Photojournalist and professor Joe Giordano joins Nestor at Di Pasquale’s in Canton on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour to compare their East Baltimore roots in Bethlehem Steel, unions and watching our hometown change right before his lens.
Nestor Aparicio hosts Joe Giordano, a photojournalist known for his work on East Baltimore’s steel industry and unions, at D Pasquale’s in Canton. They discuss Baltimore’s revitalization, Giordano’s photography career, and the impact of digital technology on journalism. Giordano shares his experiences documenting the decline of Bethlehem Steel and the steel industry’s global impact. They also touch on the rise of AI in photography and its implications. Darren, a sausage maker, joins the conversation, highlighting his family’s sausage business and introducing a new sausage with provolone and parsley. The segment ends with Nestor promoting upcoming events and guests.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
East Baltimore, steel industry, Bethlehem Steel, photojournalism, black and white photography, digital photography, AI in photography, Maryland crab cakes, sausage, local businesses, community engagement, Baltimore revitalization, Museum of Industry, Baltimore School for the Arts.
SPEAKERS
Domenico Di Pasquale, Joe Giordano, Nestor Aparicio, Darren Paciocco
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 task of Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, and I am in one of the more positive places I can be because there’s cranes overhead. We’re building things. We are in beautiful Canton, Maryland, Canton, as we used to like to say in Dundalk. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. I do have Back to the Future scratch offs to give away today we are at D Pasquale is the new location. Don’t go over to Highland town looking for us. We’ve upscale. We’ve gentrified. We’re in Canton here with beautiful women walking by with strollers and people and young people and construction workers and the smell of cheese and sausage and wine in the air our friends at curio wellness also putting us out on the road for our 27th anniversary and for my 27th anniversary, which is on August 3. It’s an eating festival. I’m doing 27 of my favorite things to eat in Baltimore. I haven’t found my favorite one at Deepa squalis yet, but I’m gonna find that today. I have a litany of guests here. We’re going to be here for a couple of hours today in a week when Luke is in Wildwood, New Jersey, eating Max pizza, fattening up as the Orioles have been fattening up on Atlanta. Braves pitching as well. Joe Giordano is a guy I’ve seen around town a million times. I’m an admirer, for real, of his work in the East Baltimore, and did a thing on my where my father worked at Bethlehem Steel many years ago that I see down at the Museum of industry, and I’ve never had him on the show, and he walked in today, and I know like what he looks like, and I definitely see him out. But i Dude, I don’t think if you and I ever had a conversation of any kind at a sporting event, or I don’t, I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to you, and I don’t know that I put your face with your name before social media happens. As
Joe Giordano 01:46
long as you know the photographs, that’s all I care about. The photographs are what you should know. I
Nestor Aparicio 01:51
know your byline because I’m a byline guy as a kid who wanted a byline at the news, American in the sun. Joe Jordan, I had no idea what you now. I’ve known for Tommy. I lived with Carl Faron for a couple of years on K Street, so like, I mean, Gene Sweeney and Pat and all the people with the sun that were there forever. Liz, I knew all of those people because I grew up with Gene Boyers and I are still friends many, 50 years later. But I don’t know why. I don’t know you dude, but this is the you know Joe, who I don’t know, and DOM, and the people that are here you may know, between you, me and cringey is going to be here later. I got Nancy Longo coming. We might be a whole East Baltimore mafia. If you just put us together, we would literally know everyone put bring Ed Hale over here, because he built all of this. But, I mean, is he still around? What happened that guy? He’s running for governor, really? Yeah, wow. You didn’t know this.
Joe Giordano 02:46
No, no. I mean, he had the, what I called the Empire State Building over here, the first Mariner building. But, yeah, I thought he evaporated. I don’t know what happened. He’s on Eastern Shore. He’s always had a place that all those guys, all those they’re all in Eastern Shore, Scotty, Donahue, all these guys on the Scotties in Florida. Oh, he okay. He moved all right. Yeah. No, I
Nestor Aparicio 03:06
wasn’t. I text me about two months ago because I was Marty bass, and we’re like, where’s Scotty? I don’t know. I text him,
Joe Giordano 03:10
yeah, he’s in Florida. Yeah, that sounds about right. Well, I mean, you got
Nestor Aparicio 03:14
silver in your hair, and I shaved mine out today because I looked awful with Johnny olas. I looked tired. Baltimore’s home, and I don’t know that I used to send resumes out in the 80s thinking I was going to live somewhere else. I have all these rejection letters from newspapers all over the world. I would have told you in 1991 my life would have been made and somewhere else as a newspaper reporter, as a journalist, and all that, I’ve never left, and I’ve never been happier that I’ve never left, because when I come and see things like this, that there is, there are good things happening in Baltimore every day. As photographer, as a journalist, you see the good, the bad, the ugly, from Freddie, gray and murder. You’ve done it all. But there is a point where you and I today are sitting here in front of cranes where we are building things up in the city. On the city side, we are a mile and a 1.8 miles where I grew up, where my son lives. I mean, I’m two miles away from where I lived for 20 years, in the Inner Harbor. Everywhere I go, we’ll see more friends here. We have Baltimore’s a really special place in that way.
Joe Giordano 04:18
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it’s, I mean, you have a low crime rate, or low homicide rate right now, lowest since the 90s. I think you can it’s a different vibe. I teach at Baltimore School for the Arts. I see more tourists in Mount Vernon now, like coming up from the harbor, which is a good sign, you know, because I’m out during the day. So I see a lot of people with maps
Nestor Aparicio 04:41
in their phone. I took strangers to Mount Vernon two weeks ago, and they thought they were in Paris. Yeah, like, literally, we don’t appreciate it for how beautiful it is. You’re a guy who looks do you look for the beauty or the ugly in life? What do you look for as a
Joe Giordano 04:54
photographer, I don’t take sides. I take photographs.
Nestor Aparicio 04:57
Ah, see, I knew he’s gonna be. Great guest,
Joe Giordano 05:01
yeah, but you know, I lived in Europe for a long time, so that’s walking around Mount Vernon and just having coffee there. It’s a good European vibe to the city. So
Nestor Aparicio 05:10
what’s your story? Joe Giordano, all I know is your, all I know is your your name, your byline. I only really know what you look like through social media. You brought me your books, and you know your books of photographs and the work you do, I think of you in a black and white because you’re a black and white guy. Yeah, you really are. And I am enamored with your ability to capture the Bethlehem Steel story. If you haven’t been to the museum of industry, they have a whole room dedicated to your work down there. And the first time I saw it, probably a decade ago, I don’t, has been there about
Joe Giordano 05:44
seven or eight years. Well, so it was supposed to open the day of lockdown. Oh, shoot, all right, 2020, 2020, so it’s, well, it’s five years, you know, it was supposed to be a, you know, a seven week run. Oh, okay, COVID Shut it down, right? So after that, they the museum. Graciously. They’re like, you know, people come to see it, so we’ll leave it up till we take it down, if that’s okay with you. And I was like, Sure, you know, leave it up. So, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 06:10
what is it? Tell everybody what I’m bragging about, yeah. So genesis of it, yeah.
Joe Giordano 06:15
So I started when I moved back from Prague as a journalist. I worked for the Dundalk paper, and my first beat, this would have been in like, 2003 2002 Dundalk Eagle. Yeah, yeah.
Nestor Aparicio 06:29
And I’m from Dundalk, Dundalk paper. It’s the eagle. Thank you. Yeah.
Joe Giordano 06:35
And yeah. So my first beat was the steel industry, and this is when mccus is this is under Bush, George Bush, they were talking about tariffs, just like now. Mikulski was trying to save the you know, they were going to sell. Bethlehem steels was liquidating, liquidating, selling, right? So, yeah, I mean, and this
Nestor Aparicio 06:55
guy, my mom, was getting a $58 check,
Joe Giordano 06:57
yeah. So this guy who who who ended up becoming Trump’s Commerce Secretary bought Bethlehem Steel and told the told the retirees, I don’t have to take care of your pensions. Beat it. So that’s what Mikulski was trying to do, was get the government to intervene so they can get their pensions back, which didn’t work. So what’s Wilbur Ross? In case we’re wondering who that is, yeah, so I covered all this, and then eventually I stuck with it. And you know, when Trump came around, he talked about tariffs again in 2016 and there were other, you know, like, like it had collapsed in Pennsylvania, and, you know, Ohio River, Ohio border up there. So I made an international project. I went over to the UK, and I shot in some of their their former steel towns over there. Red car up in Yorkshire, I went over to the Czech Republic, shot up on the Polish border with a lot of their former steel mills in the steel towns where the communists pulled out and they left them in just as bad spot as the cabinets pulling out, right? So it’s the same. So these, these steel workers get screwed no matter who’s in charge, right? So, so that’s, that’s the project. And the the the show that is at the Museum of industry is the photos in the show are focused on Baltimore spares point, but there’s a catalog that was a really nice catalog with the with the show, that includes the the Britain stuff, the stuff from England. I hadn’t been, I hadn’t been the Czech Republic yet. When the when they see
Nestor Aparicio 08:30
being from Dundalk, you think it’s us in Pittsburgh. We’re the only ones in the world that made steel, right? Like, literally, Bethlehem. And by the way, I mean, you’ve been up to Bethlehem? No, I went for a concert to see the black crows about two years ago. They have literally Googled this. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen they’ve taken the steel mill, right, and turned it into a casino. Oh, yeah, yeah. And it’s this post modern. It’s the most bizarre, but beautiful. Yeah, weird, yeah. In the middle of you just drive and you arrive in Allentown, Bethlehem, and you’re there, and it’s, it’s almost like they’re Camden Yards. Yeah, it’s this gigantic grand thing that was the mill that now is a mall, sort of a post modern mall hotel. It’s like, it’s like a Bethlehem, Vegas. Yeah,
Joe Giordano 09:19
I’ve seen it. And, you know, I didn’t, you know, for this, for the steel project, you know, I didn’t really want to show that because that, you know, I wanted to show that the communities like Baltimore that were, they were like, suffering from the collapse of the steel industry, right? So, like, Johnstown, Mingo junction, all these places that were, all
Nestor Aparicio 09:35
these places weren’t connected to big cities either, No, literally, the middle of nowhere, right?
Joe Giordano 09:39
Yeah. Well, not really the middle of because they were on the Ohio River, right? If you got the river, you know, they’re not too, too far from Pittsburgh. They’re not connected to a city, but they’re not far from cities, you know. And these are, like a lot of these mini mills and stuff, you know, the communities really collapsed. You know, when these, when these mills left, you know, they were the jobs, yeah. I mean, you know, here, I. Don’t even call it fortunate, but, you know or not, but I mean, our Peninsula is now, you know, Amazon warehouses. I mean, there’s jobs, but they’re, they’re at will pay their non union, you know, and within less than a generation, like, literally, okay, so Bethlehem Steel shut down. Officially, the blast furnace came down 2012 right? So we’re talking 1313, years, right? So that’s, that’s less than a generation, it’s a little over a decade, right? So a little over a decade,
Nestor Aparicio 10:26
all these 80,000 jobs is zero, like, literally, right, over 30
Joe Giordano 10:30
years, right? And then, and then, you know that you have the warehouses, so now you have no manufacturing, right? You have supply and demand work. You have no unions, you’ve got at will firings and no industry on that you’re not making, you’re moving things, right? It’s just moving things. So, you know, it really set the, you know, the peninsula back, you know, 7080, years. You know, especially with, with the no union work that’s down there, you know, like, none of those are union, none of the warehouse jobs reunion, as far as I know. So Joe
Nestor Aparicio 11:02
Giordano is here. He does real photo journalism. Well, give me your background, what you grow up? Give me the story. Because you came in, you’re like, I used to hang out with Jack Beal. I’ve seen you. Oh, you got Berkshire guys, yeah, Colgan guy, you know, I’m from
Joe Giordano 11:16
Berkshire. I grew up the street from Jack down the street. Yeah. I went to Patapsco High School. What year 90?
Nestor Aparicio 11:22
So you grew up with Brian Bennett. Doug Bennett. Doug Bennett was my best friend growing up. We lost dog and yeah, Brian Edwards, all those guys over there, all the Berkshire goons. Yeah,
Joe Giordano 11:30
yeah, I just saw Edwards last year. We do, I do a thing for Jack every year in December. But I couldn’t last the year before last. I was away last year. But yeah, I saw Brian. Yeah, I see this guy. Brian
Nestor Aparicio 11:41
and I traded baseball cards for years and years. Danny Wiseman was part of your world there the libratory boys. Yeah, Dante, I talked to by the way, I’m gonna be out at Eldersburg next week. Dante can’t make it because he’s out of town. But, you know, we all try to stick together. But all those names that is named to you. Yeah, all their parents either worked at the point or worked at GAF or worked at lever brothers or worked at GM. Yeah, literally, Brian and Brian and Doug’s parents, they lived on Old North Point Road. Dad worked at GM and moved to Framingham, yeah, to framington, Massachusetts, yeah, and his Brian went to school, my my wife, in Manchester, New Hampshire. They made a life in New Hampshire. Oh, wow. So their family left Dundalk to go to New Hampshire, to have a life, to work in Massachusetts, right, in 1982 83 really, when things were where they were making the Astro van here, right?
Joe Giordano 12:39
That’s, yeah, that was the last one that rolled out, I think was the Astro event, yeah. And
Nestor Aparicio 12:44
my uncle worked at the GM plant. All my neighbors from Colgate, Berkshire, where we grew up, three out of every four houses were serviced by the kinds of jobs we’re talking about, right, right?
Joe Giordano 12:54
Literally, yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s what I mean. You know, the whole peninsula is no longer like that,
Nestor Aparicio 13:00
so, but it, but it is something. I
Joe Giordano 13:03
mean, their job, that’s what I was saying. There are, there are jobs there, but they don’t have the fallbacks and the and the things that you could depend on back in the day, you know, well,
Nestor Aparicio 13:14
probably all more important that the ports coming back to life here, and I know AI, and automation and so much of that, yeah, is, I mean, I’m using this summer to dive into AI myself, to try to just figure out what it can be used for, as a companion and assistant. I don’t have employees anymore, you know, calendars, all of that sort of automation stuff. It’s not Chinese to me, but it would have been two years ago. But I also understand the Internet was Chinese to me 25 years ago, and this cell phone and how technology has moved forward your art, your craft of being a photographer. And again, I lived with photographers. I was friends with photographers, the Wachter family, all of that. It was all film. It was developing was all that digital sort of moved the photography universe in a dramatic way for an old sort of analog photographer in your way, right? Was a paradigm. Well,
Joe Giordano 14:04
I mean, I never really shot because shit to digital was like, like 2000 turn of the century, yeah, like mid 90s, and so I wasn’t, I mean, I was still in high school. I never shot for a newspaper, like, I never shot analog for a newspaper, right? I only shot digital for new Okay, so I’m, yeah, so,
Nestor Aparicio 14:26
so you never got the chalk out and had the mark up and, I
Joe Giordano 14:30
mean, that was, how are you? I’m 57 okay, sorry,
Nestor Aparicio 14:34
so you’re the news American. I mean, I watch pictures get cropped. I watch pagination. I didn’t do hot. Oh,
Joe Giordano 14:40
I’ll be 52 so we’re not that far off. Well, we are in technology. Well, in technology, right? Because, like, when, you know, I was still in middle school, you were
Nestor Aparicio 14:48
you? I worked in a newspaper in 84 you didn’t start till oh three, so it was a complete Yeah, generation, so,
Joe Giordano 14:53
but like, in middle school, I had Mac computers already at the end of 84 Okay, 85 because that’s. Halliburton, right, right, sure. So that’s what I mean. So even though we’re only a few years difference, yeah, Mr. Stadium, you look younger than I do. So that’s all right, shaved this morning. I know I should do that. Yeah, of course, that. Mr. Stadium, everyone did you know he was there till, like the 90s, I think till he passed away.
Nestor Aparicio 15:15
I’ve had it. Mr. Stadium is very much alive. Yes, no, no, no, don’t do that. Not putting it out there. I’m trying to get him out of the show next week. That’d be great. He’s still playing the piano. I’ve had, I’ve had Calvin out several times. I mean, legend. His wife was a legend. His wife has been in ill health. Malvolin, but the Dundalk connection, I didn’t realize how deep this was gonna go. Joe giordanos, here, you brought books? Do you have? You
Joe Giordano 15:39
brought three? I Yeah, so I bought
Nestor Aparicio 15:42
three. That’s like a turd. I didn’t give you any of my books. No,
Joe Giordano 15:45
no, it’s all right. Well, I read a lot. Actually, I read a lot.
Nestor Aparicio 15:50
You lived in Prague. You have to read your Yeah,
Joe Giordano 15:54
no television for like five years. Yeah, no. So I brought, I brought three of the three of the books, one of them, which is actually the more important 113, 23 which is talk about, oh yeah. Well, here we’ll if you want to go in order. No, let’s you tell me you this one, yeah. So this one, this is new. This is, this is my own ease. I like that. So this is, um, this is my only self published one. It’s on blurb. It’s to commemorate the 150th running of the Preakness. Okay, so it’s all my work, not that that somebody’s,
Nestor Aparicio 16:25
yeah, well, that’s right. Take postcards out. Oh, look at this. You got mud and pictures and all sorts of stuff here. Now, black and white is an art as I look at it. Yeah. Give me the thesis on Joe Giordano black versus color. I
Joe Giordano 16:39
mean, so it’s gonna bore your bore your listeners. But no, I tell my students, if color is not part of the context of the picture, it’s probably best in black and white, right? Like, if you look at this window right now, you see, you know, two red stop signs, right? And then you have the black and white tune in southeast at Eaton Street, right? And then you have the yellow pylons over there? Well, yeah, you can’t really see because you’re on this site. So you see, you see the yellow pile, yeah, yeah, sure, bright. And then you see the stop sign, right? So that would be a color picture, because, because the the red of the stop sign in the yellow of the pylons is part of the photograph. Like, that’s what you want people to look at, is those colors.
Nestor Aparicio 17:19
But these ladies making coffee, and this beautiful lady here wearing the Italian jersey. Well,
Joe Giordano 17:23
no, no, but you still want that in color. See the blue of her shirt. I want to see the oranges and orange, right? Yes, the way the sun comes through right and hits that blue, right? That’s that. That makes interesting photo, because the color is part of the con, the context of the picture. Now, if there were two guys fighting out here, and you had the red stop sign and the yellow pylons and the blue shirt. What would you want to focus on the fight? Right? So that’s when you shoot in black and white, when you want someone to really focus on what’s going on the photograph, as opposed to it looking nice or, you know, liking the colors. That’s when you use
Nestor Aparicio 17:56
black and white when I shoot a picture on my iPhone 12, which is still backed up because I don’t have my little thing where I can eliminate all the background yet. Background yet. And I take a picture in the way I take it, I take a lot of pictures, and I’ve gotten good at framing and focusing across. I mean, I have all that journalism background, you know, for 40 years of doing it. So my pictures, I’m bougie, about what I put up. I don’t put up issue pictures, you know, take a picture and the black and white setting on there, does it lose anything from shooting in black and white? Maybe I’m asking a silly question about aperture, or any of that kind of stuff, but a picture that is shot in black and white, it’s just purposely through a camera. Does your eye see it differently than me? Converting a digital picture into the black and white setting. Or is digital gotten so good now, and AI, I guess. And, you know, whatever filters that we use, I just hit the filter now. I have no idea how it all works. Does that stuff annoy you as a, as a, as a, an artist, you know? Or is it, is it like, like, I don’t use AI editing things to brush up my writing, because I’m a friggin writer. I don’t want to know what AI thinks in my writing. I’m an editor. I wrote it the way I want. Now, spelling, maybe I, you know, I would like if I’ve, yeah, if I’ve misplaced a word. But as an artist, as a writer, I don’t want AI writing my column. For me, I want to write my column. I would think, as a photographer, the cameras have the ability to just take a picture, zoom in, crop, and if you don’t mind grain, if you don’t mind losing something, you can create images. And it’s so fast and down and dirty. Now he’s bringing me long Oh, this is you can’t eat that. I don’t even know what it is, but I’m gonna eat it. Yeah, they think I can eat and talk at the same time. This is what they do when you come to an Italian place. I know Italians do it better. Darren’s bringing me food over. He’s got sausage sandwiches. Nice. If I start to eat it, I can’t. I have a lose the ability to talk. I know you got a box of sauce.
Joe Giordano 20:00
Awesome that looks that sandwich looks amazing. So from, from your
Nestor Aparicio 20:03
perspective, with the, with the question I asked picture, how do you feel about that as an artist, that if I take a color picture and try to turn it into black and white, what happens? I mean,
Joe Giordano 20:15
you have the ability to do it, so it really, it’s really your personal preference, right? Like, I mean, I’ve had color photos, you know, the thing was, shooting digital, digital black and white isn’t really not until recently, I would say, in the past year or so have digital cameras really gotten to the point where you can shoot in black and white and it looks good. A lot of it had, like, halos around it and stuff like that. That’s why I’m asking, because it’s okay to convert, I mean, it’s okay to convert it. It doesn’t. It doesn’t. You’re not messing with the integrity of the picture, right? In other words, you’re not taking out, you know, a stop sign that you don’t want there, right? Even though it’s in the picture. That’s to me, I can’t do that in the profession that I’m in. I mean, you can do it, you know, again, it’s up to your eye. So, I mean, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 21:02
I don’t the profession. You’re in the pictures, the picture, right half, yeah, you can crop, but you’re
Joe Giordano 21:07
not, you’re not taking anything out of the picture. That’s not there. You just move. You’re just just cropping it. I mean, it’s a very, it’s a very thin line, but cropping is okay. They do in the dark room. Basically, what I tell my students, if you can do it in the dark room, you you can do it in your phone, you know, in your phone, or for work, you know, like cropping things, making things, enlarging, cropping stuff like that. So, but then, but that’s, that’s a professional mantra, right? But if you have a phone and you and you want to add filters and add your Miami filters, it’s up to you. You know, it’s like, there’s no rules for this stuff. If you like the way it looks, and your fans like the way it looks, then just keep doing it. I mean, people it. I mean, people that there’s, there’s AI, people that work in AI, not my thing, but that’s there.
Nestor Aparicio 21:47
Well, you’re, you’re a, you’re a professor now of this as well. And young people who have never developed a piece of film, they never will. They don’t have the photo. Matt, well, I teach analog.
Joe Giordano 21:58
No, I teach analog. So they in my classes, they they learn dark room and developing why?
Nestor Aparicio 22:04
Why is that a valuable skill set at this point? Well,
Joe Giordano 22:07
for photographers, because you can’t learn to tell time on a digital watch. I
Nestor Aparicio 22:11
knew this is gonna be a good segment. That’s That’s what I tell my
Joe Giordano 22:15
students. You want, you want to take pictures start at the beginning. If for students now, if you want to pick one up and start shooting events and all that, that’s cool. That’s your thing. Events and all that, that’s cool. That’s your thing. You know, I don’t judge anybody. You know, like, buy film service, photo
Nestor Aparicio 22:27
service, photo literally. And where do you get it developed?
Joe Giordano 22:30
They’re sold out because people right now
Nestor Aparicio 22:33
is Kodak at it. They don’t make it anyway. Kodak stolen business. And they have good at gold. 400 200
Joe Giordano 22:40
Yeah, they actually had to stop producing film at the end of last year and reset their factory because the demand is so high now for film. You can look that up as that was a news story. So it’s, it’s coming back. Like, oh yeah, it’s coming back. I mean, you know, people, people, people bust on millennials. But they brought back vinyl records and they brought back films. So they’re cool with me, you know?
Nestor Aparicio 23:01
Well, vinyl records are just heavy for me. That’s where it is for me. I just but, I mean, but, but carry big things. I don’t carry. I collect small things, ticket stubs, things like, Yeah, anything that has weight about it. I just, yeah. I’ve learned
Joe Giordano 23:16
I don’t carry vinyl records around with me, but I keep them at home, Nestor, but
Nestor Aparicio 23:20
then you have to move eventually. You ever move the record? I live with Doug Bennett, do you know many albums he had? Well, that’s the thing. So
Joe Giordano 23:26
I’m not, well, no, no, you’re right. I mean, but I have photo books, so my my weight is gonna be photo books like I don’t, I don’t collect vinyl, you know. I like what I like finding a crate. Buy it like, but I don’t need to. I’m not a completist when it comes to vinyl stuff, you know?
Nestor Aparicio 23:42
But no, you must be rock, right? I mean,
Joe Giordano 23:44
me, I like jazz, big jazz fan, and I do collect blaxploitation soundtracks, but I have all my mom’s disco albums and stuff like that. See, it’s really weird, man. See, this is our generous this fascinates me. I’m just gonna go off on the side.
Nestor Aparicio 23:59
That’s we do on the show this photographer extraordinarily
Joe Giordano 24:03
well. Thank you. This is what’s so interesting to me as someone who’s like, early 50s, and your mid 50s, right? Even that little that, even though it’s not many years in between there, right? But it’s like, like, by the time I got to to high school, Zeppelin was done daily. Ross is out of Van Halen. Always it was done, right? All that, all the big band like, yeah. I mean, we were already at the end of hair metal, right, and the end of new wave by the time I got to high school. But you and I are only like, a few, you know, for like, four years apart. This is why this. My wife and I had an oasis conversation this morning. See, I love oasis. She loves oasis. And how old is? She’s born in 72 okay, yeah, so, right, so it’s just just that little bit of room. I said, I don’t know, like my rock is a nice place, right? Like my rock is like, HF festival, all that shit. Like, my rocks 90s, I grew up in Berkshire. I. Like, my babysitter’s music was Zeppelin, right? Jack’s neighbors, right, right? Even though, even though, even though her kids are, like, you know, 58 it’s still not that. It’s still not that much of a gap, right? It’s not even 10 years, right? It’s less than 10 year gap, but, but just when it came to, like, music and stuff and technology, that that little bit of space is a is like a chasm with a
Nestor Aparicio 25:23
younger person who became a dear friend of mine for a long time at the turn of the century, and he’s about 10 years younger than me. You know, give or take little 47 right? Yeah, maybe, maybe he’s 50 now, maybe seven or eight years younger to me. But he had the thing that he went to University of Maryland, he said he was the first incoming class there that got an email address. Yeah, it makes sense. And that changed his whole paradigm on communication was having an email address where people my age fought it for a little while, in the same way that, you know, I remember Ed Hale fighting technology when I would sit down here and he was building this area, you know, when I would talk to people who were people who were significantly older than me, 20 years older than me, they really had a different vibe about typing and typewriters, they weren’t taught to type. So then computers came steep a shotty, and I had that conversation Steve Bucha, he never typed, and he became a billionaire, yeah. What do you do when you’re a billionaire and you don’t type right, like you hired, Yeah, but how do you communicate with your kids when you’re now given a keyboard and a Blackberry and you’re not proficient at typing? But see that? You know that to me is so alien. Every young person knows how to type now, well, literally, they have to. It’s
Joe Giordano 26:35
interesting. Like, I tell people I’m the generation that has to show my parents and my students how to use a printer. There’s not the one. I had to do it but, but, you know, it’s interesting that there’s a very good show I think every parent should watch called adolescence. It’s on Netflix, right? That’s this is we just talking about this sandwich? No, no. Talk about Netflix. Okay, well, all right, you did you Netflix and my wife in the same anyway, but um, so parents need to be up with what their kids are doing like they really do. And it’s, it’s like I have relatives that have no idea what my younger relatives are up to because I don’t know who’s listening. So I can’t single that specific relatives. No, but, I mean, listen to this show. No, I’m just, I’m just saying, but like to not be able to type and not, you know, not have your kids type. Thank you. Not Have your kids. Whatever it’s you need to be, you need to be up on technology.
Nestor Aparicio 27:34
Like, that’s why the AI thing got me this summer is like, I’m not going to be asleep the wheel
Joe Giordano 27:38
on this. No, that’s, that’s exactly to keep me young, because you’re in your profession, I predict in the next two years, you’re going to see AI generated podcasts that don’t need to be paid, that don’t need to get the clicks, don’t need to get the likes, don’t get the subscriptions. They’re going to be fake people doing podcasts. I guarantee we already have fake music, you know? I know. Yeah. I mean, this is you had to think ahead. So that’s so has someone like you get on top of that? How someone in the photo business get on top of that? In my profession, hopefully, knock on wood, people, you know, we’re having a harder time getting people to look at news photographs and what’s real and what’s not real, because, you know, everything’s just being flooded right now, but they still have a need for news photographs. They still need to see what’s going on somewhere and some institutions they trust to show them that, like Associated Press, Reuters. I’m just talking photo, not writing Getty. You know what? You know they can say they want. I’ve
Nestor Aparicio 28:40
watched a letter from Getty in the past about using a picture that I shouldn’t have been you. Oh, yeah, I mean, but that’s it. So I don’t, I don’t do that.
Joe Giordano 28:46
I mean, you know, even though, whatever you think of the New York Times and Washington Post, they still have pretty high subscription rates, you know, even through Trump, right? So they’re not failing, as he likes to say, because people know that those two institutions, they can look to them for, like, non AI photographs, right? You know what I mean, in the end of the day, they can say, I think I
Nestor Aparicio 29:06
could look to 60 minutes for journalism. But, you know, that’s breaking down, that
Joe Giordano 29:09
60 Minutes wasn’t really, I mean, but 60 minutes isn’t really journalism, right? I mean, 60 minutes, you know, you have Mike Wallace basically doing the Jesse what Jesse waters got his whole stick from Mike Wallace Sure, showing up at someone’s house, you know, banging on the door. Hey, Mr. GM president, you took a bunch of money. I mean, that’s, that’s 60 minutes, you know, I don’t watch 60 minutes. There’s only two news program, there’s only two newses that I watch, and none of them are mainstream media. So and WJZ, I watch it. I watch Jay Z and W, b, a, l, those are my two locals. But anyway, I mean, back to, you know, you have to go on top of this AI thing you really do, and you’re doing the right thing by this this summer. But the thing is, you can’t really study because it moves so fast, right? That when you learn
Nestor Aparicio 29:52
and you have to dive in, it’s like the internet, you’re not going to learn about it unless you’re in it.
Joe Giordano 29:56
Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s a tool, right? I mean. Mean, for me, you know, so Adobe Photoshop has AI. They rolled AI into it last year. Now you can change the backgrounds and all that business. But there’s also a tool in the Photoshop that was already there that’s enhanced by AI, and it’s noise reduction. So there’s this, there’s this, you know, discussion within the photojournalist community. When you say no, AI, you know what I mean? Like, what do you mean? No? Ai, you know, because, because the noise reduction filter, the noise reduction slider, was already there. So if it were to concert, I take a picture, right? And you get all that digital noise because it’s dark and there’s no light, so that, so a I’ll just smooth that out, right? It’ll just get rid of the pic, like, it’ll get rid of that pixelation, right? But, but but that was already in Photoshop. They just rolled a smarter version in, right? So is that wrong? I don’t know. Picture
Nestor Aparicio 30:48
your family and it’s beaten up, and something would bring it back to life the way that, but now you can the way that Gilligan’s Island and I Love Lucy were colorized 25 I know,
Joe Giordano 30:58
right? Exactly, exactly, exactly? Well, yeah, Lucy was colorized.
Nestor Aparicio 31:04
Well, joking. Island went to color. They were like, some of the black and white ones, though,
Joe Giordano 31:10
okay, yeah, cuz I thought Gilligan was all in color. That’s all I remember. Was color,
Nestor Aparicio 31:14
no first season, black and white. Oh shit, right back. Yeah, yeah.
Joe Giordano 31:21
I had no idea that started out as black and white. But anyway, so like, you know, to get a handle on this, but now they have pictures that talk. So now we’re in the Harry Potter world, right, where you have pictures that move and talk, right? You have front pages and newspapers or whatever, that can move and talk using AI so you can bring your grandparents back to life in a photograph. If you have a copy of their voice, you can get them to talk to you in the photograph.
Nestor Aparicio 31:47
All right, we’re gonna take a break on that. Where’s Darren? Is Darren around? Because he probably see, he just came up, threw a sandwich at me, yeah, and I know it’s got sausage in it because it’s Darren. Is that scrapple? Because of that scrapple. We’re gonna have to have a talk is that scrapple. Don’t make me any scrapple in here. Dom, come on here, man, let me put this. Yeah, go ahead. Joe Giordano is here. Dom is about to join us. We’re at the deepest quality I haven’t promoted, but I gave some lottery tickets after the staff here, you get one. I’m like Oprah. Joe Giordano is going to get one. The Back to the Future. Scratch us. We’re gonna be on Thursday at Costas and Timonium. I was there with Johnny Oh, on Monday night. I’m gonna be Costas twice this week’s a lot of crab cakes. My wife this morning, you can pop that up, and I’ll make sure that you can hear me and all that stuff. So my wife this morning, on the way out the door, because my wife’s my wife, I got coffee, she says, Let me move over here. Make some space. I’m gonna stand up. You move in. So she said, Do you you’re not bringing me more food? Are you? That’s not for me, that’s for patrons. Good. I see omelets come I see stuff happening here. My wife says, You want to make you some fruit. You can be hungry this morning. I’m like, I’m going to Deepa squalis. I’m here at nine o’clock in the morning. They’re going to have pastries. They’re going to have traditional cannoli and Cannoli trios and panettone bread pudding and Nutella fried dough and a cookie plate and all that. Darren wants to come in here too. And hold on. I don’t even, I don’t have him plugged in. Let me do this. I just want to hear about the food, and then we’re gonna go back talk about photojournalism, because they brought me food. Here you go, Dude, you got to come in. Stand up for me. But I’m gonna make everything happen here. I’m gonna get everybody in here and get this live. The sausage King has arrived. This better not be scrapple. You didn’t give me scrapple, did you dare? No, no, all right. I don’t know why I can’t hear you right now, but I will hear you. Go ahead. No, say no, yeah. There he is on the on now this is not your first go round on wnst, Darren was a longtime caller and friend to everything we do. And he just came up, we’re talking about black and white and color photography, and he slaps down a sandwich that here, I won’t touch your side there, Joe, but I saw I’m
Joe Giordano 33:51
good, man, you’re, you’re gonna eat this. No way. I can’t, you can’t. I can’t, I can’t do the cream. I can’t do it. Sorry. It’s okay. But
Nestor Aparicio 33:58
I tell you what, I gotta get you on, Mike, it’s all right.
Joe Giordano 34:00
See, listen, just so, you know, I will take a Santino, but
Domenico Di Pasquale 34:04
I’ll have that come out later. What is this, Darren, that is the Porcello. So we have the fresh sausage patty, the roasted ham, the pancetta, cheddar, and then we have a secret chef sauce right on top.
Nestor Aparicio 34:17
What kind of secrets? What What kind of secret is it? Is it cheesy? It looks it’s crazy. It looks like the secret sauce in McDonald’s. Is what it looks like? I mean, it looks like 1000 Island with something, something, something. But what is it?
Domenico Di Pasquale 34:31
It’s a secret. I don’t even know. So it’s just like a little creamy. I believe there’s some mayo in there.
Nestor Aparicio 34:36
Look, I know you’re Italian. All of you, you got to stop feeding me. I mean, it just just this is one that’s one of
Domenico Di Pasquale 34:44
our breakfast sandwiches right there. All right.
Nestor Aparicio 34:46
Well, you look
Joe Giordano 34:48
like a bird over here. Look at this. Over here. My family’s from South Philly, so they all talk like that. My dad, oh, really, yeah, he’s from Bucha.
Nestor Aparicio 34:56
I’m from Colgate. I didn’t realize that till we sat down together. I know. Watching his work forever, and I don’t know him. He thinks I’m worried. That’s all I care about. You know, Darren, what’s going on with you?
Darren Paciocco 35:06
Gonna put some weight on you today. Nestor, I can see this.
Nestor Aparicio 35:11
This whole thing happened because of him. So let me give the whole thing. Darren’s been a Lister for years. His family was in a sausage business. I have had recently some just subpar sausages. And I don’t just mean here or in a store or whatever. I’ve traveled a little bit, and I’m a guy that if I’m in a New York deli that’s like Deepa squalis, and I’m gonna order pizza. I like sausage on my pizza, but I don’t trust sausage when it says Italian sausage. I’ve had this man’s Italian to it better, and he used to bring sausage out all the time. And I’ll tell you, I didn’t say it at the time for you and your brother and your family, I was spoiled on sausage, and then the last couple of years I haven’t been able to find sausage I like. So I reached your brother on LinkedIn about six weeks ago, and I’m like, Look, I know your family’s out of the sausage business. But do recommend some sausage. I had some artisan sausage I bought at the at the farmers market.
Joe Giordano 36:08
Kind of woke nonsense. Is that man American? Are you artisan sausage? It was
Nestor Aparicio 36:13
rockville or something, Trotsky’s get your Roma. So I Anna. I brought sausage home, and it was really good a couple of summers ago,
Darren Paciocco 36:21
get your deepest quality. We do,
Joe Giordano 36:26
yeah, yeah. I take it all back, and that’s artisan I’m making.
Darren Paciocco 36:30
I make it right here on location, fresh every day. Buy Nothing but the best pork I used. I used a bonus Boston buds, everything’s natural ingredients.
Joe Giordano 36:44
Joe says everything with the squeal, is that true?
Nestor Aparicio 36:49
So what? So this is ham sausage. What’s that thing underneath? Is that red pepper under there? See, my wife puts that into brussels sprouts. We make a little pancetta on the bottom there, which looks really good here. You got half? I can’t eat the whole thing there. Come on, man. Well, you need an extra plate. Yeah, get another plate. I hear they got yo. Don’t get up off of here. Stay on my set from
Joe Giordano 37:14
Sun dock. Take it home for lunch tomorrow. Like my mom, they put that away.
Nestor Aparicio 37:17
Done bringing me food. That’s what the problem so my wife was here. You are an Italian household. My wife was going to give me fruit, put in the car and make me cereal this morning. That’s how I stay like this, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, but I want some meat. Man. You know, I’m down here at deep esquali. So, so what’s this sandwich called on the menu, the Porcello. All right. All right. Here we go. Yeah, I gotta, you guys have to talk if I’m eating. This is Darren. You you can’t sports radio. I’ll
Domenico Di Pasquale 37:45
have the other half. Yeah, there
Joe Giordano 37:49
you go. He works out. He’s good. So what was your family sausage?
Darren Paciocco 37:55
Well, we started out at Roma sausage. Roma, okay, and I started May the 20th, 1986 so I’ve been making it for 39 years. Me and my brother had Roma, and then we got out of it. And then Joe called me one day and said, Hey, let’s get together and talk. So we started planning it out, and I pretty much created it from scratch. Joe just tells me whatever you need there. Just let me know. And he lets me do my thing. I honestly believe that we have the best sausage out there, hands down.
Domenico Di Pasquale 38:33
Every day. He’s trying to perfect it too.
Nestor Aparicio 38:35
He’s What’s the secret to yourself? He’s offered me all kinds of different sausages. I don’t know. The other there’s delicious. The
Darren Paciocco 38:41
secret to the sausage, first of all, you have to have good recipe. Which I have the best recipe out there. You gotta have a really good pork, not the pork that shrivels up when you cook it. You buy top grade pork, your your recipe, and you don’t cut no corners. You cut off the excess fat. You do everything the right way, and then you let the product speak for itself. By the way, we will be in the grocery stores coming soon, so look for it. Deepest quality sausage.
Nestor Aparicio 39:14
Now you gave me Italian sausage that I took home, and I’m not bullshitting you here, man, I’m in your place. I told my wife about the legend of you, he would bring sausage after the radio station 20 years ago, and oh my god, and we have I’d walk in the station, it’d be raw sausage in a white box. So I connected with him about four weeks ago, and like, Monday or Tuesday, I’m gonna make it. I want it to be fresh. You gotta have it fresh. You’re gonna eat it or freeze it, you can’t have it sit in the frigerator five days. Yeah, preservers
Darren Paciocco 39:44
in it. I don’t put no preservatives in it, no chemicals whatsoever.
Nestor Aparicio 39:48
So my wife and I, and I’m negotiating with him, and he’s texting me five times a day when he come, when he come, I’m like, Saturday. Let’s do Saturday. My wife had never been in here. My wife been in your old location. We left downtown. Three and a half years ago. When did you open this dump? 2021 all right, so we left an early 22 masks on. We moved out to Towson, and I hadn’t been in your new space, other than when you open right away. I walked. There was a lot of us here, like the weekend it opened, a lot of people here. And I did, you know, just I saw it, knew about it, whatever. And I said to my wife, I’m gonna take you down because she didn’t come, because you’re gonna be blown away because she had driven by and seen the outside. And I brought her in. We were here on a busy Saturday morning. About 11 o’clock in the morning we came. Was packed, and I saw Joe, and he left me a box of sausage. And my wife bought some things. We bought your broccoli, Rob ravioli out of that case over there. And I took that home. He gave me so much sausage that, like, all I wanted was four links on a roll. I just wanted to, like, have a barbecue and have some peppers and onions. Well, we do it right here at deepest rallies. That’s all I wanted from you, is a couple sausage links. He gave me, like, maybe 15 sausage links in a box. And I took him home, and I said to my wife, look, we got to figure this out. So we did sauce, tomato sauce. We use the Michi sauce because I had that in the freezer. I buy the Michaels Brooklyn, in the in the jars in the stores. I did not buy your sauce. Does a hat sauce here today, right? I use what I add. So my wife has now made the sausages as links as a sauce with two different sauces. I think she did something else with some of it. And every time she’s eaten it, she’s like, this is great. I mean literally, she’s like, this is great. And I’m like, This is what we were missing every time that we had subpar sausage in our because my wife makes sausage and lentil soups, right? And she uses the wrong sausage for that, but we will never do that again, but she’s Italian sausage for that. So we use sausage and different things we we make around the house, because my wife’s a hell of a cook. And now we come down to find this sausage here. So that’s what I came here. And I’m like, I got to do the show here. I didn’t know you had a crab cake. So a month later, Darren, you have inspired a whole Nancy Longo is going to come here and talk food. I know Nancy. She’s going to be here in a little bit crab cakes with Nancy. She’s good. Well, you know all the good
Darren Paciocco 42:13
cooks. I know Nancy very well. Um, we came out with a new sausage. Joe, the owner, who is. We all feed off of him. He’s he’s supposed to come over here. Joe’s always positive. He’s great to work for. But we came out with a new sausage. Need a raise. It’s got, it’s called prevolone. It’s called prevalone and parsley, and it’s phenomenal. You have to come in and buy some. It’s really, really good. And when’s this one? When’s this hit the store? It’s going to be, it’s going to be in this store Thursday, starting this Thursday, it’s going to be in this store. So coming this weekend and buy some. I think you’ll love it. Say this again, provolone and parsley. He’s got cheese in it. Yes, every bite you just it’s sharp, prevalon cheese.
Nestor Aparicio 43:01
Do you want me to eat your sausage plain? Or do you want me to put peppers and onions on or to get something out of the deli case? And how do you dress
Darren Paciocco 43:08
it up? I want you to make it the way you like. I mean, the sausage speaks for itself. You want to dress it up with peppers and onions, that’s fine, but you can also eat it plain, which is excellent. Like when I go to cookouts, I’ll just take one off the grill without any bread or anything. It’s just eat it that way, really, like I do the same. And if you’re off the grill, and if you like the hot, I suggest getting our high because it’s got a little, it’s got a little
Nestor Aparicio 43:35
zing to it. One to 10, how hot? Oh, how many peppers you’re giving me here?
Darren Paciocco 43:39
One to 10, one hot. I’d say it’s, I don’t know, seven, eight, that’s hot, okay, yeah, it’s got a it’s got a nice zing to it. If you’re going to buy hot, that’s what you want. And I believe, I believe, we have the best hot around. It’s not too hot to where you’re like, oh, it just leaves that nice zing in your mouth.
Nestor Aparicio 43:59
I can’t believe you brought me sausage with ham and Bucha. Look at
Darren Paciocco 44:04
this thing. Sausage goes with everything. Nestor,
Nestor Aparicio 44:06
no. Raspberries from you this morning. All right, yeah, I gotta take a break. Joe’s here, Dom’s here, Darren’s here. I’m gonna let you guys go work. You and your dad are gonna come by. You’re gonna tell me the whole story. Yep, I can’t eat and do show you see
Darren Paciocco 44:21
what’s happening here. Sorry. Nestor, you can, you can, you can chew and talk same time. I feel
Nestor Aparicio 44:28
like Clara Peller in the old Wendy’s. Yeah. Where’s the beef in there? You know,
Darren Paciocco 44:32
by the time you leave here, you’re gonna have a couple more pounds on you probably all right, no,
Nestor Aparicio 44:37
like, I get some drinks here, Joe. Joe likes to feed people. Joe’s gonna hang out and do some photojournalism. Nancy Longo is coming by later. Dom and Joe are coming back. I’m sure they’re bringing Darren. It’s not even 10am and I’m already sausage, so I’m down here at cheapest Qualis. It is the Maryland crab cake tour. There is gonna be a crab cake, right? Yeah, coming up now. Who inspired your crab cake? My mother. This Italian crab that’s Italian style crab cake. 10. In Highland town, crab cake. Darren, recognize that, right? It’s very good. All right. Darren the sausage King is here. He has inspired all of this today. Joe and Dom are gonna come back. And I also, I had Dan Rogers coming by, but he had a little family thing. He’s gonna join us next Friday. I did promote that. Oh, and cringe, peak
Darren Paciocco 45:16
orange is coming by around 1130 I believe I talked to him yesterday. You gonna serve him sausage? I talked to him yesterday, and he’s definitely coming by. Oh, he loves our sausage. He loves it.
Nestor Aparicio 45:28
I’m gonna eat sausage with Pete, yeah. Pete, 45 is a good dude. So I brought you by the Maryland lottery. Darren, you get a lottery ticket. Dom, you get a lottery ticket as well. Already gave Joe one, one. Yeah, I
Joe Giordano 45:38
won nothing. I lost. Well, you know. Now listen,
Nestor Aparicio 45:41
this is, this is where you learn about second chances. You have to scan the ticket. You have to download the app, MD lottery.com, you you get second chances. And second chances are that’s how you like go places and do different things. There you go. Good luck. Marilyn Lowry brings this to you, as well as our friends. A curio wellness of liberty, pure solutions. We call it the Maryland crab cake tour. Today it is the Highland town via Canton Italian sausage tour. We’re down here at deepasquale. Stay with us. You.
