This is not a political statement, This is an original 4 x 5 negative that my great uncle Sal shot in 1974 at the famous jet setters club the Strawhat in Manhattan Sal did his mind reading hypnotizing act while playing the piano He would photograph all the famous people that came in and out of there the women in that club were spectacular I have some of those images This is my most valuable negative and I have three nice offers for it it’s a one of a kind and sharp as attack and the most wrecking nice face on planet earth may that be good or bad

We all went down to the meadowlands to do a little gambling on those horses Vinny bravo in the middle hit $17,000 that night and Vinny was a party guy after the horse track we took a limo to Atlantic City last we remembered poor Bruce on the right got arrested My partner Scott on the left after 10 or 15 drinks he gets in the Tourette Syndrome mode is actually quite funny After two days and two nights we all came back with more money then we left with especially Vinny the good old days

Whenever some beautiful girls walked into my store in time square I would always say so where is the beauty pageant 90% of the time they always gave a big smile this time I said it and they were the girls that were actually in the beauty pageant in Venezuela, They ended up spending close to $3000 in souvenirs cameras and a iPhone I gave the girls my card and said call me will go out they never called I guess they lost my card ha ha

An incredible story behind this self portraits all I can tell you now is 1938 Saint Patrick’s Church Elizabeth New Jersey and that sells lover Jimmy Lansing the story you’ll be in the book the Terracina masquerade a comedic look at a sexually driven mob family

In my over 40 year career of photographing beautiful women I ended up publishing over 1000 of them from Ballarrinas to exotic dancers You also can throw in a couple hundred wild portfolios in the late 80s the 900 numbers came out you know talk to a sexy girl for $1.99 a minute this was a major big business in America and the rest of the world I was in a good place at the time to capture those faces of seduction not that the girls were loose or anything they just knew how to hold the phone and make that seductive face I have an amazing group of pictures called faces of seduction some girls have it some don’t these girls right here do

March 27, 1981 South Florida’s most talked about story The largest drug seizure in the history of South Florida 200 tons of panama red I was working for the Key West Citizen newspaper as a photographer at the time I got the call at 8 o’clock in the morning Lisa and I just got in from partying all night and photographing sunrise I was the first photographer on site at the Navy Yard hundreds and hundreds of 90 pound bales everywhere they actually had some of the prisoners from the County jail unloading the ship I shot a lot of great pictures that morning front page in three different newspapers high times magazine I am still making money with that photograph 40 years later to make a long story short before the ship got busted with 200 tons of incredible weed they probably threw overboard 50 tons every boat in the Florida Keys we’re out fishing that night and day Ha Ha and here’s the funniest part about the story Five tractor trailer trucks come down to Key West to pick up all the weed to bring it to the birthing facility one road out the trucks had police motorcycle escorts somehow they lost a truck my best friend Roger Bartel was the managing editor of the newspaper at the time We were hanging out in the office when he got the call true story Key West the way it was

I have a lot of great uncles this is my great uncle Joey back in the 40s he was a wild man golden glove boxer, pool hustler, sold a lot of watches on 42nd St. and running numbers, he ended up becoming a professional performer in the 60s playing the washboard And landed a great job with the roaring 20s band your fathers mustache he appeared on the Jackie Gleason show twice in Miami Ed Sullivan show played all the Yankee games even played for president Johnson and his wife in the White House I was very fortunate to hang out with him when he played at his brothers bar Captain Tony’s saloon in Key West of course Sal took this photo my great uncle Joey had a great apartment in the village in New York City for 50 years and he was married to a beautiful Jewish belly dancer I use to have lunch with him twice a month for years in Manhattan I actually named my youngest son after him, most of my great stories about Sal and my grandfather the captain are from my great uncle Joey miss him

In the late 70s and early 80s the young people were listening to new wave rock ‘n’ roll we had a band called Metro at my grandfathers bar They played all that music six nights a week during the season from nine at night to 3:30 in the morning this band drew a interesting group of customers of course the tourists fisherman the locals even pulled in the Tony Montana’s and Henry Hills of course the Henry Hill guys were my friends I controled the door back then I took a lot of photos did a lot of serious partying like everybody else in the bar the band customers and the bartenders we all had a blast my grandfather was either at the dog track or upstairs playing cards and if he wasn’t at either of those places he was with one of his girlfriends Key West The way it was over 40 years ago

New York City is a fantastic place it’s the city that never sleeps there is always something going on if you know the right group of people, In the 30 years of me photographing in Manhattan I acquired a incredible group of friends and Connections sometimes I would get a dozen emails a day about some type of event, runway show, even private parties with special code words to get in I always walked around with a spectacular press pass with my photo on it it says in big letters Portraits of New York I never was interested in the runway shows very boring I loved behind the scenes I would go right to the make up rooms were the girls are getting ready And get great photos if you go to my digital library mia5.com you will see over 65,000 images that I edited out of a quarter of 1 million it’s still an art project in the works I spent 30 years taking pictures in New York City they say it’s the largest portrait website by one artist I still haven’t met one artist that matches my numbers sorry about the bragging I am one of those Italian guys from New Jersey we can’t help it This is one of those images with the girls are getting ready at a Herbert Fox Fashion party 2003

In 1949 Sal worked for the bazaar traveling carnival the World of Mirth he went under the name of the great Saltar he did his mind reading mask making, played the piano, and did all the photographs. This portrait right here is of one of the midget clowns that worked for the carnival. Freddy that’s what they called him. he had some other names in the two prison terms he served, back in the day when you got a job with the carnival they didn’t check records too much, anyway my great uncle Sal told me he traveled with a bunch of these midget clown from Canada down to Virginia he said he was never so scared of a human being like this Freddy clown. Sal had to bunk with him when they were traveling a couple times