ARCADE

Anthony Cali, the traveller

       
I saw one of my favorite documentary filmmakers speak once.  An audience member asked if he had ever become friends with subjects in his films.  His reply, in short,  was that he was not there to make friends.  He was there to make movies.  I get what he was saying, yet my experience thus far has been so different.  Not necessarily by choice.  It’s just a product of who I am.  You can’t prevent forming friendships when a real connection between two people is made.  And why would you want to?  
 
I met Anthony Cali Jr. while I was filming at the arcade.  Right away we hit it off and next thing I knew he began to help Irene and I with the movie.   Anthony grew up in the Lower East Side and was a longtime CF regular.  His pops, Anthony Sr., first took him there as a 7 year old.  His roots run deep under Manhattan.  Anthony’s photographs of the arcade can be seen on our Kickstarter page.  He is a big camera nerd, and I have yet to hang with him, without hearing about some new lens or obscure Japanese digital SLR model.  Anthony is a real wise guy. It’s in his blood.       

 
 
Anthony left NYC this week to visit Japan.
 
Two nights before his flight to Japan, Anthony told me that when he saw me with my camera at Chinatown Fair he could tell right away I wasn’t from NYC, but instead of passing judgement he decided to see what I was about.  He saw in my eyes that I was genuine and truly excited to be filming at CF.  So he introduced himself.  I remember the exact moment we met.  I was filming the crew playing 3rd Strike.  I was drawn to the 3rd Strike cabinet.  There was lots of trash talking, beer drinking, and a real sense of camaraderie.   Moments after meeting I began filming Anthony.  That’s when I captured the clip of Anthony that’s in the trailer.  He says, “This place should be a landmark if anything, its so fucked up.  You got so many different types of people coming here.  This is the only place you can really be yourself in.”  Anthony is about as eloquent and introspective as they come.  His musings have already had a big effect on the direction of the documentary.  
 
I knew he would become an integral part of the movie after that night.  What I didn’t realize was that he would become a friend.

     

Anthony has a blog documenting his NYC adventures, The New York Blues, and he is going to keep it going with a new site documenting his adventure across the sea.  I’ll post the new blog up when I got the URL.