I’m not much of a dog lover after not seeing Lisa for 37 years And closing up shop in New York City and coming directly to her house To be with her I had to meet her dog, on the way to her house from the airport she told me when I meet her dog just come in and sit on the couch she doesn’t like when people look down on her especially when she doesn’t know them so I was thinking I’m a new man in the house is this dog going to bite my hand off anyway I sat on the couch and she came over to me sniff me a little bit I patted her head she stepped back and gave me this look I grabbed my iPhone right away and did her first portrait we are now best friends she’s a spoiled little brat like her mom but I love both of them

When I inherited my great uncle Sal‘s collection of photography glass slides and negatives they were all in these Kodak boxers that held 4 x 5 negatives a lot of different writing on these boxes one of the boxes said Sals prizes in that box was a couple hundred gorgeous man that’s the only way a straight guy like me could describe them I’m not attracted to men at all obviously but I got to Tell you I see why my great uncle Sal what is gay

Back in the late 30s great uncle Sal was so far ahead of himself beside doing that painting and setting up this double exposure he hypnotized his brothers friend And took a photo if you hold the negative up to a light box which I did you see something different

My dad and Denny Rebecca Shoals That fish use to be on the menu in The Florida keys in the 40s and 50s they called it the Jew fish For a while there they were calling it the Israeli grouper and now it’s final name is the goliath grouper they almost became extinct A year after this catch you were not allowed to catch them

The year 1989 ten Years before I took this photo I flew up from Key West to New York City to buy some new camera equipment I spent a day photographing all over New York City people, buildings, pimps, and prostitutes that day back in 1979 stayed in my head for a bunch of years till I moved back up north to jersey and New York I was photographing on the corner of Prince and Broadway for about a year so far never any prostitutes or pimps all of a sudden I see this guy screaming at some girl I think he was the pimp and the girl was a prostitute He was screaming at the one girl she has my fucking credit card and then I took the shot award winning outfit you didn’t see too many of them back in the late 80s

In 1985 I got very lucky and landed this incredible job in Manhattan in the worlds largest camera store at a time Willoughby’s, I got to learn all about cameras from the best these old Jewish salesman been there since the second world war they hired me because I was a published photographer, at that time in my life I just wanted to wear a suit and learn everything I can about cameras the great thing about this place was Every rich famous person would come there and buy all their equipment rich people love to take photos, anyway I ended up meeting Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Sigourney Weaver, Joe Pepitone from the Yankees, Patrick Ewing, Lawrence Taylor they all love to take photos I can go on and on with the list and I was only there for 14 months The most exciting guy I sold a camera to was Clarence Clemons from Bruce Springsteen I sold him everything from A-to-Z he even bought A high-end telescope to hook up to his new camera long story short he wanted me to teach him a little about photography and how to hook the telescope up to the camera Clarence just bought a beautiful condo on the Jersey shore this day I went there we got super buzzed I ended up staying over there Really miss that guy and he can play the saxophone

The masks did hypnotize people in my studio Some of the girls told me they were being hypnotized

This is something that amazed my great uncle Sal and myself In 1951 Sal worked for the, World of Mirth a bizarre traveling carnival, he did all the photos for them did his famous mind reading hypnotizing act, played the piano there’s one thing he did for this company they put together a carnival magazine it had all the midgets burlesque girls and all the other acts and wild things that went on there they even did a full page story on Sal, so here the bizarre thing 40 years later in 1991 I meet a woman Sophie she put together this unique magazine with all the go-go bars in the tri-state area jersey New York Connecticut and Pennsylvania The magazine was the exact size of the mirth magazine with about as many pages and it had all these cool photographs in it of all the clubs in the area and the sexy dancers and stories it was set up exactly like the mirth magazine just an entirely different subject both magazines were totally unique and there was nothing like them out there I got very lucky And joined up with Sophie we opened up mentertainment Studios before you know it we were rolling lots of advertisers studio shoots She was a genius and became my mentor and trust me I’m a know it all I don’t listen to anybody but I listened to her in fact till this day she has been my number one advisor let me change the subject for a moment when my great uncle Sal saw this magazine that I brought to his studio in New York he totally freaked out and made a decision That I was going to be the family member to inherit his entire estate With all his published stories photography and masks and tell the story of this wild family a comedic look of a sexually driven Mob family the Terracina masquerade One more little fact the whole family was in Key West in 1976 Sal was watching me very closely and he made a comment in front of my grandfather Captain Tony and my dad he said this kid here is going to be the one to tell the stories I was only 20 I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about that was 44 years ago

The newspapers and cable news is very funny when I first inherited Sals massive estate of art I went to the newspaper and told them I’m doing a big gallery show in New York which I completely made up so they did a story on Sal and his masks and photography then I went to the New Jersey cable Company and told them about the gallery show and gave them a copy of the newspaper story before you know it they put me on the local TV channel to talk about Sal which landed me a feature story in American photo and two book contracts with checks that was 18 years ago I am now a free agent And the story is complete, A comedic look at a sexually driven mob family the amazing Terracina’s

These are not Sals masks but I think he took these photos they were in the estate in a special envelope no negatives one thing Sal and I do we buy up vintage photography Sal was buying vintage photography in the 30s I have part of his collection most of those photographs are from the turn-of-the-century pretty cool stuff