MICHAEL JACKSON!

Michael...

Michael Jackson!

michael JACKSON!

YEAH!

Miiiiiiccchael Jacksoooooon!

MICHAEL JACKSON!!!

*photos by Slava Mogutin, Gay Pride Fireworks 2009

America my beautiful

Newport Beach, CA

Nevada, near Utah (photo by my bro)

Utah is stunning The landscape is surreal, green hills and snowcapped mountains that morph into endless red martian canyons, straight out of a Wim Wenders film.

Southwest Utah

Central Utah, near Arches National Park

After this photo of the sunset was taken, my brother and I drove another couple hours to a Holiday Inn Express in a tiny boarded up town near Green River Utah. While checking in, the old lady at the counter received a call, picked the phone and after a moment, suddenly yelled "Well go ahead and fucking do it!! I don't give a shit!" and slammed down the receiver. Stunned, I asked what happened and she said dismissively, "Oh, it's just another bomb threat..." Had we been staying in New York, I'd have the left the hotel right then, but considering how small this town was (only one main drag), and also when the lady assured us that it was a high school graduation night prank, we finished our check-in and enjoyed the motel's pillow menu.

Eastern Utah

A dead train

I spent 7 years, most of my childhood, in Ft. Leavenworth Kansas. At this movie theater I first saw Beauty and the Beast, and Newsies.


This row of trees was right behind my cul-de-sac. The path through the middle is now gone. I remember riding our bikes at top speed through this hallway to the field below and building tree forts out of dead branches.


The enormous National Cemetary of Ft. Leavenworth. Most of the 23,058 graves belong to soldiers who died during Civil War, World War I and II, although I noticed a few new headstones from the Iraq conflicts. The flags placed in front of each grave is a Memorial Day tribute, done by local boy scouts, something my brother and I also did back in the day.





Although I didn't photograph it, Ft. Leavenworth is also home to another enormous human storage facility, the US Penitentiary.

Clouds over West Virginia

near Owensboro Kentucky

Rocky Mountain High

Larkspur, CO

Josh Lee, at home in Denver

Josh made these masks, along with the monster pillows I slept on

Shi Shi

The Continental Divide

"Colorado"

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What happens in Vegas

The first stop on the 10 day road trip with my brother was Las Vegas, where we celebrated the beginning of our trip and his recent graduation from med school. We were making the road trip because he landed a residency at Walter Read Army Medical Center in Washington DC and will soon be there, helping patients in various rehabiliation stages, like handsome young soldiers leaving behind their limbs in Iraq.

This my brother Chris, a doctor of osteopathy

"The 'highlight' of Vegas is the top of stratosphere"

Highly recommended