Taimak and I first met in Club Limelight in 1996, eleven years after the of release of The Last Dragon, Meeting him first impression was that he was a down to earth person and didn't ride his ego from The Last Dragon. Years later he would frequently visit my job at Unique Copy Center at the East Village, making copies of Iron on transfers for his Fitness venture Taimak Fitness. Now it has been 20 years and threw a mutual friend became really close.
Like me we have been born in the Year of The Dragon, and we started talking about how 2 dragons would collaborate in film and photography. My idea was to do a photo-shoot and interview that would cover the mystery that surrounded him after the success of The Last Dragon. Taimak has done everything from modeling, choreographing a Madonna video, teaching Director guy Ritchie Jujitsu, and even Robert Deniros son.
I just wandered in the latest Occupy Wall Street protest that was northbound on 22nd street and ended at Tompkins Square park. The protest at first seemed organized, later turned into aimless wandering around the lower east side. Some protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct, nobody was hurt, surprisingly N.Y.P.D didn't break any heads.
I used a Canon 7D with a pentax m42 105mm 2.8 lens
Totally unprepared for this cool spectacle, I exited a manhattan bound F train on the 63rd street station and to my surprise there were no lights. I had left my Canon 7D home and proceeded to photograph this odd situation with my 8 megapixel android phone on 400 ISO.
I was startled by someone banging on my door Thursday morning. My mother answered thinking it was housing or U.P.S. It was the N.Y.P.D warrant squad looking for an African American male in his 30s. The two officers were in plainclothes. Both bald and could pass for brothers, one was 6'5 the other was 5'6. They had a picture and asked my mom if she seen him, She said no and closed the door. The man in the picture did not look familiar. For the following hour they knocked and banged loudly on the neighbors door, threatening to kick it down if he didn't answered.
It was apparent that there was nobody at the apartment, the warrant squad was relentless, kicking the door, and even removing the peep hole by prying a screwdriver and removing the plate. Later they once again banged on my door, and asked my mom in an authoritative voice if she is alone, I answered "No she is with me and there is a doorbell on my fucking door !". One of the warrant squad officers tried to put his hand through the hole to open the door but failed. They left taking the peephole with them, leaving a large hole in my neighbor's door.
The ironic twist was that they had the wrong apartment.
Here are these same cops after failing to kick the steel door in removing the peep hole .
