Barack Obama The Pimp

Twenty-nine years ago, Lisa Jack was a camera-toting student at Occidental College and Barack Obama was a freshman from Hawaii. He quickly became involved in the college's Anti Apartheid Coalition, and stirred by his desire to change the world, got the heck out of Oxy and transferred to Columbia University for his sophomore year. (Trivia note/otherwise absent local angle to this story: I attended the college eight years after Obama and also was a member of the anti-apartheid group, but never went to Columbia or became president... )

Anyways, Jack snapped some photos of Barack Obama that are now on display at M+B gallery in Los Angeles The photos are on display at M+B Gallery, 612 North Almont Dr., Los Angeles, from May 28 to July 18. It's a good thing she waited until now to display them, for had they been released during the campaign, they would definitely have been plastered all over Fox News and the Drudge Report. According to a press release announcing the opening reception for the artist, Obama brought a Panama hat and a pack of cigarettes to the shoot, but the way he's smoking that cigarette suggests that tobacco wasn't all he was sampling.

The photos are on display at M+B, 612 North Almont Dr., Los Angeles, from May 28 to July 18.