Here’s a photo I took of Christian a couple weeks ago while I was testing the lights for Steve Burns. Turned out pretty nice, for a test! We went to Maryland this weekend for a few days for an event and to see his family. Surprisingly, I hadn’t met his sister before… I love her. I’ve got lots of photos to share but right now I’m going to bake some ziti and garlic bread and Kate’s coming over and we’re all gonna do the evening fat dance. Until tomorrow…
Welcome to the new BradWalsh.com! We are still migrating servers, so if you see something wonky just ignore it for now. Brad’s blog will appear right here on the home page; up top and on the sidebars you can find all sorts of things to click on. Soon there will be a music player in the music section, and some more features here and there.
Yesterday Josh came by and gave me tickets to his brothers’ band’s show. Maybe you’ve heard of them… Good Charlotte? No? They’re this tiny little indie band that not a lot of people know about. You kinda have to know someone to get a copy of their albums. Very underground. They’re big in the Philippines. But even I’m big in the Philippines. Anyway, I obliged Josh, and I figured Christian and I would throw him a bone and go see his brothers play at this tiny little hole in the wall. Maybe you’ve heard of it… Roseland Ballroom? Yeah, it’s really grunge and kinda old school, like CBGB used to be before it sold out and got all corporate and started selling Varvatos. I was like, “Good Charlotte at Roseland Ballroom? I have never heard of either of those things ever before in my life, ever!”
So, we went to the show. Met up with Josh and Lisa and Alana and Dimitry. I guess you could say we had a good time. I mean, we were onstage for Good Charlotte’s entire performance. And there was this girl that was there dancing, too. She’s a sort of girl-about-town, an indie film actress, she had an album a little while back that nobody really knew existed. Maybe you’ve heard of her… Paris Hilton? No? Well, anyway. She was there and she was all smiles and singing along because I guess she’s dating one of Josh’s brothers? I don’t really know. Maybe if the paparazzi would snap their photo or the tabloids would write something up sometime I would know about this whole Benji/Paris thing, but really, I guess they’re just destined to forever be nobodies. Christian blew her a kiss and got one back, which I thought was a little weird. Like, why was he hitting on some random chick right in front of me?
Yadda yadda, we were onstage, the band was playing, et cetera. They have this song that they sing, I’m not sure anybody who reads this blog will know it. It’s called “Dance Floor Anthem?” Anyway, they played that song and there’s a part where Joel sings “everybody put up your hands” and Alana and I totally put up our hands!!! OMG can you believe we did that? It was really very cool of us to do that.
Seriously though (take my wife, please!), we walked into the venue and a crowd of approximately ONE BILLION SCREAMING GIRLS wanted to take a picture with Christian. I tried to warn him that the Good Charlotte fan demographic is similar to the Christian Siriano fan demographic and that it might be hell… but Josh swooped in to take us backstage and all was fine. We got to see the whole show from the stage, Paris and her parents were there and dancing and singing along, and then Gurj and Chris Black appeared. Life is good. Got me out of my “I hate New York” funk for a bit.
Anna was in town for the weekend after spending the summer on a farm in California, so of course we had to do a bunch of photos. Lou is to Edie as Pete is to Kate as Bronques is to Whoever as Brad is to Anna. She wore some of Christian’s older stuff – an early version of the Bluefly gold dress and a gown that was used on Ugly Betty – and we work really well together, so I got lots of good images.
She’s always got a hand in her photos. Kind of a natural accent to her whole “living doll” nightlife persona (Anna Rexia), which I think is perhaps over, or almost. Now she’s just Anna.
We went clothes shopping and visited James Pollis, though it rained like it has every single weekend for the last couple months. Sitting around in secondhand designer clothing, drinking Thai iced teas, playing with a camera. I think this is how I would describe Williamsburg to somebody from the moon.
I’m going through a period of hating Brooklyn. I live in Park Slope, which is super suburban, and I am often in Williamsburg (where Christian lives), which is super stupid. I get quickly irritated by most of the people in either place. If I’m not stuck on the overcrowded sidewalk behind three young moms walking side by side with baby strollers talking about how they don’t understand The Hills but watch it everyday and spend way too much money on basic groceries at the Union Market, I’m stuck behind three young girls with five-tone hair walking side by side with a rusty wagon full of sculpture talking about how they don’t understand NPR but listen to it anyway and spend way too much money on basic groceries at the corner bodega. I’m not really loving Manhattan either, though, so maybe I just need to spend more time outside New York. Can’t wait for the weekend.
The weekend getaway was great while it lasted. We only spent Friday night in Philadelphia and we went to an event almost as soon as we got there, but afterward we had some good downtime eating and watching TV in our suite. Jacuzzi, champagne… and mismatched plaids. Kind of perfect for me. The event was a hotel opening and fashion show that Christian was brought in to judge. Some of the clothes and some of the models were impressive! Some were less impressive, but they provided plenty of material for us to re-enact their walks for the rest of the weekend. DJ Jazzy Jeff was spinning, and after our Tatyana Ali run-in last month I think we must be destined to meet Will Smith. Or move to Bel-Air.
Yesterday I shot Steve Burns, former Blue’s Clues Steve, current musician. Really nice guy and has lots of good stories. Christian made him that bowtie in about two minutes.
He pulled up in a big awesome car that was [not intentionally] the color of his animated buddy, and we did some studio portraits, some stuff around the building, and a few outside.
Thursday we had dinner with Sarah and the Twins’n’em, Saturday was Alana’s birthday dinner with everyone lovely, and yesterday I made spaghetti. All notable events!
My haul at Buffalo Exchange this weekend was pretty epic. Less than $150 spent and I came away with a Dior sweater, Dolce & Gabbana shirt, and Marc Jacobs jacket; and some lesser but equally awesome stuff from Diesel, Kenneth Cole, and Zara. Never do I find nearly as much worth buying at Beacon’s Closet as I do at BuffEx! BuffEx. I said BuffEx. Also got a hideous gold Octopus necklace for Christian, which he says he likes but I think maybe he is just appeasing me.
Just got word I am photographing Beth Ostrosky soon! That’s pretty wonderful.
I hate New York today. Everyone’s an asshole and everyone’s in my way. Construction workers rang my doorbell really early this morning to ask if that Honda on the street was mine. No. It’s not. Our trashy next door neighbor told our landlord he was going to punch Kathy in the face, and then tried to get us in trouble by telling the landlord that we have all kinds of cats in the house that he sees every day in our windows. We don’t have any animals. Lucky for me, our landlord believed us when Kathy shouted “I HATE CATS” and gave us a fist-bump, and I get to leave this godforsaken city for a day. Christian and I are going to Philadelphia this afternoon for some hotel opening tonight, and then tomorrow is Alana’s birthday. Sunday I have a shoot I’m excited about, and then the whole New York hatred thing will start all over again on Monday until the following weekend, when we spend three marvelous days away.
That’s a photo of Zane that I didn’t use last time. I’m gonna go eat some food now and then kill someone.
Going through some more older photos to compile a real portfolio and stuff for the new website, and I found some outtakes/redundancies from some shoots that I prepared for the web at the time (back when I posted them at Junk) but didn’t use. Here’s one I particularly like, of Andrew:
And some of Denis, which we took while there was a party going on downstairs. Denis kinda seems like a Disney star who was famous at 14 but is now 20 and tattooed and trying to break his good boy image, but then he smiles and you’re like… aww, there’s that adorable and sarcastic little high schooler with a hint of psychic power and a multi-platinum selling alternate personality that we all grew to love. Except now he’s in Playgirl.
Speaking of Playgirl, I was sad to hear this week that they are shutting down. My first date with Christian was at a Playgirl party, and they sponsored my very first gallery opening in New York back in March. At that party my darling Melissa mistook one of the Playgirl staff for Kennedy, the MTV personality. Melissa was a cast member on the Real World. You know, on MTV.
I printed out a head shot that I took of Christian so that he could sign it for some of my mom’s friends (which he doesn’t yet know that he’s going to do), but I forgot to resize it for the web before I deleted the image I worked on. So instead of show you the new photo, I’ll give you a close-up of an attempted & failed reclaim scan, which I think looks pretty cool because of the magnified dot print:
The full-body photo (which I will show later if I get my act together) is going to be used for a national chain of salons to print life-size cardboard cut-outs of him for some product line or contest or something that he’s doing. See? He gets a free head shot from me every month and I make him sign some for my mom. Symbiosis.
Last night was Leigh’s birthday, and before we went out I prepared in style at home by drinking vodka shots from a shot glass made out of frozen cranberry juice. Then I ate the glass.
Christian would like the world to know that the duvet on his bed in the background of those photos is the very same one that Big had on his bed in the Sex and the City movie, and that Charlotte later had on her bed. And he had it first. I would like the world to know that he is the kind of person who begins a note to Victoria Beckham with “Hey Diva Tranny!”
There’s this thing called The Danger: Global Warming Project, “an interactive multimedia creative initiative featuring original images, sound and video material designed to raise awareness of climate change worldwide.” They asked me to contribute a photo; specifically, one using their faux caution tape, and I was thrilled to do it and be in such amazing company. Other contributors include Gus Van Sant, Philippe Starck, Darren Aronofsky, Jonas Akerlund, Gillian Anderson, Casey Affleck, Joe Dallesandro, Jim Jarmusch, and Richard Linklater. This photo is an outtake, just to get the general idea:
That one’s okay, but I’m really happy with the image I gave them. I’ll show it once the project is more together. The model is Brendan, who’s a photographer too. He came over last night and we took some pictures of each other. He’s off to Prague today, so I won’t see myself til who knows when, but here he is, in all his backlit glory.
On the subway today some gorgeous woman who looked like Kyra Sedgwick with dark brown wavy 40s hair was sort of flirting with me from several feet away and it was awesome. If I wasn’t gay and taken, I might currently have a date with someone my mother’s age. Tonight we’re celebrating Leigh’s birthday at the Gramercy Park Hotel, which is one of those places that Geordon says “you don’t need to worry about what to wear” and then you get there and feel like an asshole in jeans and have to get trashed. Thank God for the black cardigan.
Saw a movie in a theater for the first time in forever. Sex and the City. It was okay. My butt hurt by the end. Ate at some new restaurants. We re-did Christian’s Myspace. Bought some things and failed to buy some other things.
Yesterday the clouds were really white and sharp, but I only had my phone to take a picture, so these aren’t as clear as I’d like:
Looks like a Fierce Asian Tran moved into Christian’s building…
