Back when I was still firing on all cylinders on the now otherwise dormant Cop Shoot Cop coffeetable book (hey, it might still happen), I managed to track down the "cover star," if you will, from 1993's Ask Questions Later album (that being the screaming, stick-wielding kid). Through intel provided by Jack Natz, it turns out that the child in question -- named Crosby -- was the progeny of some particularly noteworthy Lower East Siders and artists who were friends of the band. "He loved it," said Natz, back in November of 2016, of young Crosby's time during the album-cover shoot, "he absolutely fucking loved it. But, at the time he was doing it, he didn't realize he was up for hours of grueling work. He thought it was just going to be one photograph. So, when he's swinging that stick, he was all 'get this over with!'"
Turns out it was also Crosby who reprised his role as the feral, the stick-wielding moppet in the video for "Room 429," directed by transgressive cinema titan, Richard Kern. I managed to track Crosby down shortly afterwards. Today, he's an artist in his own right. A self-described "Surrealist Clockmaker," Crosby designs and makes by hand some truly striking clocks of a variety that you're sure as shit not about to find at your local Basics Plus. In his own words, these works of art both tell the time and "challenge ideas about disposability, longevity and reputation, while exploring the consumption of celebrity." Cool stuff.
In our protracted correspondence, I asked Crosby if it ever occurred to him to make a clock out of his own face circa Ask Questions Later.
Et voila….
Find more of Crosby's clocks here.
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