Michael Galinsky

I want to tell you a little bit about my journey as an artist/photographer. I got interested in photo in high school and joined the yearbook and the newspaper. The day after I graduated I did my first real “shoot”. The Klan marched in my hometown and I documented it. When I went to college I knew I wanted to be a photographer but I chafed against expectations and systems. I met a photo student, Chris Mahoney, who gave me two pieces of amazing advice. Don’t crop your images and - go to the photo book store and look at all the books. I did  and discovered what energized me. Two years later I took a color printing class and stumbled into my mall project. My wonderful teacher inspired me to continue it. That was my first real project. I drove across the country and shot in malls that summer. My friend and I met almost no one and it was not a fun trip. Still, I got some important work done. It just took 20 plus years for people to notice it. The next year I took my first photo class and made both a personal book and a book about the people who sold stuff on Astor Place (at the time I didn’t realize that this project was deeply connected to the mall project- different aspects of Commerce). I might have to make a book with both of them. Shortly after my mall trip I started a band. I began to move from taking pictures of bands playing - to making band portraits to documenting the scene. A few years later I met Suki Hawley and we began a long practice of working together. Our first film “Half-Cocked” continued that documentation and combined it with her background in classic Hollywood. We took that film on tour like a band. The soundtrack she put together slaps hard. We followed that up with another film (on film) about the music scene, “Radiation”. We started to make documentaries. The first “Horns and Halos” was about an underground publisher who re-printed a book about GW Bush - (we were joined by David Beilinson for that and thereafter). Then came “Code 33”, “Battle for Brooklyn”, “Who Took Johnny”, “All The Rage: Saved by Sarno”, “Working in Protest”, “The Commons” and more recently 4 years of documenting the Savannah Bananas. More info at RUMUR.com

I took out my still camera and made some portraits before, during, and after the second @theindianapolisclowns game this weekend. It’s the sixth first headliner game I’ve shot, and it was by far the smoothest. While The Clowns did not win their games they absolutely won their show. It’s been amazing to witness the explosive growth of The Banana Ball Leauge. As @yellowtuxjesse often says, they’re just getting started.

Somewhere we have a lot of video from our only European tour. Otherwise I don’t think we have any. This was posted a while back. This was from our first album on @slumberlandrecords - punk rock city USA. I think @mencker and Fred put this single out on picture book artifact. On that album I borrowed a lot from @loubarlow in terms of power chords and more guitar like playing. It’s kind of wild to see us 34 years ago

Dungbeetle at Lounge Ax in Chicago. My band sleepyhead did a 10 day tour with them through the Midwest and probably 1993. It was a very intense 10 days. Very few shows paid enough for gas money, and a couple paid nothing. But, we pushed ourselves in each other every night. I only have vague memories of the trip, but I remember that Chicago was special.

There are no such thing as coincidences. Last week I was cleaning up a drawer and found two rolls of exposed film. So, I took them in to @sec_carrboro - a few days later I flew to Indianapolis to film the first headliner game for @theindianapolisclowns - The idea to bring back the Clowns was birthed in 2022 at @nlbmuseumkc in Kansas City at the last event of our Bananaland series. The head of the museum had been at the game the night before. He told the group that he was moved by the spirit of the Indianapolis Clowns. Everyone was blown away by what they saw there. A few weeks earlier @magean.wolf had pitched in Columbus GA and she was moved by the exhibit about the female players on the Clowns. Her husband Mat had borrowed many tricks from a video on exhibit - and he used them all, and many more in an electrifying performance in the game last nights @tannerthomas_ told me that at the museum @yellowtuxjesse bought a Clowns pennant and turned around and told him - we’re gonna bring them back. It happened with very deep collaboration with the museum and I think everyone was overwhelmed by the show last night. I got the images from those rolls on Thursday night. They were shot by my daughter Fiona in Kansas City - that weekend that launched the dream that unfolded this weekend. It is kind of unbelievable that it was these images at this moment The first Image is one I took with Fiona’s camera of her with @ebyrnes22 who was an electric coach and a thoughtful presence who embraced Fiona. A few images later shows Jesse’s dad with his wife and Jesse and Emily’s kids. I showed hid dad’s wife the image and she showed me the photo she was taking. The next two are the plaza set up for the Clowns. Then one of Mat and Maegan’s daughter / followed by one last night - 4 years later. Lastly - @matwolf_ a two former clowns - Bill Heward and his former teammate Nub Anderson who were reunited at the game. - Instagram suggested the ramones track miracles happen. Yes they do.

@thebrowndaniel in mid 90’s - trip to the Hersey shore - 8 people in a small house

Stereolab on their first US visit in 1992. 📸 by Michael Galinsky @rumurpix I first found Stereolab in the early aughts at College. Their album Dots and Loops was on high rotation during that time (and still is!) and it’s one of those albums that takes me right back to a certain place in time. @stereolabgroop #stereolab #90s #art #TheBandWasHere #music

I went to the airport with @harpergalinsky this morning - she’s going to Europe with her friend - on the plane I scrolled through photos and landed on a trip we took to see her friend Sidra near the tail end of Covid - I drew a picture of her on the plane. Man that pandemic did a number on us all but especially them. Now AI will eat our jobs, identity, and brains. We have to resist the new colonialism of stateless oligarchs mining our shared intelligence for overwhelming profit -

Early morning near grand central 1990

It’s all in the post. But it’s also kind of frightening

We need more of this.

I got crushed to the floor in crippling pain in 2004 and again in 2011. The first time I went to see Dr Sarno and I slowly got better. At that point we tried to make a documentary with him. We started by doing some very informal interviews as we tried to raise money to make the film- and tried to figure what kind of film it would be. This is from one of those visits. We had just made a verite film about an underground publisher, following his efforts to republish a discredited book about GW Bush. Dr Sarno was not doing anything active in the public eye that we could follow in that way. I thought maybe we could film when he promoted his new book “The Dived Mind”. When I asked about it he told me it had been released 4 months earlier. He was not a self promoter. There was also so much resistance to his work that no one was interested in funding it. It stalled. Eventually, my pain came raging back and I realized I had to be in it in order to tell a story. It took 6 more years but the works was beginning to open to his ideas. 10 years ago when we finished it he was still an outcast but now his ideas are so widely accepted his insights are taken for granted. It’s amazing to look back 20 years and see the shifts in video technology as well mind body awareness. Link to our film All The Rage - in bio