoyCam and simply asked them to write down what they were thinking at that very moment. I wanted to see expose the reality of what they were really thinking, beyond the cliched commentary reflecting the mundane "sexy" things they normally wrote at the bottom of the Polaroid on the white border.

"Fucked Up", Ft. Myers, Florida, 2002. Juliana Beasley

I wanted my own box of memorabilia from my stripper days. Whenever, there was an opportunity to be photographed with a sex industry celebrity, I stood on-line with the other customers and waited my turn.

I Am So Feng Shui

A real miracle happened here today.

Any Given Day at the Beasley Residence, Still from "Valley of the Dolls"

I'm pushing paper here. Ripping up paper. I'm talking with customer service representatives on the phone and am perfectly calm and not saying crazy lady things and asking for a supervisor. I am friendly and ask them where they are based. Texas, one customer rep says. I made an appointment for a mammogram, a bone density test, and blood work, all perfectly situated on the Upper East Side. I reordered Moishe's pain medication for his arthritis since the on-line pharmacy did not fax the prescription to my vet like they said they would when I ordered it two weeks ago. I am talking to my accountant's secretary and using financial jargon like a real young hip entrepreneur. I am confronting, opening and reading seven months of bank statements that I have avoided. And I am remembering to breathe and breathe very deeply.

I feel calm. I feel calm.

I FEEL CALM.

Although, the day is still not over and there are still tasks to cross of the list, I will give myself five out of five gold stars for good behavior today! Eight minutes to five... and so amped up, I'm ready to write out that expense list, this year's goal's list, wash the dogs, wash the dishes, prepare a fecal sample that I will put in an envelope and send to some anonymous technician at InSure Fit Laboratories in Teterboro, New Jersey.

I can do it all in one day. I can cross everything off my list that always fell to the waist side because it brought up feelings of inadequacy, maternal power struggles, latent rage, and helplessness and most of all fear of abandonment. By the time, my therapist gets back to town, she'll have very little material to analyze and systemize and organize. I will be so Feng Shui. I will be so Minimalist. I will be so Zen. There will be no need for waste paper baskets because I will not have any paper. I will have nothing left to fix, say, or do.

Beautiful Heart

"Beautiful Heart", 3/11, NYC. Juliana Beasley

"Take off everything except for your underwear and put this on, " the nurse technician said, as she passed me a paper gown. I hadn't done this for years.

"Oh, tie in the front." She closed the door and I began to undress, hanging my clothes on the back of the door. I took off my beat up sneakers and socks, shoving the latter into the former. I placed them side by side next to the examining table.

I had called the week before to make an appointment for my yearly physical with Dr. Orbach.  We hadn't seen each other in over ten years. I sat down on the hygenic tissue paper rolled out on the examining table, my legs swinging and dangling like a bored child in a waiting room. And I did feel like a child. Soon enough, the nurse technician returned. She wore a pair of standard scrubs with a little flair: a pastel design motif that accentuated her youthful appearance. In between taking my blood pressure and taking my pulse, she pulled out from her pants a cell phone protected in a hot pink case that matched her long fingernails. She glanced at it quickly and put it away.

"Lay down. Please."

She untied my robes and put suction cups on my breasts connected to tubes hooked up to an EKG machine. When she was finished, she asked me to stand on the scale.

"Please, don't tell me how much I weigh, " I asked as I stood backwards on the scale.

There were several years that I had refused to know how much I exactly weighed, whenever I went in for a check up. I didn't want to know anything definitive. Now, I know more or less. I just don't want to hear it come out from someone else's mouth, as they jot it down permanently in a records.

"Now, Ms. Beasley, just let me measure you." She balanced the metal rod on my head.
"How tall am I? " I asked.
"5'2"", she said.
Shit, I had lied for more than half of my life about my height. And I planned to continue lying and adding an inch to the truth for the rest of it too.

"How is everything", I asked when she finished.

"Everything is normal," she said. "Dr. Orbach will be with you shortly."

Really, everything is normal?

That unchartered passage that exists between the time the nurse technician leaves you alone with sterilized cotton balls and stainless steel cabinets, until the time when the doctor walks through the door can be agonizing and tortuous. Or at least, it is for me. I'm bored, I'm nervous. I have no purpose except to sit, wait. trust. I looked down at my hairy unshaven legs.


What will I say when she comes in? And where are those osteoporosis and golfing magazines? I'm trapped. Why do doctors always over schedule their patients and make you wait?

I pull out my mobile phone and start checking to see if I have any new e-mails or text messages. Nothing there. I am not on my time. I am on doctor time and that means I am completely out of control. And I am wearing nothing but a  disposable napkin.

The door opened and a thinner older Dr. Orbach walked in. She looked good.

"Hi!", she said. It had been over ten years since I had last come to see her. The last time I saw her I was still working as a stripper and living in the East Village.  I could still afford to pay for health insurance out of pocket. I had seen other doctors after I stopped going to her, but this was my first doctor's visit in more than 3 years.

"Wow, " she said, "Look at you! You have grown up." I imagined she was eye-balling the grays contrasted against my dark brown hair. I suddenly felt very self-conscious. I was already anxious in her presence but now, I felt like I might be noticeably trembling.

I knew Dr. Orbach beyond the normal patient/doctor relationship. I had picked her name randomly from a list of doctors that my health care provider had sent me. I picked her based on two things: she was a woman and I could take the crosstown bus to her office. But, the strange coincidence occured way before I was born, we had already made a connection. She knew my father, but she never knew that I was his daughter.

One day when I came in for a routine visit. At the end of the appointment, she became very serious.
"I have something to tell you, " she said. "I've known for a while. And I think you should know."

She informed me that my father had interviewed her as a young pre-med applicant to the medical college where he worked as the dean of admissions. She adored and admired my father. When she received word of his death, she was shocked to discover a photograph of me standing next to him printed on a memorial card sent to her in the mail.

"You can come up anytime and we can order in lunch," she said to me. I did. I ate a bagel with cream cheese and chives and drank a coffee. We were sitting in her office. I had nothing to say. I felt awkward, yet priveledged. I never went back for lunch after that.

Dr. Orbach was and is a very nice cardiologist and GP. She has four kids and often travels to Israel. She has a cousin that is a very famous writer. I don't know more.

I started to relax. I think I stopped trembling. After a three minute update on my life over the last ten plus years, we got to business. She asked me the usual. "What medications are you on?" "Do you smoke?" "Do you have a history of any illness in your family?"

And then she had me roll over on my side and repositioned my body.

"I'm going to do an ultrasound of your heart."

She applied a cool jelly and moved a microphone-like device around my chest. Thump, Thump, Thump.
And than I could hear delightful sounds that reminded me of being underwater, something I imagined, a pregnant woman might hear when getting a sonogram of her unborn child. I have heard it on TV.

"How does it look?", I asked.
"Beautiful! Beautiful!," she said.
"Are you sure?"
"Just beautiful", she reassured me.

I was beaming.

She ripped the long strip of paper with my heart prints from the printer and looked at them in the light.

"Can I have one of the photographs? " I asked.
She folded the paper, ripped off a section, and handed it to me. She showed me the different chambers.

She left the room, I wiped the gel from my body and looked at my heart.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Brittany in 2006. Brittany in 2011.

I first met Brittany in 2006. Kerri, Joanne's daughter had introduced her to one summer day in August. She was walking down the Boulevard, carrying a grocery bag in her hand. She was young and pregnant.
Few words were exchanged, I took a photograph of her, she smiled and I got her mobile number.

I could never track her down and sometimes when I ran into some of her friends, I would ask for her. I could sense she was avoiding me. After, leaving several messages on her voicemail, I tried to get through one more time to find that the phone had been disconnected. This never shocked me.

 "Brittany Pregnant", Rockaways, Queens, NYC, 2006. Juliana Beasley

"Brittany with Her Child on the Boulevard", Rockaways, Queens, NYC, 2011. Juliana Beasley

I'm putting this photo up just now because in my last post, I put a photograph of her this St. Paddy's Day.
That chilly day, she was standing again out on the Boulevard, this time with a stroller. The interaction was quick. We were in a crowd of people on the sidewalk waiting for the parade to pass. I took her photograph and in the commotion, I believe she told me this was her second child. I took her number again and wondered if maybe this time, she would return my calls.

I decided to repost the image of Brittany from a couple of weeks ago to show the contrast of her five years ago and her now.