Wacky Revival

A year after our sitting for Index Magazine, David Sedaris did a segment for This American Life about three photo shoots, the third one being mine. It was called “Death to Wacky.”

Like always, I came to this session with a mix of simple ideas and conceptually-driven ones. I brought along a pack of cheap theatrical cigarettes, and had a dumb/brilliant idea of having him shove the package in his mouth, instead of smoking an individual cigarette. It was a goofy idea, but if I played right, it could be funny, in a surreal way.

We started by doing some shooting on the small La Mama stage, where he was preparing for an upcoming production. We then moved to the theater’s basement hallway to do more. We shot with the cigarette pack jammed into his mouth for a little bit, and he looked uncomfortable, but I didn’t think much of it. I’m not a mind reader, and different people respond to being photographed in different ways.

When he told me that he wasn’t comfortable doing the candy-cigarette scenario, we stopped shooting it. He was clearly unhappy with what we’d done so far, so I said, “How about I show you a test Polaroid of each setup going forward, and you tell me which you like and which you don’t.” “I won’t like any of them,” he responded. I thought, “Well, where do I go from here?“ If he’s not going to like anything I try, I suppose that I’ll just do whatever I want.

It was like he was punishing me by doing whatever I asked, in a heightened passive-aggressive way. It was truly bizarre, and full-on masochistic. At some point, it was clear that he was just disengaged, so we wrapped.

The magazine was happy with the pictures, and strangely ran the initial setup with the toy cigarettes in his mouth.

Below is the transcript of the third segment of "Death to Wacky," David Sedaris's take on our sitting. When I heard the radio program, I was upset and on the verge of tears. Over time, I tried to see it in the context of him as a satirist, but even to this day, I can’t revisit this piece without being angry at how he misrepresents what actually happened in the room.

I always thought that there was nothing worse than a tech rehearsal, but that was before I met today's photographer. Because we're busy trying to open this play, I asked if he would mind coming to the theater. He set up his lights in the basement and greeted me, saying, "You're a s smoker, aren't you? Do I have the right person?" I say, "Yes. I smoke." And he handed me a package of novelty cigarettes designed to look as though they were lit.

"I want you to put these in your mouth," he said. "Not the individual cigarettes, but the whole package."

There were maybe three cigarettes all together, but what with the cardboard backing and the plastic cover, the package was the size of one of those soap carriers children sometimes take to camp. It was a tight and nasty-tasting fit, but whenever you complain, the photographers act like you're ruining not just their day but their entire life. This is their livelihood and there you are spoiling it with your vanity.

The underlying message is that they're doing you a favor. Here you'll be in a magazine, people will read about you and maybe buy your book; shouldn't you be grateful? I thought of the people who might buy the book based on this picture, and then I withdrew the package from my mouth, saying that it felt silly to me.

I thought that I explained myself fairly well. The photographer crossed his arms and nodded in all the right places before saying, "What if we get you lying on the ground with an extension cord in your mouth? That might be fun. What do you say?"

Top Image: David Sedaris, La Mama Theater, NYC. February 4, 1997.

Second Images: Chris’s notebook going into the session; Sedaris near the end of their time together.

Third Image: Sedaris on the stage, the picture that appears in Buck’s portrait monograph, Uneasy.

Bottom Images: Two interesting outtakes from the session.