Me And Monkey

Photo (c) James Mitchell

This charming sensitive portrait of me and Monkey (that's me on the left) is actually a few years old, shot when I was a youthful 63 and Monkey about a year younger. We were sitting around outside of Starbucks on Biscayne Blvd. and 135th St., me smoking cigarettes as usual. Monkey doesn't smoke, never has, but he does seem to enjoy being around smokers. He prefers ganga smokers though. Starbucks doesn't allow that on the patio.

I'll be turning 66 in a couple of weeks on the ninth of November. I'm not sure about Monkey's birthday, though. He keeps it a secret. He and I have a long history together!

He got really excited yesterday when we got an email from James telling us that he'd be in town toward the end of January or beginning of February. He wants to get James to photograph him together with Monkette. He said that James shoots better portraits than I do. Thanks a lot! Hell, at this point James probably had my 85mm f/2 Nikkor on his Leica, judging by the contrast and bokeh. He fell in love with that lens, and ended up buying two of them, one chrome, one black. Mine is chrome. I love it dearly, but when it comes to cuddling a toy monkey is much better than any silly old lens, don't you think?