"I need a camera to my eye, to my eye,..."

I want to be Daniel Plainview so bad.

So, the other night while looking for my Bridge Burning matches, I stumbled upon a huge huge box of photos and other assorted paper-based memorabilia. Photos from me and my brother as kids, from my parents as kids, from my grandparents as kids. As many people know, I have a passionate love of old things, brown things, and my family, and this box was esentially full of old, brown, family pics. Fuckin' Bonzai!

I feel like this is the perfect time for a trip down memory lane in the form of a photo blog, so here go. Buckle in and hold on tight to the safety bar. Expectant mothers shouldn't ride. Because this photo parade will make your baby die. Honestly. It's that good.

Now, I really hate to be the dude who posts old pictures of himself on the internet, so I made a rule that I would only post pictures of me if I was almost naked, hilariously fat, or holding a weapon.

So, without further what-have-you's, I give you:

ICONIS: 

An Intimate Look Back In Pictures

What better way to get the ball rolling than with a "Baby Joe holding a gun" picture?! I was probably two or three here. I can tell because by age four, the shift in the spectacle-over-content emphasis in American Musical Theater had turned my eyes smoky with bitter disgust. But not here- those peepers are full of hope and promise. They look like a pair of "Anything Is Possible" hope pies.

Please take special note of my badass Blue Suede Shoes, and (in a gloriously stereotypical display of What It Means To Be An ItalianAmerican) the tub of Ricotta Cheese sitting on my grandmother's living room coffee table.

This is "Danny's Haven," a restaurant in Baldwin, Long Island, that my fam used to own. How cool looking is that? My grandfather later opened a restaurant called "Joe's Place," which was awesome because I could be all like: "Let's go back to my place" and the girl would be like: "Cheeky!" and I'd be like, "Whatever, I'm just talking about a restaurant! Get your mind out of the gutter, girl!"

Several things to address about that caption:

1) I've never actually had a conversation that was even remotely similar the proposed one above.

2) When my grandfather owned "Joe's Place" I was six.

3) The idea of six-year-old Me saying: "Let's go back to my place" is making me laugh. Because when I was six, the line I'd always use was: "Whattaya say we go back to my place and take a look at my Japanese stamp collection?" Oh, man, that got me so much pussy back then.

Speaking of Pussy (ho ho), this is my old cat Spunky (of "Spunky4evr@aol.com" fame.) She was black and a total bitch but I loved her.

Hell Yes, son. I told you the stamp line worked. This is me getting ready to go to the "Winter Wonderland" dance in high school. I will not reveal the name of my date, because she is clearly weirded out by me. She also kind of looks like Diane Sawyer's daughter on Dress-Up-Like-Your-Mommy-Day-'89. This might be Senior year of high school. It is probably the best picture of me taken during those days. Which brings us to...

More Really-Fat-Joe pictures! Yes! This was probably around my Freshman/Sophomore year of high school. In my defense, the shirt was not my doing. I had to wear it to perform the "Comedy Tonight" number in my Summer Camp Show. I actually think that I look like a middle aged lesbian in this picture. Cool.

Sometimes you're looking through a box of pictures and you find a photo of your grandmother on the beach at Coney Island wearing a suit and draped in a scantily clad, unidentified young woman. You'd never guess it by the "I lost my spirit and my gag reflex on the same Sunday evening" eyes that my grandmother's making in that picture, but that icy young woman would one day blossom into...

The personification of early 1970s middle-aged glamour. This picture kills me. It's so of its time that it feels unsafe to look directly at it.  This was taking on the morning of my mother's wedding.

My mom as a teenager. Total fox, right? This is the most art-directed photo of all time. This photo cleaned up in the technical categories of the guild awards. This photo is The Last Emporer.

My love of them things started Early.

Remember that time that dude drove his car through our fence?  Yeah. That was crazy. Craaaazy.

My brother's birth announcement. I think they really captured his womanly eyelashes.

My grandparent's engagement announcement! Fuckin' wild, right?! 59 years ago Right This Very Moment, a sloppy group of Italians were livin' it up at the Knights of Columbus, Bushwick Ave, toasting the future. I'm really in the mood to send out an announcement now. Unfortunately, I have nothing to announce. Perhaps I'll make something up. Perhaps I won't. Perhaps I'll go buy some potato chips instead. Yeah. That's what I'm gonna do.

(JOE leaves and walks to the deli on 6th Ave. He scans the potato chip display. Olive Oil and Rosemary Chips? Possibly. Salt and Vinegar? Definitely. Joe excitedly lunges for the Salt and Vinegar chips but stops himself. He thinks of the pictures from The Fat Years. He picks up a bag of Soy Chips and exhales wearily.)

One thing I discovered is that the sky and the moon and trees have always looked the same. Funny.

For some reason I had taken a picture of a scene from the movie HAPPINESS. Please take note of the illegal cable box and the white baby giraffe in the corner. That baby giraffe always turned away whenever a Solondz film was on. Said she was more of a Hal Hartley girl. What a snob.

This is my gramps. How cool was this man? Red sunglasses inside? Yes. Right on. It's so weird to me that people who have been coming to my shows the past couple months have been meeting my fam (my grandmas, my parents, my bro) and my grandfather isn't there. Totally bums me out. The man was the greatest dude in the whole world, and is definitely hugely responsible (aka "to blame") for me being the way I am. If I ever bought you a drink, you should probably give a nod to Joe Bonanno and thank him for bringing me up right. At any rate, I like having this pic out there in the world. Yes. I may start using this when people ask for a headshot or publicity photo.

This is my gramps when he was probably around my age. This pic reminds me of me.  Definitely my favorite one that I found.

Really, what can you say about this? This is what I looked like nine years ago. Take note of the sculpted eyebrows, baffling hair, and exquisitely-buckled turtle neck. It sort of looks like I'm crying, too. Phil's in braces, looking like a Real Live American Teenager.

That is me and Kevin in a fucking Pumpkin Patch. Neither of us have any idea where or why this was taken, but Holy Yes is this shit beautiful. Take note of my (too small) Garden City hoodie, and Kevin's jaunty pose. Also of note are my sneakers, which were later used in BACK TO THE FUTURE 2, and Kevin's jacket which he had borrowed from one of THE GOLDEN GIRLS.

And finally, the greatest photo of me ever taken. There is nothing I can say about it, except that I have every intention of re-enacting it this summer. My physique is strangely similar. Slightly smaller tits and a lot more hair, but, basically, the same. Nice to know that some things never change.  Ah.

Oh, and now I have a really big cock and balls, too.

-joe