The Art of Boredon

Sometimes being on the road for weeks at a time, living in motels and eating crap food, can get you down. My recent trip to Iowa with UK photographer Sacha Maric, where we did a story about the Crystal Meth problem that has plagued the USA and looks to be on its way to Europe, was one such trip. The story was sad and depressing and after seven days we were tired and wanted to go home.

We were in a frame of mind where we couldn't really focus. Sacha wanted to go home to his girlfriend, I wanted to go home to my wife and daughter, but it seemed like the interviews and appointments would never end.

Finally we made it to our last motel. Just down the road from the Des Moines airport from which we were flying the next morning. Relief washed over us. No more depression. No more drugs and sad stories to record. We sat on our beds in the motel room, flicking through the TV channels before going out for a beer. Sacha found WWF Wrestling and we both burst out laughing. I laughed harder as Sacha started running round the room growling, doing faux wrestling moves. We were in that weary state that allowed silly immature energy to get the better of us. As Sacha jumped high in the air and drove his elbow into his bed, I laughed and said, "Shit, I so have to get a picture of that!"

The first few shots had us on our hands and knees with tears of laughter streaking down our faces. We were back in infant school, burning off an energy borne of days on end driving in a car and baring witness to the debris of crystal meth. Nothing was going to stop us now. We were hunting for the perfect shot and spent the next hour in painful states of laughter while working away. The shot below was our ultimate glory. I'd like to say we worked hard for it, but all I did was lie still.

Yes SIR! No SIR!

While recently in the USA working on a story about American truck drivers, for Penthouse Magazine, UK photographer Sacha Maric and my good self were pulled over by the police while riding in a big 1976 Kenworth. We learnt very quickly that it is illegal to take photographs on American highways. We apologised and explained that we were unfamiliar with said law and assured the officers that we'd put the camera away. But we'd already aroused suspicion by placing the words 'Penthouse' and 'journalists' in the same sentence. It was clear the officers were not pleased with us. Upon learning that we had only known the truck driver, Jake, for five minutes, expressions soured and the questioning became frenzied and sporadic. It was hard to keep up with which officer had asked which question and of whom. Unsatisfied with our performance one officer said, "I'm calling this in to the FBI."

Jake, the truck driver, was taken away and placed in the back of the squad car, while Sacha and I were given a few minutes to bemoan the fate of an assignment that had already run into several problems. Those aside, we had only been in the truck five-minutes. Sacha's camera had only been out of the bag for three of those. He hadn't actually even taken a picture. We were doomed to either terrible luck or incredible police work.

Sacha and I knew we wouldn't be left alone for long and so we used our time wisely. We panicked. We had after all been stopped and questioned based on a law that was passed in the wake of 911: a law designed to stop terrorists from intelligence gathering. We were, for the time being, suspected terrorists.

In mid rant Sacha and I both stopped short: looking in the door mirror we watched as a black unmarked car with blacked-out windows idled to a halt at the back of the truck. It may have been a moment of cliche drama, but both our jaws were on the floor.

When Jake was first taken away, Sacha and I agreed that once this was all cleared up Jake was likely to drop us at the next exit. At the arrival of the black car we found ourselves once again in agreement: we were being dropped not at the next exit, but frog-marched to the nearest airport by the police. I had a vision of my passport coming back to me with a tear mark where previously I had a US visa.

We were convinced deportation was imminent. Or worse. We were suspected terrorists and we all know what the USA do with those. The whoremonger in me saw the title of my next book flash before me, Postcards From Guantanamo. I wondered for a second what I might do with my phone call, assuming I got one? Call the editor at Penthouse and beg him to action the lawyers? Call my wife and tell her I was entering that ubiquitous status of 'suspected terrorist'?

Visiting times were never! Or should my publisher get the honoured call? Though, having seen my share of prison flicks I was unsure if my rectum had a big enough word capacity for me to smuggle out a book length text . Even that concern was flawed with two major assumptions: that I would be let out, and that upon such a release my publisher would want to handle said smuggled text.

That said, so seriously were they taking us, the FBI, they didn't even have the decency to get out of their car. Sure it was a scorching hot day and they were happily ensconced in their air-conditioning, but did we not deserve a pad down at the very least?

Ultimately it all ended well. There is only one reason we were allowed to go on our way and that was because we were telling the truth. We were journalists and when they checked we were commissioned to Penthouse. Once we checked out the officers became very friendly, even apologised for the inconvenience.

"Anyway, you don't want to be taking pictures of trucks," one of the officers said while flicking through a copy of Penthouse, "You want to be taking pictures of the girls."

"Yeah," said one of his colleagues with a cheeky grin, "Just don't do it on the highway!"

As we drove away with a laughing Jake, I took a minute to give the New Jersey police their fair dues. They were good. They came in hard and fast and I am totally convinced that had Sacha and I been telling lies, about anything, their flawless technique would have dragged it our of us and we would have been in trouble. So if any of you reading this enjoy a bent towards terrorist activity and have plans for some New jersey Turnpike recon, I advise otherwise!