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Glenn Ford’s First Days of Freedom After 30 Years on Death Row

Anywhere he wanted to go, the jubilant defense attorneys told a hungry Glenn Ford late Tuesday afternoon as they left the television cameras behind, piled into their car, and left the yawning grounds of Louisiana’s notorious Angola prison. Ford was hungry, very hungry, because from the moment he had learned that he would be released from death row—after serving 30 years there for a murder he did not commit—he had decided that he would not eat another morsel of prison food.

On their way back to New Orleans, driving on State Highway 61, there was this one restaurant that Ford had wanted to try, but it had closed for the day. And then the relieved lawyers and dazed client passed a gas station that served Church’s fried chicken and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Doughnuts? Ford pondered the possibility until the car was about a mile further down the road. “Look, if you want doughnuts we’ll get you doughnuts,” even if they come from a gas station, attorney Gary Clements told his longtime client.

So they pulled a U-turn and arrived back at the gas station. The lawyers got out of the car and started to walk in. Ford stayed in the car. It did not immediately occur to him that he would have to open the door himself to get out. When you are on death row for 30 years, when every door in your life is opened and closed for you every day by guards, you forget that you have to reach out and grasp the handle to move from one place to another. “He was just sitting there and waiting for someone to come and tell him he could get out,” Clements told me.

Read more. [Image: Gary Clements]

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Doing three weeks of work two days after it was supposed to be submitted #smart #greatdecision #noregrets

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City of Darkness: Life In Kowloon Walled City

The Kowloon Walled City was a singular Hong Kong phenomenon: 33,000 people living in over 300 interconnected high-rise buildings, built without the contributions of a single architect, ungoverned by Hong Kong’s safety and health regulations, covering one square city block in a densely populated neighborhood near the end of the runway at Kai Tak airport. In collaboration with Ian Lambot, I spent five years photographing and becoming familiar with the Walled City, its residents, and how it was organized. So seemingly compromised and anarchic on its surface, it actually worked -and to a large extent, worked well. The Walled City was torn down in 1992 but the photographs, oral histories, maps and essays in our book provide the most thorough record of daily life in a place that was a true Hong Kong original.

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Cozy since day one.

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My boys getting busy.

Ray George

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Jellies at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

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I put together an oral history of Rammellzee & K-Rob’s Jean Michel Basquiat-produced bug eyed rap classic “Beat Bop” over at Spin, stitched together from an old Rammellzee interview and new comments from K-Rob, percussionist/graffiti writer Al Diaz, TV Party's Glenn O'Brien and Profile Records founder Cory Robbins. It's a great record and you should read about it and listen to it.

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Eating empanadas on the porch. #paisalife

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I used to work at a grocery store and at various times during my shift I would check the ATM for forgotten cash. Over one summer I found around $240 just from that ATM. I don't know if the machine was defective or it was forgotten cash. I usually pocketed it right then but once after finding $40 a coworker noticed and narced. After that I had to give the manager the money and they would hold it in the safe for a month to see if anyone would come and claim it. No one ever did. 

I used to find cash in other places, too. For a while I worked in produce and sometimes I would find small bills under fruits and vegetables randomly. One night while closing I found a crisp, new hundred dollar bill in between some bananas. There wasn't good camera coverage in the produce fridge (where I would eat all the fruits I wanted daily) so I grabbed a bunch of bananas, put them on my cart, and brought them into the fridge under the guise of switching the bananas out or some shit. In the fridge I pocketed the cash and then put bananas back. 

Maybe five minutes later I'm walking to the front of the store all stoked and this overweight ponytailed software engineer who came in every Tuesday near closing time with his two young kids was freaking out. Dude was talking to his kids like, "Your mother gave me a hundred dollars to buy these groceries and I lost it! She's gonna kill me!" Dude was hysterical and on the verge of tears. He said he came in through the produce side door so my crisp banana hundie was most likely his.

He called his wife, who never shopped with him, and she appeared like two minutes later. I guess she hustled to the store to pay for the groceries and publicly scold her husband. She was going in on him so I went back to the produce fridge and removed the hundred dollar bill from my wallet, leaving it completely empty.

I walked up to the front of the store holding it and pretending like I had just found it. Dude gave me a hug and thanked me while his wife continued to berate him on how irresponsible he was. 

The next day I found a dirty, balled up fifty dollar bill while cleaning the warehouse.

I dated a wealthy girl who knew various deviant acts. One of my favorites was circumventing ATM machines into thinking you did not withdraw funds by grabbing the middle $20 instead of them all (you had to choose $60). I still use it that method to this day. It credits your account the $60 back minus the $20 in your hand.

Like 3 years ago I went to an ATM, withdrew 100, forgot to grab the money and just walked away. I guess other things were dominating my mind at the time and I was on auto-pilot. 

I honestly don’t remember whether or not the money was credited back to my account so I can’t call bullshit on you. 

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death threat.

fuckkkkk

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All beached out.

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Soundtrack to the shit I've supposed to be doing for the last two or more months.

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Davenport, California.

iPhone 4s + VSCO Cam.

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I went fishing a few days ago with some vegetarians.

Cement Ship, Seaclif State Beach, Aptos, California.

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Oceanic Art Exhibit, Utah Museum of Fine Arts, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

iPhone 4s.

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Sometimes I mess around and use Instagram.