19 August 2023

Béatrice Larrivée, left & Noa Lee Ashkenazi right

 Béatrice Larrivée I

Béatrice Larrivée II 

Béatrice Larrivée III

Béatrice Larrivée IV  

Béatrice Larrivée V

Béatrice Larrivée VI 

Béatrice Larrivée VII

Tonight I went to the Arts Umbrella Dance Company’s theatre on Granville Island to see a performance with Béatrice Larrivée & Noa Lee Ashkenazi with original music by Morgan Bobrow-Williams, costume design by Gon Biran and the lighting was by Andie Llyod.

Reading about Gaga, the dance method pioneered by the Bathsheba Dance Company in Tel Aviv, does not prepare you at all for what I saw for close to an hour. The two dancers were sweating by then. I felt wonderfully exhausted.

This is the sort of dance, which to me is a notch above what we would call modern dance. Both dancers, in the proximity of the small theatre, showed lots of emotion and pathos. It was like dance within a play within a dance. I will not try to explain why there were baskets of apples everywhere and why the dancers would munch on them. We the audience did at the end, too.

I felt privileged to be there and to be given the seat in the middle of firstrow at the bottom of the theatre (dancers have to be photographed from the floor to make them look taller).

I took 441 snaps and very happy that my Fuji X-E3 has a completely silent electronic shutter so I did not intrude.

I am quite tired but I felt I had to fix a few, 16 in all, in which I used my method of switching to very slow shutter speeds. I call them swirls and to make them standout I use my 19-year-old Photoshop 8.

I will be back tomorrow with my granddaughter Lauren. I will be able to anticipate many of the moves I may want to shoot again. But then the ones I am putting here are not bad at all.

Why, with what is left of our Vancouver media, they do not understand that they prevented so many in our city, so poor in culture (not quite, seeing what I saw today!) miss by not giving a radio, TV or newspaper preview? Why was nobody from the media there tonight? Why is our CBC keep telling us about bridge traffic? 

Harry Connick Jr. 23 October 1990

Guest Blog : Dave Chesney- Editor White Rock Sun

Wednesday August 16, 2023

My phone rang last night and I was happy to see Alex’s name pop up  on the screen.  He informed me he felt compelled to call me to relate what a big hit the D.O.A. shirt I gave him was at the fifth Annual Memorial Get Together for randy Rampage Mountain View Cemetery.

I was a huge fan of Alex long before I ever met him.  I have a number of his photos adorning my humble abode’s walls.  Dennis Hopper, Leonard Cohen, my wedding photos Alex took so gracefully offered to take.  "Really," you say.  Nobody gets Alex to take wedding photos.  I did.

Dave got married to Laurie

The other cherished Alex photo I have is of Harry Connick JR.  I had the pleasure of working with Harry a number of times during my tenure as the Westcoast Under Assistant Promo Man for CBS Records.

The Sony Corporation bought CBS Records worldwide in 1987.  Shortly after the acquisition I received a call in my Vancouver office from a representative from Sony Japan who was on tour with Harry Connick Jr.  The SONY rep had a large number of press in tow to travel and tour with Harry Connick JR. in order to facilitate numerous reviews and interview sessions for large Japanese media outlets.  The lady from Japan introduced herself on the phone and explained they had lost their photographer who had to fly back to Japan and could I possibly recommend a local photographer.  I informed her I had just the right person for her.  His name is Alex Waterhouse -Hayward.  I quickly ran through Alex’s CV from memory and she seemed very pleased. The entourage would arrive in Vancouver in three days.  I was asked if it would it be possible for her to meet Alex and me prior to the press day, at the downtown hotel where they were all staying.  I checked with Alex and it was agreed we would meet the night before.

I arrived at the hotel slightly before Alex to afford myself time for a personal introduction.  Everything was going fin until I turned and saw Alex coming through the hotel front doors.  I said “Oh here is Alex now.”  Dead silence.  The lady from Japan said “Oh Dave this is a problem.  Alex is not Japanese.  I have to have a Japanese photographer.”  I thought, gee didn’t the name give you some indication Alex was not Japanese?

In order to appease Alex and me, the Japan lady agreed to pay Alex in full for nothing.  And she asked me what she could do for me?  I explained to her I would like to speak to Harry and carve out some time before the press day started. I explained Alex was doing a series called hotel suite where he photographed artists in hotel suites. She was more than happy. 

I spoke with Harry the next morning when he started his day.  I explained to him what I would like him to do and he said “No problem Dave, whatever you want.”  By this time Alex had arrived at the hotel with all his equipment, cameras, flash lights umbrellas and whatever else he felt he might need.

 As Alex set up in a spare hotel room I went to find Harry.  He had a big of stubble and was dressed very casual in a v-neck cashmere sweater, his hair was slightly tussled.  We talked as we walked to where Alex was set up.   Harry sat down and began to marvel at the elaborate lighting system Alex had set up.  Small chit chat incurred between Harry and Alex, Harry understandably was somewhat  reserved not really sure of what was going on.  

 As Alex and Harry were making small talk while Alex adjusted the lighting,  Alex said to Harry, "Would you ever record my favourite jazz standard, Billy Strayhorn's Lush Life?" Connick answered, "That's a woman's song. I don't think I'll tackle it." 

I was blown away how instantly Harry relaxed and smiled and began to talk to Alex on a completely different level than before.  He was in the presence of someone who knew and cared.  At that very moment Alex started snapping photos.  The entire session may have taken 10 minutes.

EDITORS NOTE. Back in those days there were a number of  popular photo magazines on the newstands.  The main one if I remember correctly was simply called American Photo.  Alex submitted the Harry Jr. photo and if my memory serves me correct it was voted as one of the top photos of the year.

 I am proud to say I went from being a fan to being a friend of Alex Waterhouse-Hayward.

16 August 2023

Two events yesterday cheered me up a tad and removed me for a while from my grief for the loss of my Rosemary. One was that I went to get a haircut with my around-the-corner Albanian barber Miri. I always feel better after one.

Second I received an email from London Drugs that my Julio Cortázar/Niño T shirt was ready. I immediately went to get it at the Broadway and Cambie location.

The shirt is not perfect. It is not dark enough and it is on the pink side. But it will do. For what?

In October the Fondo de Cultura Económica (founded in 1938 with the idea of publishing cheap books to promote people to read) has invited me to participate in the week-long Feria del Libro at the Mexico City Zócalo and at their bookstore, Rosario Castellanos. They want me to show my author photographs and to charlar (chat) about them.

I am rounding up my very good collection of T shirts with a Mexican theme but this one with Niña is bound to impress.

But I am not finished!

Mountain View Cemetery 14 August 2023

My Rosemary insisted that she, our two daughters and I would leave Mexico City and drive our VW to Vancouver. This we did.
 

Since then and now 14 August 2023, I have become aware (specifically today at the Mountain View Cemetery memorial  that was the 5^th anniversary of musician Randy Rampage’s death) that somehow I am always there to bear witness. 

Rampage 2015 on his birthday

There are connections that at first don’t seem to be there. I wore a D.O.A. T shirt to the memorial service that had this story behind it. I was at the Four Season’s Hotel to photograph film director Martin Scorsese. At the front desk I was asked if I was Alex. When I answered affirmatively I was told that a man called Dave Chesney (then a powerful record rep for CBS Records) had left me the T.

In this fifth anniversary I have traditionally taken the group shot. Time affects these group shots as people die.The recurring problem is trying to find the setting in my Fuji X-E3 camera for the self-timer. I want to not only bear withness to an even but I want to be in it. I am on the right on the ground wearing that D.O.A. T.

While there I run into all kinds of people that in some way were part of the fabulously active punk scene that Vancouver had in the late 70s to the 80s.

The memorial happening is hosted and planned (lots of drinks and food and a tent for protection from the sun) by Susanne Tabata who was Rampage’s partner for many years. It was in parties in their house that we found out that Rampage was a good cook.

Who would connect Tabata to Long John Tanner who was there today?  I would as Tanner hosted the Cable 10 program Night Dreems that was really a precursor of later programs that featured rock music videos. Susanne Tabata and Deborah Jarvi were also hosts.

Amazingly my Night Dreems blog is labelled sensitive by Blogger. They don't seem to like the word Dreems!

Who would connect Tabata to that of the eminent Vancouver  writer Ben Metcalf with whom I worked with while both of us contributed to Vancouver Magazine? Metcalf had a Japanese garden and when he found out about Tabata he suggested I photograph her with little clothes in it. Tabata, to my disappointment, declined.

As for Tabata dressed in armour, I borrowed it from Marlene Cohen’s (Army and Navy Store) husband who collected swords and had the Canada wide franchise for Levis and Sony. The photograph was for promoting some rock activity in Gary Taylor’s Rock Room.

As for Rampage, the man that I knew, it was not hard to notice his kindness behind his rough looking demeanour. In those five memorial services I have come to genuinely like all those (not rough to me anymore) dock workers he worked with for years.

How many reading this can boast that they rode in Rampage’s convertible Cadillac? My writer friend John Lekich did and he wrote about the experience in link below..

Mr. Rampage, Mr. Pinhead & a backseat bomshell - John Lekich

Lastly I have to explain that my favourite rock photograph ever started with me telling Rampage that I wanted to photograph him on a sofa with silver satin in the style of Jean Harlow. He looked at me incredulously but when I told him that he had nothing to worry he consented.

I sometimes believe that Vancouver is a lovely city that lacks passion. I can assert that watching Rampage jump to incredible heights while playing the bass was ample proof that passion did exist here.

For reasons that I cannot explain I cannot find any of the photographs that I took of Rampage’s band with Brad Kent called Ground Zero. Kent, who is also gone, was a man that was quiet and had that same degree of sweetness that Rampage had.

Randy Rampage wearing my mother's Mexican Red Shawl - December 2015

At every one of these memorials I am greeted by a sweet young woman with a lovely smile. Her name is Jade and she surely inherited all that sweetness from her father Brad. In the group photograph she is right behind me in her D.O.A. T.

It seems that I am always there.