Faye

Yes, not arguing about politics is better, as is not drinking the night before almost any morning. I did not do both of those things last night. So, I woke up extra early this morning, feeling pretty good and with fewer regrets. 

I did watch The Irishman on Netflix. While not exactly a regret, I'm not so sure that Scorsese's brand of storytelling still works for me. It was entertaining in the way that any reasonably well made film is interesting to watch. There were some great shots and editing and all of that, even if those components all seemed a bit too familiar at times. It was like watching Casino if it had happened in Detroit with all the actors replaced by their geriatric counterparts. The formula seems to have run dry, though it does work well for those types of stories, and those types of stories can be inherently interesting. They have tension built into them and everybody knows we love that. He is still telling the story of gangsters, though now he tacks on an extra hour and a half to explore their regrets later in life, and of course their lonely deaths. The late supporters of the Hays Hollywood Code would be proud of him.

Maybe I am just getting too old for gangster stories. Tarantino too, with his bizarre take on Charles Manson and fetishization of that time. The American New Wave of cinema that happened in the late 60s and through the 70s seems to be stuck in both the style and content of that ~decade. They'll remake Bonnie and Clyde soon, too, if they haven't already. Brad Pitt and whomever would replace Faye Dunaway in today's talent hot tub. Is there a contemporary replacement for Faye? I understand that she's a real-life monster to work with. I once remember reading that she likes to call production assistants the little gay people, but I don't care much about that. I mean, it's not right but I'm not going to demand that she be publicly hanged for it. Because that would just be giving her more of the fame that she craves and that her production assistants rightfully deserve. They'll let her starve silently, instead. 

What do I know? I'm not a production assistant. I don't know the grueling hours they put into their craft, nor the demeaning conditions under which they must sometimes be expected to work, all the while striving to maintain their basic human dignity. Sounds like I'm kidding, I know, but it was only part jest. When I landed on the last portion I realized that people do deserve basic dignity. It's much more funny when they don't get it, though. It's a bit like sexual equality - has anyone ever fantasized about it? About having it and enjoying it and exploring it? Nope. That doesn't make it silly and unattainable, but neither does it seemingly entice the human mind much. We agree to it as an ideal. 

On screen she is really something, Faye. I also have some occasional temperament issues, also, so I forgive her. I have been known to call underlings and overlords much worse and can likewise lose my temper at the site of a wire hanger. I was really cheering for her in Mommie Dearest, because just like her or Joan Crawford, or whatever, I also can not stand little ingrates. 

I used to watch Three Days of the Condor as if it was a religious rite. One of my personal favs. It is the same basic plot as Bladerunner - time, life, and love are frantic and filled with danger closing in, and the clock is always ticking for everyone in all directions, but it ticks more specifically for the protagonists. 

So, live a life free of regrets. I'm pretty sure that's what Scorsese was trying to say, also. 

 

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Jus' jumpin' on the bed

I didn't escape Thanksgiving without some political quarreling. An old acquaintance from the other end of the political spectrum wrote me this: I am as always passionate about the rule of law and the Constitution, among other things, in defense of Donald Trump. My head, of course, exploded with Cabernet. The theory that the Dems are somehow operating outside of either the Constitution or federal law, or even the House rules never seems to be debunked by the question: Why doesn't somebody with the law on their side stop them? Who currently runs the executive branch? It's a good set of questions with no apparent answer. The lawless Dems can't be stopped by any laws known to man. It must be because they're shapeshifters. That's how they get so many votes in California, too.

The conversation ended as futilely as ever. I offered to strangle him with my bare hands. But I, at least, fit a political argument in and it didn't have to happen at home. Though the conversation did have some overflow effects into the living room, of course, because I was drunk.

I am finally proud of being drunk again. The way I was when I was younger. Well, not quite like that, but a little bit closer to that after the two-year process of turning 50. I was hoping the New York Times would be here for me when I turned 50, with insightful articles about books worth reading that explain the latest thinking on how to get through these times, as a man, but those are not the books that they deem worth promoting any longer. I saw a cartoon about it somewhere, maybe it was in the New Yorker. 

The family has departed to The Berkeley Rep theater, to see The Tale of Despereaux. I didn't read the review that I just linked, am just trying to be informative and documenting my life with all of its incompleteness. 

Since they are gone I am listening to a thoroughly depressing but brilliant album (as if Syd Barrett actually made a pop album, or if Keith Richards would have left The Stones during the recording of Their Satanic Majesties Request to do a solo album, but sunk further into addiction instead). I was reminded of it by an article that outlined some of the greatest sad albums, according to them. I love lists like those, because about a third of the albums I'll already know and love and agree with them about, another third will sound familiar to me and I'll maybe have a different album by the same band or will be vaguely familiar with them, and another third I will have never have heard of, and I'll be compelled to investigate why that is. 

Hint: It is always because I am getting old.

So, I read through articles like the one linked above - written by those more hip than I - and keep my mind and body healthy by arguing with their choices in some faraway imaginary land where my noble ideas are always regarded highly by all lucky enough to hear them. Where the counter arguments are always simplistic and easy to topple. 

The reality is that few people even bother trying to discuss music with me any more. I don't blame them, but I do try to keep myself informed about the severity and variety of their foolish choices. There is no way to get them to understand, though I persist in trying. 

I tell them that I'm like Moondog, but without all of the success. 

For a completely different experience from the album linked above. This is a beautiful and haunting piece of ambience.

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They are remembered to me as the glory days

I love the accidental solar flare; it takes very little to please me - accidents, sun, flares. You get the idea. It almost matches his shirt and the out-of-focus shot seems to add to it. It reminded me of some contemporary art I saw once, an exhibit, in Mexico City, back when traveling other places meant that I would try to get the most out of the experience. Before each trip to the airport at the end of ~two days at an afterparty became an exercise in drinking to sober up. 

Well, I had hoped to just write a quick post wishing anyone and everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. It is a sacred American tradition with a horrible history, we are told by those whose job it is to make sure we understand that we are all born into sin. Never before in my lifetime have liberals resembled the evangelicals, in whom they are so disappointed in their support for Trump, but possess the same ideological bent, and belief in demonic possession. Those possessed are easy to identify: they are for the eternal enemy. They seek an even more extreme leader, and if history tells us anything they won't stop until the find one better than the unlucky one that they do find next. 

There is never any crisis of righteousness. Not with so many being reborn into sin, ad infinitum.  

Well, I had hoped to just write a quick post wishing anyone and everyone a Happy Thanksgiving. It is a sacred American tradition. 

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My new article in Cosmo....

(Akira)

My life has become like CS's: all of my stuff is breaking down and I am having to spend non-existent money on things I didn't want. The brand new iMac computer that I spent $3500 on has had two kernel panics and two unexpected shutdowns. I've updated the system's OS, unplugged all external devices, created a new user account, and so now I just wait... I'm hoping to catch either a kp or a shutdown so that I can see it in the console logs. This will hopefully give me an idea why it's happening. It's under warranty, of course, and I bought the extended warranty, but still... it is a brand new machine, and kps are a bad sign. It could be the expensive memory sticks I put in there - $600 worth. Apple will not work on my machine with those in there. I'm certain of it. I have probably voided my warranty by installing it myself, and I gave the original memory away to a local computer shop here. I should put getting that back on my list of things to do but I probably won't. 

Now, most of my software doesn't work any more. Upgrading the Apple OS early always results in consumer punishment. Upgrading your OS is not really a troubleshooting step but it is what they taught us.

I am off from work until Monday, which is helpful. I interacted with a completely useless twat yesterday. I was on the verge of telling him to fuck off but I chose to just ignore him instead. Now I do not need to think about it until Monday. On Monday I have a strategy to divert him away from me, and giving him a few days to become incensed will make the diversionary tactic all the more pleasing for me.

A long time ago my brother gave me a little bit of advice. He said, Watch people carefully, there are some that will always approach you as if you owe them something and sometimes out of habit you'll find yourself helping these people. But always remember that most people aren't owed anything, and acting otherwise doesn't make it so. 

Well, he didn't say those exact words, but you get the idea. It was not very far off from that and he was right. Some people seem genuinely appreciative of the help that you can give them, then some people expect you to report to them as if they're your manager. This guy was the latter type.

So, on top of all of my many other shortcomings I am also confessedly petty.

Rachel's mom is here for the week. Perhaps you can detect it in my writing and in the days I have taken off. She is so helpful and always includes others to assist in her helpfulness. It is a version of the behavior described above. It helps everybody feel grateful when grandma is being so helpful. We are all enlisted in gratitude.

Pettiness, sure, but not today! 

Today I am selfless-ish. I am going into the city to witness my two friends' marriage at the SF City Hall. I will be the witness and the official photographer, and maybe the official amateur also. I guess it just depends how well the pics turn out and how much I want to charge for them. After the ceremony they have offered to take me to lunch. I tried to offer to buy them lunch, but they refused. They have looked at my life and thought, How can we emulate that? So, I will witness the vows and then give them lunchtime advice on how to keep your love going into your 50s. 

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Achievers, Socializers, Explorers, Killers - Repeat

I'm not on my other computer where I could plug in the external drive that has the other images, the newer ones, but not all of them, just the ones I couldn't fit on my work computer and was forced to find another way, after I converted a bunch of RAW image files to jpgs, but forgot to re-import them to the library, so that now I have thousands of orphaned thumbnails. 

My life is summed up neatly in that last sentence, every aspect of it, because it is also a wandering paragraph. My pains have become the metaphors they always wanted to be. 

I've been reading A.J. Liebling here and there lately. Anybody would wish to write like him, at times, but there are so few rewards left in the world for those who would try. Are there any essayists that have a fraction of the wit and breadth of interest? I read people like Matt Taibbi or David Sedaris or people in that same talent strata and I wonder what must have happened. As if the end-indicating apocalypse fulfilled its every sinister prophecy. It happened silently, without coverage or comment, without whiff of soot or cinder to let us each agree that it is all over, for all of us and for always now, we want a better sign of the end. The mind of my mankind has collapsed in on itself. The weight of its aspirations proving to be no match for the famous real estate salesman that we decided to timeshare our future with. 

Perhaps it happened as part of the discovery of the utterly unstoppable fallibility of self-consciousness, around the same time that we were given a seemingly universal chance to advance our own version of self, sans much of the consciousness. Few things indicate our inability to have heroes as does our inability to believe in them. Partisanship always proves the failing. I'd like to say it's just age, the ossifying of the ideals, but there is also a dumber version: none of us ever mattered much. 

What I mean is... I've begun arguing for the heroics of people that I am unsure of and yet convinced of the crimes of anyone that would advance the enemy argument, in any form. This is how I am sure that I have lost whatever feeble grasp I might have ever had on enlightenment, mine or anybody else's.

I promised not to talk about politics any more here; there are so few enlightened voices left in the conversation. I've reached an age where I do not wish much to peek back at my own voice, not tomorrow morning, not after, and have never wanted to listen, just check. I'm surrounded by people here in California who believe the most fascinating conversation topic is their own well being, and how to struggle there, so for practice and jest I try to talk and think like them. We all do this, somewhat, just not in California. 

The three struggles in storytelling have always been: man against man, man against self, man against God, but now there is man against other man's self. That other man might have a struggle with other man or other self with other god, but most of all it is the struggle with other man's self. to bring victory with thine own self. The new conflict is lack on inclusivity in storytelling. 

I'm so ready for that narrative. But can we agree that man's struggle with man's self has always been the issue. Why else would there even be a need for feminism, where all is historically well?

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between force and this

(turn up the brightness on your device)

I do not suspect this picture will translate very well here, it barely looks lookable on my expensive new 27" iMac with plasma something and expanded graphics cards, luminosity features, something, something, something, bright lights.....

Mom, the boy, and I took it tonight in the back yard. We were hoping to see the meteor shower, but have moved to the wrong side of America.

I just had a text exchange with an old friend about that image, sort of. I sent it and within a few words we were making and sharing observations about those who enjoy a taste for the abyss, or a little abandon - the compulsive, etc. The need for a unified field theory between the compulsive and the attractive.

I wanted to buy myself a keyboard, nothing fancy, just something to feel alive about. I said so, after other wants.

Then, we texted goodnight. 

No other generation has complained so much about being handed the keys to a second hand century, and so soon after barely even driving it off the lot. 

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Delights (joie de vivre)

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"Mother, give me the sun"

Ibsen, if you didn't feel like looking it up. I think it's Ibsen, could be Checkhov. I read them both during impressionable times. I'm reading Beckett right now, and am reminded of the overwhelming everything of nothing. A man my age should not read Beckett until, and unless, there is hope. 

Okay, I looked it up - the quote is from Ghosts by Ibsen, and I've never read it. 

So, posing stand the posers. 

I want more life, father.

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More Dangerous Photos

This one is dangerous because it shows what mom does for a living - raises money for the science. 

Little Lebowski Urban Achievers, yes, and proud we are of all of them. 

I joke, but I am very proud of her and so is the boy. While I explored a boundless and systematized disorganization of all the senses for a couple years after our divorce, she achieved a master's degree. At dinner, we meet in the middle and only talk about things that I can speak authoritatively about, which is the subset that has become my own photos and writing. We're advocates for traditional family values, you see, and we believe that dad's dogma should be silently resisted at dinnertime.

I hope that it is clear by now how much I kid much through the occasionally truthful well of exaggeration.

Anyway, as is said in these situations, we're all happy today and just letting the day wade by slowly, playing Legos on the floor, listening to Burning Spear, petting the dogs as we walk by them, drinking scotch because the wine ran out.  

Photography is one of those weird places where motive need not be established, since to the viewer it seems abundantly clear. Why would you need to state the disgusting thing that should be obvious to all?

I took this picture a few years ago among about a thousand that I took that same day, mostly of kids playing. When I discovered it I thought, Oh, how funny. 

But not everybody finds such images so funny. Some people see danger there, too.

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Dangerous Photos

CS texted me last night, stating that we should be taking and posting more dangerous photos. I agree with him, but I am an enormous pejorative pussy. In my world there are only two types of dangerous images: bad ones and worse ones. Translated: other women and other, younger women. 

Best to stick with portraits that grandma will like and approve of, because only god knows how much we crave her unrequested approval. 

I do love photos that contain some hard to describe sense of menace. Images snatched from the continuum of life that reveal or suggest some lurking danger, even if the subject doing the lurking is the one taking the picture, or the one viewing it. Danger need not be real to feel real. 

Russell Chatham died. Rachel's mom has a large print of his in her house that I love. It is absurd and takes up an entire wall. I could look at it for hours, and have. If you look up his California paintings - from his artlessly titled book Russell Chatham: One Hundred Paintings - you'll see many that were made close to where we now live. One in particular - Sonoma Mountain - is a place where I regularly ride my bike. I recognize the spot that is the subject of the painting, it's almost impossible not to. I will ride there this morning with a friend, coincidentally. The trail starts near Jack London's house and runs up the ridge about 2200 feet to one of the meadows near the top. It is the bald mountain top that is the subject of his painting. But there are many others from Napa and Tomales Bay and Marin. It is a great place to live for natural beauty. I'm hoping that will prove to be enough.



In an effort to convince myself that I should buy the new Fuji X-Pro3 camera I decided to start shooting my X-Pro2 without the use of the back view screen. I will try using only the optical viewfinder for a bit, meaning I have to bring the camera up to my eye to effectively frame an image, like shooting with film, or more like it. So far it is driving me mad. I've realized how much my shooting with that camera is not the style of shooting that it was meant for, but it is a way of shooting that I've learned to love and don't really use with any other camera. I often shoot from low angles, but do so just by using a wide angle lens - 24mm - and leave my arm hanging at or just a bit away from my side, or swinging as I take several. But the back screen can still be used to achieve approximate composition. I shoot a lot and hope for the best. Every now and then lightning gets trapped in its act.

Now, here is the fucked up part. Even though I spent one night shooting in a way that I recognized was a bit limiting for me, as I was lying in bed thinking of mostly sleep, I convinced myself that I could just buy the new camera and keep the old one also. This, so that I could choose which one I wanted to shoot with based on mood. Keep in mind that I am not a professional and have never once made any money off of my photography. The closest I ever came was when a reader here asked for a print of one of my photos and paid for the print and shipping cost. So, one time I broke even on one part of dealing with one image. Every purchase is money that becomes lost in a hobby that has no logical limit in terms of things you can buy, if you only want that thing. The only requirement of desire is always pre-satisfied. It justifies itself because it exists in advance of any need for justification.


But... I just got an enormous stock payout from my company, so what the fuck. The insurance people also paid every single cent for me getting hit by the car. They never even asked me to pay a deductible. The hospital must have felt that the $50,000 they charged my insurance company for letting me walk out after three hours, telling me to take aspirin if you feel sore, was sufficient payment. I took out $200,000 insurance for accidental death or dismemberment yesterday. It only cost me a dollar every two weeks. It's like a lottery ticket that always has the same numbers. I want my possible final last thought to be, Well, that'll be something nice to help ease the pain for Rachel and Rhys. After taxes that should be almost $100,000.


The world is so fucked. I want in on the corruption. Do I have to start at the bottom, again, as if it's an entirely new career? I have some fledgling corruption experience on my shadow resume. Shouldn't my lifelong efforts at avoiding actual work count for something?

Russia, if you're listening, maybe you can find some dirt on my opponents, too?

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"I can't go on like this"

I forgot to write a post last night. Or, I was too tired and fell asleep with the boy while watching an animated movie. Or, both. I slept terribly, so it is difficult to remember. The timeline of the evening most closely resembles a headache. 

I went to the doctor, finally, and got a cortisone shot. The sciatic pain in my leg had become unbearable, chronic, and acute. It had been going on for months. I don't even remember when it began. Had I known that a simple trip to my general physician would have caused some cessation then I would not have waited. I won't wait again. Though, I've read that it is no cure and that too many cortisone shots can cause other problems, but fuck it. Pain is not something I am willing to tolerate. 

Every time I say or think something like that last sentence I hear Beckett's haunting: That's what you think.

My doctor is a pleasant old guy and I hope he never retires. We have good chats. He is from the old guard of family medicine. He offered me pain killers for the sciatica as he was refilling my Xanax prescription. I told him that he can keep them, that the ones he would give me aren't much good for anything. No, he recognized the reality of my pain, he assured me. I told him that the sciatica pain comes and goes and that pain killers make me feel dopey and sluggish the whole time, so he let it go. And it's true. I've never cared very much for most pain killers. Though some drugs that I have loved madly for decades have some palliative qualities. I want to keep my resistance to such things low. Who knows what the winters may bring. 

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The sun sets at 4 o'clock

I went through some old pics this morning, unexpectedly. I found a few that I like. I'll post this one for now as it is the first one I came across. Hopefully there will be more in the next few days. I have been beaten down by the merciless bureaucracy of everything. The hospital and the paramedic service and some lab all want money from me. Not a lot, but I don't want to pay it and nobody has even admitted that I was misdiagnosed. I wasn't in trauma. I was barely hurt. 

But, ah well. This is not the place to complain of such trivial things. There are other trivial things to trifle about. 

I got a new driver's license today. Well, I'll get it in a couple weeks, but I went to the DMV today. The requirements of the state summoned me from afar. I forgot to shave for the picture. 

Afterwards, the woman ringing up my sushi at the market asked me if I was eligible for the "Tuesday Discount"... this means that I look to be 55 years old. As I walked to the car it occurred to me that I am drinking age older than 30 now. What a terrible thought. 

Okay, I'll wrap it up before the sedative kicks in any more than it has. Tonight, I wanted to take no chances that my body might ignite its own late-night fracas. I have quelled the insurrection. 

I often dream of trains when I'm alone

I ride them down into another zone...

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Pygmalion

I am listening to an old album, a favorite, by Slowdive - Pygmalion. Shoegaze at its best. I don't think there is a finer example of music I like to listen to in a certain state: coming down from E. I spent about a decade listening to this album, along with a few others. I'd listen to other albums, of course, but if anybody asked me what my favorites were, then this was always on the list. I used to make lists. I love lists, especially those of pure subjective preference. They are as irrational as most poetry, especially if a short paragraph of justification is included. What happiness it is to find one concerning things that you may also love.

I have read no less than 25 lists recently - in the last year - about dub music. A couple of which I studied as if I had found a gold vein. One of which was so reliable I bought every album on it, 30 of them. This being one of my favorites.

I used to have an iPod, when they first came out. I would fly all over the world with it, listening to this album and so many others. Then, I got a job working an overnight shift, where again I could listen to music. When I fly now I can only enjoy music for a few hours, then it usually becomes tedious. Though I have a phone that will hold sixty-four times more music than my original did. I tire now of not having the enthusiasm that I once did. Sometimes when I drink it returns. The verve does. 

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The Tank Top

A friend challenged me on yesterday's open advocacy for corporal punishment. I almost had to slap the fucker, except that we were conversing through text. The slap will have to wait. Of course it makes sense to hit kids when they act up. I know that we're supposed to reward them for their creativity, especially in bad behavior and poor manners, but what the fuck. Social mores on child-raising are about controlling parental behavior and virtue signaling from the speaker much more than they are about producing super-children. It's why my most common response to people lately has been, Please, get the fuck away from me.

But I was mostly kidding about hitting kids. You should only hit a child if they hit you first. That rule goes for everybody. You can hear the nervousness in mom's voice when I tell the boy that he always has the right to defend himself. You can hear her wanting the power of approval in these moments, trying to add qualifiers and create scenarios where this basic axiom wouldn't be true. I state simply, Nope, anytime somebody attacks you then you have the right to defend yourself and don't ever let anybody try to tell you otherwise. 

If she pushes back against that I tell her that she's making herself unelectable. 

I'm just fucking around, of course. You should always strike first. Everybody that has ever won a fight knows this. We're moving back towards a society where people punch first and assess the merits or questions of the attack later, as well as the criminality. I miss the adrenaline rush of fights. I miss almost everything about youth, the apparent ease in which one can make mistakes most of all. Everything was easier when I was younger, especially getting old. 

Rage, rage against the dying of the fight.

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Ok Boomer

I couldn't find a new picture, so I started at the bottom of an old folder and gave up looking at this one. It suits my Saturday morning mood. Autumn. Or Fall, for those who lack my pretenses. I prefer the original Etruscan.

Moving on. 

Today will be dedicated to Dad Stuff. Cub Scouts errands and good deeds, followed by a parental talk. My son made fun of a special needs girl yesterday at school. The girl did not hear the slur, thankfully, but other kids did. It was presumably for their benefit that he made his joke. I had to try to explain to him why singling someone out for a thing that they have no control over is very wrong and the cruel act of a weak and scared human being, but I couldn't quite find my footing in the brief conversation we had about it yesterday. I mean, I hit all of the important points but somehow I don't think that I drove those points home as well as I would have liked to. So, he has a dreadful and uninvited conversation coming his way today. I'll only stop when he's crying. That's how I'll know that I'm an effective communicator and a good dad.

Also, I'll point out to this little bigot that racist jokes are all the rage now. He's living outside of his times. If he really wants to be cool then learn irony and focus on the woke. 

It is a deeply unpleasant thing that he has done. 

The other day, he and I were at the dog park. Well, we were leaving the dog park and he wanted to play at the playground near the parking lot. So, we did. At some point I noticed that he had dooky on his shoe. Jokingly, I said, Oooooh, it's dooky.... He became very sullen and clearly uncomfortable. I stopped right away and pointed out that he and I make dooky jokes all the time, and that because he had some on his shoe doesn't mean anything, and that we'd clean it off when we got home. But he made the association between what was on his shoe and himself as a person and it hurt him, such a joke coming from me. I could see it clearly in his reaction. I'm going to find a way of using that episode to help him understand how it feels to be singled out for something that's not your fault.

I hope he doesn't equate being born with a visibly noticeable learning impairment with having shit on his shoe. My impending speech perhaps needs a little more work. Consider this the rough draft. 

I'll think of something. 

I have tried pointing out to him that in all beauty there is some strangeness of proportion, also, but I'm not sure how much he can yet understand such a concept. He likes toys that are sleek and cool and secretive and slick. Maybe I can use Batman to help him understand the inner pain and disfigurement that many people live with, and that some embrace fully to understand who they are. If that doesn't work then maybe I'll beat the little shit into tears. Put some fear in him, at least. People say it's wrong, but in the moment it seems like the right thing to do. If not, then nobody would ever do it. Right? Truth is transitory, especially with that of sudden violence. It's true meaning and beauty seems to disappear as soon as the cops arrive. 

I'm not really going to beat the boy. I've never touched him punitively in anger. But I can still feel the rightness of the impulse. I'm not one of those liberals that can only see the failings and injustice of others. My search for the iniquitous starts right in my own heart, and rarely needs to leave. If I had more moral courage then I would admit that more often. Knowing that I would have been impeached about two years before Trump, if I had ever become president, helps. I only have any sense of nobility when it comes to ideals and abstractions, and only in conversation, rarely in deed. When it comes to drugs, money, power, and pussy I resemble Caligula much more than Captain Crunch.

Maybe I can hire somebody to talk to the boy.

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Now, what in the methamphetamine is going on here?

Yes, I know, the image troubles me also. But I like it. The leash doesn't hurt her, but she won't fight against it. The swirl was accidental, and not taken with a special lens for the effect. Optics and light are strange, or can be. There is so much to learn and know when it comes to the science of optics, and I have little time or interest in learning much of it, but I do wish I had paid more attention in the cinematography classes that I took in college. They might have been useful.

I didn't. I reveled in apathy and indifference.

I worked long and hard today, though, for reasons that I can not confirm. It just happened and it didn't feel terrible, but now the day is gone and I regret not making more of it. Not even a sacred bike ride.

There is a new camera that I want, but I'm not like old money bags over in the financial paradise of Detroit. The camera has what I would consider to be a problematic feature set. They have out-cooled themselves on this one. I'm afraid that I would buy it but prefer the back EVF of my current model, the one before this one. They've upped the price of being hip again. 

What would I know about being hip? You're about to find out how flimsy my efforts are.

Watch this:

I taught myself to play an old Grateful Dead song today - Deal. I would post a video of them playing it here, but Jesus I can't do it. I must be a bigot. Jerry Garcia is a fuckin' stinkin' fat hippy. He's impossible to look at in the 80s. Just a sloppy drug addict in a dirty unbuttoned flannel shirt. I do love his melodic playing, though. When I try to play along with him it makes me wish that I was a dirty hippy in an rotten stained t-shirt, also.

Here, have a studio version of Sugaree instead:

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An idealistic kid runs into the supernatural light

No politics, though I am tempted. It incites my passions like a bloodlust because I'm not enlightened. I gave up on that years ago, for the reason just listed. 

One thing, though: Trump is Jesus for the followers of Jesus that don't believe in the teachings of Jesus. Even when they lose they think and proudly claim they're winning.

When I was a young boy I went to an evangelical church and surrendered my heart over to the bleeding hands of Jesus. I told you that I wasn't enlightened, what did you expect? But the impression that those people gave me never really left me. They would deny basic facts of all kinds and constantly tell us that our own eyes and minds are out to trick us, and not to trust them. For a time, I confused this with enlightenment because at that time I could not tell the difference between meaning and the feeling of meaning.

This concludes my Bill and Ted's Talk.

I like these images. They are dark and frantic and not portraits of my son's beautiful blue eyes. So, you know, it's a different type of photography for me. The one at the top is the one I like the most. It seems as if he is being lifted into the light, mid-stride. An alien abduction of sorts, for believers and non-believers alike.

It is written in the light and darkness.

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The War On Witchery

Boo.

My life seems incompatible with itself. I can't seem to let anything settle down inside of me lately. The anxiety feels like electricity in the air. My mind crackles with it. I jump at anything. I jump at nothing. 

You can only live in impending doom for so long, eventually you'll want the doom to bring it on. 

That's where I am now. 

Beckett might disagree: That's what you think. 

Currently listening to Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, hoping for the best there is in madness and despair. 

What gloom remains in fear. 

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Out of scent, out of mind

I have no new pics of my own. I saw this online and liked it. It was probably made on an iPhone by someone who wished that car wasn't in the shot. I have done very little with photography lately. I go through spells but the spells hardly drive me mad any more. They barely drive me to the gas station. Every now and then I lose interest in life. All things dim to grey. It comes back, with less ferocity. None, really. It feels like I've woken up from months of sleep, the bed is made underneath me and I am fully clothed. As if there is no explanation for my presence in the present and none of the past explains how I arrived in the current moment. It's probably a component of my existing disorder, but I'd probably listen to someone who told me it was a new one. It feels as if everything is entering its late stage. I thought that all of this would be more interesting. 

We can't smell the fires any more. The skies have been clear, the winds pushing the smoke a different direction. Mildly traumatic things just become a part of our lives, a feature. We rationalize it, or try to, but it changes how we feel about almost everything, a little bit. It imbues the quotidian with mild, distant terror. There's a threat to think about out there and there's no getting away from it even when there is nothing to worry about. It is then that the shift in our lives is most troubling. Like tinnitus when it is quiet.

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