jackassworld

Okay, so perhaps I was a bit harsh in disparaging that last fucking photo (or so it would seem, as Dimitry keeps bringing up my smartass remark and refuses to let it go), but you’ll have to forgive me because I’m pretty critical when it comes to fucks in general. That said, this was the other photo I was referring to.

The year was 1997. Big Brother magazine was already several comfortable months into its relationship with newly adoptive parent company Larry Flynt Publications, and we were all still a good bit giddy about the novelty of working in a Beverly Hills office building as opposed to the industrial ghetto of El Segundo. So giddy, in fact, that the very idea of having windows that looked out onto the thriving streets of Los Angeles opened up a whole new avenue of creative release (meanwhile, in the office without any windows, Chris Pontius was releasing himself all over the “make up” pages found in our overabundance of porn magazines).

So this particular afternoon at work was spent taping up sheets of 11 x 17 paper to our prominent third story plate glass canvas. The message was clear, simple and direct, and plastered directly above the famously busy intersection of La Cienega and Wilshire Boulevards. Standing on the street below with tears of laughter streaming down my face, I learned something very important about myself while looking up at the gigantic cuss word that was attracting attention and onlookers from surrounding office buildings: I’m really not the most worthwhile human on the face of the Earth. In this one remarkably stupid instance I expressed more emotion than virtually any other significantly important moment in my life. Take, for instance, my wife’s announcement that she was a pregnant, the momentous news of which I replied in all deadpan sincerity, “I’m cool with that.” What an idiot.

But really, wasn’t this a truly great fuck (it ran as the “intro” photo to Big Brother issue 33)? I still consider it to be one of my top ten happiest moments in life…next to the actual birth of my son, of course.

(photo by Rick Kosick)