Minding my own business, walking briskly and looking sideways whilst addressing an official type guy from the university this fine evening I nearly ran into NYC's 107th mayor – His Honor Giuliani, one-time TIME Man of the Year.
When my eyes alighted upon his friendly, over-tanned and long face I was momentarily stunned, let out an OHHI as I stopped seconds before crashing into him. When thinking back to that moment a few hours ago I wonder how the nearby ring of secret service agents speaking into their cufflinks allowed my photog self to get that close to the former tabloid hero.
After photographing Mayor 107 at the private mega-donor party where I was hired to shoot I borrowed a tripod from a boy colleague, sped off to the cross-town rival college and shot slides of an artist's installation in a library when, suddenly, I heard my name and turned around to see a loose cannon acquaintance wandering through the lobby en route to internet fun.
Two fun facts about this guy: I made an image of him a long-ass time ago when he was in drag for Halloween and every time I see him I see him in blonde wig and trashy dress, red lipstick smeared about his big guy mouth.
I wasn't surprised a while back to hear that he'd gone off to join the INS. That was an image that I truly found disturbing, him kicking in doors and tossing unfortunate immigrants out of the USofA.
As I'm setting up lights and tripod and making long exposures I'm really indulging in a string of nosy questions about the INS gig and about the firearms he carried and here's what I learnt: One doesn't need any sort of permit to pack when they've signed on for Team USA. It's issued to you. When you leave, you un-issue it.
Without prompting he neatly printed out the supersecret codes I need to get onto the rival college's free internet access computer bank and sped off to go do whatever online instead of enduring more questions by Yours Truly.
Another thing I learned today: Giuliani is as tall as I am and wears good shoes.
L'End.