In the early nineties, Maria McKee was a wild child:fierce and gorgeous. The first time I photographed her was for SPIN, and I mistook her for a homeless person in the elevator on the way up to the shoot. It was winter, and she’d bundled up in many layers of differently textured fabrics. I suspect what I’d mistaken for rags were a Californian hippie’s attempt to handle the winter weather in NYC.
The makeup artist and wardrobe stylist soon disabused me of any notions of vagrancy as the Lone Justice singer was absolutely radiant on set. We did things like have her bust through a paper background in a nod to vaudeville. Her music and videos from her band Lone Justice had a theatrical bent so we gave that sort of spin to the looks and shots.
Maria was terrific, good to go, experimental, clearly interested in process. She’s a couple years younger than me, and I guess I was a kid then, though of course I didn't feel like it. I learned later that she was herself a photographer. Her godfather was Dennis Hopper, himself quite the snapper. I mainly remember being really nervous at that session. It was one of my first features for SPIN, Bob Guccione himself had suggested I shoot it. The rock photographer persona, or perhaps the way I inhabited it, provided a surprisingly weak platform for getting dates. It became even more flimsy when one’s publisher was dropping by to get the star’s phone number. Cockblocked by a guy in a surplus air force jumpsuit, even one with his own rock magazine, well, still cold as hell.
A couple years went by, and I got assigned to work with Maria again. She remembered our session and had liked the pictures and suggested we shoot at her apartment in the West Village. Charles Street or thereabouts, I reckon. McKee was gorgeous, a sympathetic subject, and invited me into her home. What’s not to like?
The story goes that Sofia Loren did all of her own makeup. So when Maria said she wouldn’t be needing a makeup artist it seemed maybe reasonable. When I arrived to the shoot, she informed me she had gone macrobiotic. This was a thing back then: I recall a bunch of the SPIN writers and editors getting into it, going to great contortionistic conceptual lengths to be allowed to smoke dope on the strict dietary regimen, failing, and summarily forgetting about the whole thing. All well and good, but apparently macrobioticism required the eschewing of makeup, except for beet juice.
Record scratch, Star Trek phaser attack where everyone lurches to one side, Murphy’s Law, what on Earth? After informing me of this, Maria gleefully pulled this tiny vial out of her pocket, the sort of thing customarily used to house cocaine.
“Beet crystals,” she breathlessly informed skeptical old school personal grooming fan me, as I wondered just how much of a disaster this was going to be. She planned to use the crystals contained in the tiny jar to stain her lips, and I think maybe a little to add color to her cheeks. I was so dubious, yet what was I going to do, the star is the star, let’s see what she can do.
And what she can do is radiate raw sexy charm like nobody’s business while sporting only a few beet crystals on those bee stung lips. Heyyyy, wait a minute. You think she had actual bees? No bees, but a 25 year old’s glow, some gorgeous afternoon sunlight and a New York City rooftop are all that’s required to capture a magical and memorable portrait. It all came together in that shoot, and I concluded ultimately Maria’s simple beet-based approach worked a charm.
But it wouldn’t be a memoir of those awkward early years in the career of an artist without a little skibidi riz. Maria was having a party a couple nights later, on that very same rooftop. And when the strikingly gorgeous rock star with the beet juice fixation invites you to a party on her rooftop, you very well go, introvert or no. And when said strikingly gorgeous rockstar (who is so far out of your league as to be playing a different sport) gets you together with a kind of plain but nonetheless striking brunette and you mis-hear her name and Mary-Louise Parker withers with a mere glare, well my friend, you go home alone. And probably don’t go to another party for an entire year.
Just a couple years ago, I told an abbreviated version of this story on Instagram and Maria McKee herself texted me back. It was a startling and exciting illustration of the flat internet. However, she appears to be the exception that proves the rule, as I’ve tagged every single other subject of these memoirs and haven’t heard peep one. I think maybe I’ll send her this. And now that I think on it, maybe I’ll see if she’s got any beet juice crystals left, how that rooftop’s coming along, and whether she still has that rooftop?