Empty pockets: man, I know what that feels like.  I remembered the early days of my career.  In particular one saturday morning, I was paying my bills, I’d paid them all and had a desk full of debris from the bills, and I had $306 left in my checking account.  It was a great feeling to be in the black for a change.

As I cleared the debris from the desk… the envelopes, the envelope stuffers, a pile of waste paper… I discovered, at the bottom, one more bill, my American Express bill,  $360, had somehow been overlooked.  I was really in the red, I couldn’t pay it.

One of the reasons I was running a deficit was that I had something all wasted photographers (the good ones, anyway) had.  I had a refrigerator full of Kodachrome.  During that period of empty pockets, I spent an inordinate amount of time wandering the streets of New York, visually commiserating with my peers, buskers, street musicians, the only guys who seemed to have less than I did.  Seeing Russ’ image, feeling the title, I reached into my files.

Sherman, set the Wayback Machine to 1976, we’re visiting Fifth Avenue in New York City…..