My second roll of film 1977 end of Simonton St., Sunset Key West Florida some rain clouds were coming in When I developed this film and saw this print I realized I want to be a photographer 43 years ago Key West the way it was
My oldest son James Bond Terracina that’s right on his drivers license and birth certificate I took this photo of him 20 years ago he was made man at an early age Just kidding kind of
Abe Lagoda One of Sals good buddies you might remember him from the Barney Miller show or the Godfather remember when he asked Robert Duvall can you cut me a break for all time sake then they killed him, Sal did his portraits in 1976 above Captain Tony’s saloon in Key West Inn his mask photography studio
The definition of a womanizer Captain Tony Tarracino, Famous fishing boat captain, saloon owner, Gambler and smuggler worked for the CIA briefly during the Bay of Pigs four wives 13 children, That we know of, and to make you a full blooded womanizer he was the mayor of Key West Florida party town USA, My grandmother was his first wife I’m his oldest grandson I was fortunate to work for him in the 70s and 80s great education this photo right here is in front of his saloon with a young lady named Stacy, In 1969 I finally got to meet my grandfather the captain and his third wife and beautiful stepdaughter’s but at night time we all went to dinner with him and his girlfriend the young lady in the photo she was About eight years older than me I was only 13 years old back then, 7 years after our vacation in Key West I moved there And started working for the Captain at the bar, The only reason why I had that job is because he was at the dog track every night pretty much, or having high stake poker games above the bar if he wasn’t doing either of those things he was running around with one of his women, in 1979 he took off to Las Vegas left me in charge of the bar first time His ex-girlfriend Stacy stoped day She lived in another state came on vacation we got to hang out she told me some crazy stories About my grandfather I never knew I miss that old pirate
Anybody who follows me knows I have over a half of 1 million negatives and digital chips that my great uncle Sal and myself have taken over a span of 90 years A lot of large format negatives from the 30s and 40s this image right here is from the late 60s at a club that Sal worked at called the straw hat a lot of rich good looking men went there and some very sexy women it was a players club Sal played the piano at the bar and did his mind reading hypnotizing act on his break he would always take pictures of the interesting customers like this gentleman right here I love holding these 4 x 5“ negatives on the lightbox and play around some features on my iPhone Don’t know who this guy is but I’m guessing My great uncle Sal knew he was good looking
I post exotic dancers from time to time only because I published over 1200 of them and did hundreds of their portfolios, I’m the guy who use to publish a lot of girls holding the phone and looking very sexy and saying call me For $1.99 a minute I also supplied Howard Stern with a lot of those Snapple girls in the late 80s when all the smoke cleared I was contacted by CNBC to be on the Bob Berkowitz show, Real Personal I was one of the experts in dancers of America and nude photography it went coast to coast the reason why I post this one picture is because in 1989 about 1000 Brazilian girls got into this country to become strippers and meet some rich American suckers I saw it happen 100 times the Russians were the worst In New Jersey at the time there were over 200 strip clubs and 6000 exotic dancers running around between New York and New Jersey it was crazy back then
Back in the Late 70s and early 80s there was this incredible band called Devo you know that famous song Wip be good Well they also had a movie production company after my feature story came out in American photo about Sal in 2004 and my special cable TV show in Jersey The story was out I was approached by a bunch of different publishers and producers Evelyn did a book deal with one of the largest publishing companies in Europe Tashan publishing they just completed the Muhammad Ali book he gave me a nice little contract with check we were in motion as far as the movie rights Gerald Caselli from the band Devo made his move to buy the movie rights another great contract with check I ended up having too many cooks in the kitchen the whole thing blew up 18 years have gone by and I am now once again a free agent with a new book complete, A comedic look at a sexually driven mob family Funny as hell we also completed another book Key west the way it was the 70s Be very careful speeding in the fast lane with no seatbelts on the Keith and Lisa story
Back in the late 80s a new business was born the famous 900 number call a beautiful hot young sexy girl and she will talk dirty to you and you can talk dirty to her it kind of took the world by storm it’s been going on for a while but now it was full blown out thing, we purchased a couple of those 900 numbers my job was to try to find girls with very seductive faces i use to call them faces of seduction they were just normal nice girls had nothing to do with what what the real girls on the other end of the phone we’re doing, you were never talking to the girl in the picture, either in the back of a magazines or little business cards thrown over the streets in a big City I had a friend who is very big in this business he had an office with over 30 girls on the phones if you got to listen in on the conversations it was hilarious I got to learn A lot about how fucked up guys Like us really are not me of course
This is Mr.Neptune one of Sals larger masks he’s been around since 1938 he is known as the mask of wisdom he has a bunch of interesting ingredients in his papier-mâché mix pyramid scrapings from Egypt, Haitian voodoo dust, Cambodian opium, and secret potions from around the world there is one special ingredient that Sal put into his mix, that will be in the book some real crazy stuff anyway this photo right here is in one of Sals photography mask studios in Manhattan, Mr. Neptune was in a bunch of Broadway plays Tobacco Road, Uncle Tom’s cabin Sal made about 40 of these giant masks In his lifetime there’s another couple hundred smaller ones I have 60 of them as far as the giant ones I only have three the one you’re looking at here Neptune lisa and I have him in one of our rooms and a bunch other ones all over the house, I used them for the last 20 years in my photography studios great backgrounds and they have been known to hypnotize of the models or scare them
What you’re looking at is a square foot block of mahogany 1 inch thick on top of it is a super imposed negative on a sheet of glass it was custom-made the year 1929 great uncle Sal wanted to get his first professional promo picture for his mind reading performance also hypnotizing people and playing the piano he was very booked in many clubs in Chicago and New York You could see all the original ads on this site that’s right i have amazing stories with photo back up that’s why this book is going to become famous anyway the interesting thing about this negative is Sal wanted the photographer to stare into the camera so he could try to hypnotize him Bottom line don’t stare at this photo too long, Sal has been known to enter your dreams which could turn into a nightmare if you were an asshole, These are not my words as Sals little brother Captain Tony Captain Tony would say Don’t fuck with Sal There’s things you don’t know about him
