RACING PIGEONS...SPORT OF KINGS 1984 video

This is the first part of a documentary about the sport of pigeon racing. I'm told that it's a sport played in every country of the world. The doc was made to convince the US Postal Service to commemorate the racing pigeon on a postage stamp. The pigeons are raised and trained to race home, sometimes from distances as much as 500 miles. The first bird home wins the prize which could be a trophy or money. The men and women in this video really love their birds.

I made it with my friend Manny Katz in 1984. He had friends in the valley that were going to a pigeon auction to buy new birds to train and race. When I got there and saw who was doing what and why I was hooked.

We sold this video by advertising in pigeon racing magazines, which to my surprise, exist around the world too. When we put the ad in a Japanese zine the little pink money orders started to roll in. We made more selling videos this way than we could have ever made selling them to PBS. There was no cable in those days.

I have DVDs of the entire video. If you've found this blog and want to purchase one, let me know.

EASTER ISLAND VACATION, 2000 photo & video

During a visit in 2000 to participate in the Easter Island cultural festival called Tapati, we met many great people and learned much from the experience. Our hosts were the founders of the easterislandechofoundation.org who strive to educate Islanders and the outside world about the history and language of the Rapa Nui people.

Rabin's Funeral, Jerusalem 1995 video

We arrived in Jerusalem on the day of PM Rabin's funeral. He was gunned down by an Israeli citizen. The clip combines street views of the procession that wound it's way through the city to the cemetery with off-air footage of mourners and Bill Clinton, who attended.

STREET MUSICIAN, HAVANA, 1997 video

Walking down the street I was caught by the sound of a blind musician who tapped a pail with one hand, chanted and accompanied himself with a maraca.

BUYING A CAMERA photo

First, you have to buy a camera. A visit to B&H will show you what's available.

THERE'S A WORLD OUT THERE

A single frame doc about a thumb on a wheel.

CEREBRUM WAS AN INFLUENCE

My interest in images emerged strongly in the late '60s when I joined the crew at Cerebrum in NYC.

In 1968 an innovative entertainment concept was introduced in New York by Ruffin Cooper, Jr., a banker's son from Texas who was joined by a score or more of independent artists and media freaks. A ground-level Soho loft on Mercer Street became a nightly laboratory for mind bending excursions into film, sound, slides, mist, music, strobes and eroticism. Visitors exchanged their clothing at the door for sheer white gowns and were lead along a raised cat-walk to connected media platforms where they became canvases for the artists in the projection booths perched high at either end of the studio. Then Cerebrum Guides offered them toys for the senses, including headphones, Viewmasters, slide projectors, parachutes, spools of magnetic tape for unwinding, etc., so they could interact with other guests and the environment. There was usually just one event each night. The white gowns were laundered every day, usually. More can be read about Cerebrum by visiting this site:

http://www.interiordesign.net/article...

Cooper went on to become a Hog Farmer at the Woodstock Festival and a well known San Francisco based photographer of architectural subjects printed in mammoth scale. His show, Creating an Illusion: huge, consecutive photo details compositing the face of the Statue of Liberty, printed on fabric, spanned the length of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC in 1985.

Creators of, and visitors to Cerebrum are invited to comment about their recollections. I'm happy to have been able to restore this film and I'm certain many of you will be happy to have seen it.

The film is an off-air from a local channel's broadcast crew (NYC)

CEREBRUM, SOHO, NY 1968 off-air newscast

IT STARTS LIKE THIS

Seeking images, camera and tripod in trunk