Hangin w/The White Stripes–Hardest Button Vid Shoot–KNARF001

[KNARF]

Children,

This is my first real post. The others were just ISOs. "Oh, so he's not just here to buy stuff after all."

I've had numerous encounters with The White Stripes–especially in the early De Stijl days.
I share with you the memorable day of Saturday July 26th 2003 in New York.

I began the day pissed off cause I had to work on Saturday–my day off. I worked at a big advertising agency in midtown
and working late nights and weekends without any extra pay was part of my job description or else you just got fired.
At around 10AM I get a call from a good friend who lived up in Harlem. This is what he says to me:
"Come up to Grant's Tomb now! The White Stripes are performing in the middle of the street"

I blanked out for a few seconds. It made no sense to me. Why would the White Stripes play in the middle of the street in Harlem of all places?
Without wasting another second, I told him I'd meet him there. I instantly left the office and jumped into a cab.
Bizarrely enough there were Jack & Meg on the street–fresh off the release of their new album Elephant.
I got to the set at about 11AM and did not leave until they were done shooting when it got dark around 6PM.
Yep, 7+ hours with the White Stripes on the streets of New York. Aside from the production crew who did not care about The White Stripes,
there was no one else there. I spoke to Michel Gondry the director and he was totally cool with a fan hanging out.
And between takes, there was plenty of time to chat with Jack & Meg.

That day I just so happened to be wearing the only white shirt I owned.
I already had paper items signed and wanted something different, so I first asked Meg to sign my shirt.
Meg laughed, and so did Jack. I've got behind the scenes video I shot throughout that day too.
Have not looked at that stuff for many years. Man WHAT A DAY!!!
This ranks up there as one of the greatest days of my life.
No fighting anyone to get closer. None of that fan stuff.
We were just hanging out–all day. A moment in time with The White Stripes.

But, there's something significant that happened that day.
See the pic below with Jack and I? This was taken underneath this big tunnel in the park
while the crew was prepping the set for the next shot. Jack was just waiting there.
After this photo was taken, I took this opportunity to tell Jack something that really lit up his eyes
and prompted him to give me his email address so I can man him photos.
You can probably guess what it was, but I'll leave that for another post.

I hope this does not come across as braggy. Hard to tell a personal experience and not sound braggy.
It's like when people get back from vacation and they act like they're better than you.
It's crazy that these photos have been on my hard drive for nearly 10 years.
I'm happy to share them with the greatest fans in the world. There's a lot more rare photos and video I have from much earlier days.
That's what's most ironic about this particular day. It's not from a super early White Stripes period when it was very easy to get close.
But somehow it happened.

As time goes on, I'll organize all my White Stripes photos, videos, etc. and share with you.
What a waste for this stuff to just be buried on my computer.

Oh and I never made it back to work that day.

[dmdv1]

Wowowowow

[mvickers03]

Wow.. nice story my friend, sounds like you had a hell of a day!

[love_islander]

You don't need all those ISO items with stories like that

[runofthemill]

Cool story dude.

[csbanta]

I hope you have that shirt framed or something. Epic day sir, jealousy runeth over

[mojoryan]

Excellent. Very cool to hear about the donated drum sets...very cool, indeed.

[Hamptonio]

Incredible!

[hellosmith]

No way! What a great experience. Will be cool to see your videos also!

[flattop2001]

Cool story, thanks for sharing. Looking forward to part 2.

[hsp88]

very cool, gotta hear the story of you giving jack an airline guitar (what your alluding to i think)

[arewhyehen]

Wow, just....WOW

[3rdmwsiy]

VERY NICE! Thats some special shiz, you lucky dawg!! I, also cant wait for your videos!! Thanks for sharing!!

[Kali Durga]

very cool, gotta hear the story of you giving jack an airline guitar (what your alluding to i think)

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this part, too. I've read about it elsewhere, but it'll be very interesting to hear it now, directly from the source.

Thank you for sharing your reminiscences with us, Frank.

[Imcoolerthanu50]

I'm jealous. Super cool story!