Issue 07
Jim Jocoy
By Miss RosenIllustration By DeChazier P. Stokes-Johnson
“I might have a problem with delayed gratification,” observes Jim Jocoy, whose love of the Polaroid has resulted in unforgettable images of William Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol, Billy Idol, Johnny Thunders, Sid Vicious, Iggy Pop, John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Joe Strummer, Kim Gordon, Eddie Vedder, John Waters, and Bruce LaBruce, among countless others. “I love being stimulated by things or people who are beautiful, powerful, or talented. Natural or unnatural beauties, they move me into action. I like to think I can feel their energy and capture some it on film.”The author of the highly acclaimed monograph We’re Desperate: The Punk Rock Photograph y of Jim Jocoy SF/LA 1978-198 0 (power House Books, 2002), Jocoy possesses the uncanny ability to make the famous seem casually approachable and the nameless seem extraordinarily enchanting. He can also shoot straight when he’s blindingly drunk, which once enabled him to secure the world’s only photograph of Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton together, taken in 2003 at the Beverly Hills estate of Robert Evans. The kid always gets the picture.
And though he doesn’t look it, the kid is53 years old. Born in 1952 in Korea, Jocoy’s family eventually settled in Sunnyvale, California, in 1968; he has lived in the Bay Area ever since. “My family owned Polaroid cameras when I was young, and I started taking pictures in my early teens,” Jocoy recalls. “My photography is like a personal journal. Pictures help me remember what I did, where I was, and who I met. My life is pretty simple, but when I look at some of my photos it looks like I go out a lot and meet some amazing people. My photo life is so much more glamorous and exciting than my normal life. I guess that’s why I keep at it.”
Acclaimed painter Robert Hawkins, now based in London, befriended Jim shortly after he moved to Sunnyvale. “I was the one that told him about punk rock, or so he claims, although through the haze of time and the Quaalude’s we were taking in those days who can really say? Jim was pretty normal in those days, just like he’s pretty normal now. He had his camera, and the kids were always ready to start showing off, especially if they thought it was for the snapshots of a curious outsider, which he definitely wasn’t— as they would find out the next week when he’d be there again with his camera, taking pictures of the most exotic of that week’s kid.
It was a great honor for Jim to faux-nonchalantly wander over and ask the cool ones if he could please take their picture. Then Jim went home and put all the night’s pictures in a shoe box under his bed. He had hundreds of shoe boxes under his bed. He’s probably got thousands of them by now. It was just like Andy Warhol,saving everything, most of it never to be seen again, we assumed.”
But the shoe boxes were eventually unearthed, and became We’re Desperate. The book’s success was a catalyst for Jocoy to resume shooting after a two-decade hiatus from “the scene.” In 1980 , Jocoy threw his camera against the wall in what can best be described as a most unexpected act from the very low-key artist. Though he no longer pursued stylish strangers, Jocoy never stopped taking photos. “When I shattered that camera, I got another one, another type. My lifestyle changed. My interests changed. Most of the time, my life is normal and I take less photos. But things changed when We’re Desperate was published. It changed my life. I’ve been getting invites to fun places. I’ve met many wonderful and amazing people. I ’m energized by it. I ’m taking a lot more photos now.”
“Everyone in Jim’s photos looks cool and comfortable. One might suspect that he specifically selects confident people to photograph, people who view themselves as celebrities in their own minds,” comments Audrey Marrs, a Bay Area musician and curator of Jocoy’s most recent show at the Queen’s Nail Annex in San Francisco. On a particular photo shoot with Jocoy,she recalls, “The day of the shoot, Jim showed up, unloaded some equipment into my living room, and inserted a CD with his own prerecorded music into my stereo. Instantly, the room was filled with the kind of bass -heavy electronic music that one associates with fashion photo shoots in movies. We began posing and Jim assumed the role of fashion photographer, reacting to us with adjectives such as, ‘Fierce!’ ‘Fabulous!’ and ‘Beautiful!’ It was the ultimate parody of a photo shoot—only it was real and it was Jim. He creates an atmosphere in which he pinpoints the most expressive part of his subject and then captures it within his frame. His remarkable skill is being able to effortlessly identify precisely what that is in a person. His power of observation brings out the star in people, even if they didn’t quite know it existed. And he doe sit again and again.”And again.
No matter what the occasion, Jocoy’s photographs make even the most mundane moment an act of effortless glamor. At a personal appearance in San Francisco by the legendary coochie coochie queen herself, Charo, Jocoy remembers, “ There were people waiting in line in front of the record store. They had cones set out in the street for what looked like a spot for a limo to pull up. Nobody noticed when a beat-up,small, green Mazda with a hubcap missing pulled up and Charo was scrunched up in the backseat. The back door was stuck,so I helped open it for her.
She said, ‘Hello, darling.’ I asked if I could take some photos. She said, ‘Jes.’ When I started to take some photos, the rest of the people swarmed around and started taking photos. She came alive and started to shimmy and dance around on the sidewalk. They directed her into the store for the signing, but before she went in she turned and said to me, ‘I’ll see you later, darling.’ When I saw her later to have my CD signed,she said, ‘You’re back, darling!’”
Because, one way or another, Jim Jocoy always comes back.