The nerds are winning. Not sure if you noticed but the geeks have taken over and they are now in charge of our pop culture. Case in point, some of the hippest people in NYC spent an evening in the basement of a toy store talking about trading cards… and it was a lot of fun. I know two people with their own line of trading cards, Sucklord and Buff Monster. The company that makes them is called Sidekick Lab and they all threw a party at Toy Tokyo Underground featuring Sucklord’s SUCKPAX, Buff Monster’s Melty Misfits and “The Art Hustle” trading cards. They had cards for sale of course, but they also had a big table with custom cards on them where you could draw, sell and trade your own cards. Buff Monster had a bunch of his exhaustive Garbage Pail Kid collection on display as well.

I made a bunch of my friends draw me cards (tell me I don’t look like this) and in exchange I took awkward photos of them. I bought a pack of Buff’s Japanese edition of the Melty Misfits and one of Lamour Supreme’s cards which cost an unreasonable $1. Greg from Mishka bought a pack of the Art Hustle cards and he pulled a Mishka card and a Nick Gazin card in the same pack. Nick happened to be standing next to him at the time. There were also a bunch of cute girls there which isn’t really fair because when I collected trading card as a kid there were NO hot girls around. Oh, I should also give a little shout out to Sailor Jerry who provided the booze. Since they are pretty much my favorite client I figured I had to give ’em the free plug.

Anyway, this is sort of a disjointed write up because I just got Doggystyle on vinyl and it’s really hard to write and listen to an album that I know every single word to. So let’s just get to the photos.

Click here to see all the photos from the 2nd Ave Trading Card Convention at Toy Tokyo Underground.

Ps. Don’t you think Driven By Boredom needs sexy girl trading cards?

When I was in Vegas last weekend I remembered that last time I was there I had visited noted NYC graffiti artist Love Me aka Curtis Kulig at his pop up studio at the Cosmopolitan hotel. I have no idea how I forgot about these photos for an entire year but I figured I should post them now even though they are unreasonably too late. I dig Curtis’ stuff and he is down with a bunch of my friends so I had to get some #PPP love up on the blog. I don’t really have a lot to say since it was a year ago, but I am always glad to see cool people getting paid money to do whatever the fuck they want. He got some Vegas hotel to pay him a bunch of cash to make his art in a little fishbowl and talk to hotel guests once in a while. It’s pretty great. So shout out to Love Me and #PPP and check out the rest of the photos.

Click here to see all the pictures from my Love Me studio visit from January 2012 at the P3 Studio at the Cosmopolitan hotel in Las Vegas.

My friends over at the sex art cult that is Darling House want to turn their website into a print magazine so the founder JM Darling decided to throw a fundraiser. He asked his photographer friends for some photos to sell for extremely cheap prices and then threw a big party at Galapagos Art Space around that. I donated eight images because I am always down to support perverted causes and I was excited to be included in a show with some of my favorite photographers like Steve Prue, Bob Coulter, Corwin Prescott, Dave Naz and Tony Stamolis.

Aside from the art their was tons of performances. Bastard Keith hosted the performances and did some fantastic songs of his own. The amazing Stoya did two aerial routines, getting naked hanging upside down 2o feet in the air. Two of my favorite NYC burlesque performers, Stormy Leather and Madame Rosebud did several fully nude routines and included Darling House member Sovereign Syre in them. Eric Walton did magic that was not nearly as painful as most magic is, Brandon B told funny stories about terrifying gay sex experiences and the sex-comedy band The Reformed Whores did two extremely offensive country ditties. JM Darling himself told an amazing true story about how he and his entire family was murdered by pirates. I am pretty sure he should stop shooting naked girls and just write several books because his life growing up was far more interesting than any set of boobs.

The night ended with a discussion on sex work with Sovereign Syre, Stoya, Lux Alptraum, and Buck Angel. Sov led the discussion and Stoya talked about how the internet helped her become one of the biggest stars in the adult industry. Lux is the editor of Fleshbot, Gawker’s porn blog and one of my favorite websites. She talked about how she started combining her interest in sex and sex education with the internet from starting a porn site to writing about sex to finally taking over Fleshbot several years ago. Buck Angel is a man you should be familiar with. He was born a woman but had the most convincing sex change ever except for one thing… he still has a vagina. This guy who looks like a gay fantasy of a construction worker took down his pants on stage and showed everyone his vagina. It was pretty awesome. At the end of the conversation all four people on stage showed the crowd their vaginas, an amazing photograph that I totally missed because my leg fell asleep and I stood up and walked away from the stage about 3 minutes before it happened. Tragic.

The whole show was pretty amazing and the photos are extremely NSFW. The photos on stage are pretty awful because the lights were clearly controlled by a criminally insane person who kept it way too dark most of the time so I had to shoot at 4000 ISO and then when it was bright enough would shine super hot lights on the performers faces. It made for constant frustration and mediocre photos. But honestly none of that matters because what is happening in the photos is way more important than the actual photos. I assure you these photos are worth checking out.

Click here to see all the photos from Darling House’s The Other American Dream sex art show at Galapagos Art Space.

If you want to know more about my thoughts on this Comic Con or whatever just read what I wrote in Comic Con Part 1. I have my mom visiting, 500 zombie crawl pictures to post and seven gigs this week so I am gonna make this short and sweet. I didn’t think the pictures from Saturday were as good as the photos I shot on Friday. I think I just got burnt out. Comic Con is exhausting. Check out these pictures of fat shirtless men and random celebrities (there are some hot girls if you click through to the gallery) and then come back tomorrow for some insane zombie madness. See you guys soon…

Click here to see all the pictures from Saturday at the 2012 New York Comic Con at the Javits Center.

I have shot all sorts of weird conventions and festivals in my life but I have never photographed a full day at a Comic Con. I went to a few as a kid but nothing like Comic Con in San Diego or even like the Comic Con that happens to be happening right now at the Javits Center in NYC. I did once sneak into NYCC a few years ago but I was only there for about an hour and I didn’t get the full experience of thousands of nerds in a room holding giant fake weapons.

Yesterday I got to enjoy that madness and I am headed back today. I am not sure why I think it’s a good idea to go back after I exhausted myself today taking photos of kids in costumes of video game characters I will never play. I also ended up spending $40 which I probably shouldn’t have and I spent about 30 minutes trying to get a damn cab when I should have just taken the Subway home. But yet I will return today because nerds are God damn photogenic and I appreciate devotion and obsession even if it’s to Japanese tentacle rape comics.

Plus I have a bunch of friends who will be there. The guitarist for my band is an animator for Super Jail and is doing a pannel. My dude Hannibal Burress is also doing one for China, IL. Nick Gazin, Lamour Supreme and Greg Mishka are involved in some madness over at the giant Mishka booth. Buff Monster and his dude The Sucklord have their trading cards and are releasing toys. And on top of that I have some friends who are just there nerding out for whatever reason, like my friend Chloe who was dressed like a giant sting ray.

Anyway, I am gonna head back into the city for one more day of this Comic Con madness. So check out Friday’s batch of photos and I will be back tomorrow or Monday with today’s snaps.

Click here to see all the photos from Friday at the 2012 New York Comic Con at the Javits Center.

Last Friday I had my first solo NYC photo show at Mishka’s flagship store 350 Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I showed a bunch of 35mm New York street photography under the name “These New York Streets”.  The opening party was a lot of fun and packed all night, partly because of my amazing work, but probably mostly because there was 10 bottles of Sailor Jerry rum and 10 cases of PBR. I have learned that free booze is the only way you can get people to look at art which is why MOMA always has big lines for their “Keg Stand Thursdays” events.

I showed 11 20″x30″ photos at the event and you can see them all by clicking right here. The first 11 photos were in the show, the next two were outtakes that I printed but didn’t show and the rest of the images are street photos that didn’t make the cut. If you are interested in buying any of the (first 13) photos they are available in an open edition at 20″x30″ for $250 and a limited edition (#’d out of 10) at 11″x14″ for $100. There is also a super limited print done with artist Lamour Supreme that is only $25.  All of this stuff is available by contacting me or going over to 350 Broadway and picking it up there. The exhibit is up for the next six weeks if you want to check it out for yourself.

Normally I am the media but with this event I got reported on so I figured I would share a couple links for you. The New York Observer wrote a nice article on the show (although there were some errors in it), Mishka posted a bunch of pictures from the show on their blog (although oddly none of me) and the Village Voice ran a slide show of my street photography pictures.

I also should thank everyone for coming out, thanks to Mishka for letting me put some photos on their walls and thanks to Sailor Jerry and PBR for providing a lot of free booze. Also thanks to Lamour Supreme for painting on one of my photos. We also had an after party at The Flat after the show so I should thank them and Sailor Jerry again for the open bar and DJ Furoshe for DJing the event for pretty much free. Thanks everyone! Now go look at some pictures.

Click here to see all the pictures from the opening of These New York Streets at Mishka’s 350 Broadway.

And click here to see a bunch of my New York City street photography.

Ps. I did an amazingly half assed job taking these photos cause it was my own damn event. Also there are some NSFW shots in here cause… well… it’s my own damn event.

So this Friday I am having my first NYC Solo show at Mishka’s Brooklyn flagship store 350 Broadway. I have turned down a lot of “hang your work in my store” type shows before but Mishka is family and I have been to a lot of really fun art openings at 350 Broadway. Plus they let me show whatever the hell I wanted so it was a good excuse to show something no one has ever seen before.

On Friday from 7-10 I will be showing around a dozen of my NYC street photography shots. There are no naked girls, no party pics and it’s all 35mm. There are a bunch of shots of fights but there are also some nice pretty things like neighborhood kids playing in fire extinguishers and bikers barbecuing. Plus if you really need the naked girls I am 100% someone will get naked at the show. I mean I will have my camera and there will no doubt be a bunch of nude models there. So that’s a thing.

Plus there is going to be free booze provided by Sailor Jerry and if you want to buy art I am gonna keep it super cheap. You can get any of the prints at 11×14 signed and numbered out of 10 for $100. You cannot beat that shit. And if that is still too much for you I am doing a special print with resident Mishka artist Lamour Supreme that is gonna be in the $25 range signed and numbered by both of us.

After the party we are going to head over to the amazing new South Williamsburg bar The Flat for an after party. There might be free booze there too but we will definitely have FUROCHE DJing some jams and I can assure you more good times. Still working out the details on the after party but obviously it will get weird.

So come out on Friday! 350 Broadway in Williamsburg from 7-10. It is right by the Hewes JMZ stop but you can also get there from the Broadway G or Lorimer L. (Also the Metropolitan G and Marcy JMZ for that matter). It’s only a couple blocks from the Brooklyn side of the Willamsburg bridge.

Ps. There is a Facebook invite.

On Thursday night Tattoo Culture in Williamsburg held an art opening called Ladies Ladies that features the art work of all female tattoo artists. I looked at the list of artists and realized three of my tattoo artists were in the show. Tattoo Culture is a short walk from my house so I had to stop by. Tattooing is an industry dominated by men but due to some strange coincidences I have been tattooed by five women and although I have been tattooed by more men the women make the bulk of the art on my body.

Katie Davis and Betty Rose, both in the show, tattooed everything on my left arm and my other artist  Minka Sicklinger gave me one of my favorite tattoos ever and is going to be tattooing my entire chest soon. Katie lives in Richmond, VA so she wasn’t at the show but Betty and Minka were and it was awesome to see them as always.

The show was really good and it’s still up at Tattoo Culture if you want to check it out but there will be less badass tattooed babes hanging out since you missed the opening. You should probably go anyway and then just look at my photos for the badass babes.

Click here to see all the pictures from the Ladies Ladies tattoo art show at Tattoo Culture.

On Friday Alexander Heir had an art show at Mishka’s 350 Broadway store called Visions of Death. I live a few blocks from the store and came by for a bit to check it out. I ended up leaving with a print from the show. It will be up for a while so you should go in there and check it out.

Anyway, my friend Kimberly Kane (seen below) has been in town visiting me and I have been too busy hanging out with her to actually do any real work, so sorry about that. I am gonna make this quick because I really needed to get something up, bu I will get back to work for real tomorrow. I have some fun stuff coming this week.

Click here to see all the photos from Alexander Heir’s Visions of Death at Mishka’s 350 Broadway flagship.