All Hallows' Even

Halloween. . . again. Spooks, ghosts, goblins, demons. I have them all. I am invited out tonight to a costume party. I haven't the energy. It is tough enough getting dressed in the morning. I will feel a misery tonight, some nostalgia for happier times, but I couldn't face the other thing.

Everything Gets Broken

It is grim here right now. It shouldn't be. The weather has changed and we have true autumn. But everything is breaking down. My washer quit draining. There is no use trying to repair it and I have another, so I thought I could simply take out one and install the other. But the connections were old and when I tried to uncouple them, water began spraying everywhere. I finally got that stopped, but I am afraid to touch anything now. Two nights ago when it turned cold, I needed heat. I have a gas heater and the gas had been off in the summer and now it was time to light the pilot. I couldn't figure out how to do that. I did everything the schematics told me to do, but it didn't work. So I spent two grim nights when things should have been lovely fun. Expensive technicians are in the attic right now. They have been for awhile. I thought this would be a simple lighting of the flame, but apparently there is something more expensive going on.

The dryer isn't drying and the dishwasher is leaking at the seams. The floor got wet and the boards are warping. The sprinkler heads are broken. The kitchen faucet has begun to drip. The driveways need mulching. The azaleas (for unknown reasons) are dying. I drink too much.

I tried scanning some of the negatives I shot at the Palin rally, but the scanner isn't working properly. It begins to work and then reports a "serious error." It is an expensive Nikon 9000. I don't know what to do.

But that is only the beginning. I have too many things I must try to fix just now, physical, emotional, mental. I am simply overwhelmed.

This isn't a "me" blog, but I have to explain why this may be slow and go for awhile. Sometimes everything is broken.

Plenty of Blame

My Palin rally photos are a disappointment. It felt like I was getting something, but as Gertrude Stein said, "there is no there there." They are, in the main, bland. The rally was smallish. People stood in a neat, long line to get into the rodeo arena to get their seats. It was all very orderly. Most people held anti-Obama signs or "Pitbulls for Palin" or "The Arctic Fox" signs, all hand drawn. I walked the line many, many times, so everyone at the rally saw me again and again. I have become as much a part of their memory of the rally as anyone but Palin, I think. Some were suspicious, but none were openly hostile to my taking photographs. I saw one African-American family there. I wondered if they were there on a dare. Otherwise, it was a pretty homogenous crowd, maybe like a Walmart in Iowa City.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a bunch of Vietnamese holding McCain/Palin signs on the corner of a very busy road. I saw some irony there, so I grabbed my camera and shot a few frames. As I was shooting, several times cars of African-Americans drove by and often someone would shout out the window, "Fuck McCain." Often wild gestures accompanied the shouts. I also heard some racial slurs.

I hope I am even handed in what I am doing. There is plenty of blame to go around.

Not Wildly Different

A friend told me about a Palin rally this weekend, and I went. It was a different affair from the Obama rally, but I'll save that for when I have my photographs.

About which. . . I was reading more Arbus last night. Her writing is as disturbing as her photographs. But this. . .

"I did the the class interviews last thurs. a bit grim. . . . I just felt confused. their pictures mostly bored me and I had a slight feeling like I didn't know what was wrong with em, they werent after all so wildly different from Good pictures, except there was that mysterious thing. . . I didn't want to look at them, as if it might be catching and I would end up learning from the students how to take just such boring pix as those."

The truth of that just chills me. I know I've been putting up photos that are not "so wildly different from Good pictures." Part of that lies with trying to do this every day and of course is understandable, but there is another truth to it, too. There is a difference.

Hers was a personal statement, of course, not something she brought to the public, but rather is excerpted from a letter to her ex-husband. She ends the letter by saying she accepted all the students into her class. It is not like she is telling those who don't sing well not to sing. Singing is good for the soul. The soul of the singer, that is. The rest of us just have to smile and suffer.

The Weird to Wildly Insane Events Guide

Why?!? This always happens to me. Last night after reading through more of Diane Arbus's writing, I decided to google The United States Twirling Championships. It turns out they had taken place THAT DAY IN MY OWN TOWN! God hates me. I am always a minute late. There is nothing to do now but note it for next year. I will have to be proactive, make a calendar and mark it. I also missed a major rodeo only thirty miles away. Why isn't there an index for this sort of stuff, the weird to wildly insane events guide? If you have any information about this sort of thing, send it to me. . . please.

Physics of Luck

Is there a physics to luck? Is chance really chance? I've been through a bad spell for a long time, and I am beginning to wonder. I used to believe that we choose everything that happens to us, but later I thought that as dogmatic and unsupportable as any other belief. There are university courses like Physics for Poets that attempt to answer such questions. I am very tired of taking responsibility for what happens to me. Last night, I went to bed well and woke up sick. I almost flew to NYC for my buddy's birthday party, a big affair at a small club in the East Village. Instead, I stayed here in the dull, warm, humid gunmetal gray air doing nothing.

Perhaps we make our luck after all. I feel as if Woody Allen was speaking for me when he said, "The only thing that ever stood between me and success was me."

Hope

The trees shed their leaves overnight. Now they are being washed soggy by a steady, drizzling rain. Gray, warm, wet. We wait, here, for cooler air, all hope and frustration. There are certainties that you count on. Hope. Elsewhere, there is a constant unpredictability and that is where hope is hardest. Rain versus youth, perhaps. The falling away of the light and the assurance of its return. The certainty of grief and the memory of old love.

The First to Know

It seems the campaign has been going on for three years now, so it is surprising that people still have so much energy and enthusiasm for it. The Obama rally had the feel of a peace rally, minus the smell of burning marijuana. There were a lot of bored children. They are savants, of course. They are always the first to know.

I'm looking for a McCain rally. I want to feel the difference.

Mark Tucker

(Photo by Mark Tucker)

This is what sent me off to the Obama rally. I've enjoyed and envied Mark Tucker's work for many years. He is a successful commercial photographer whose personal work makes you want to get him a grant so that he can do what he wants for the next few years just to see what happens. I've read articles all over the internet trying to figure what he does to some of his photographs. In an interview with one magazine, he talked about painting his prints with Wingel and asphaltum and other mediums. I tried it, and I've come to the conclusion he was kidding. But whatever he does is enviable.

Here are two photos in the strict photographic tradition (I think). On his blog, responding to a comment that the photograph of the boy was "instant Arbus," Tucker responded:

Truth be known, I damn near didn’t ask this kid if I could shoot a frame, due to the Arbus image! I don’t know if your comment is positive or negative, but it did do a head-trip on me when I saw the kid in the crowd — there he was, with a great face, great freckles, and a zillion buttons on his shirt — everything about him said “Oh my god, he’s the best one to photograph”, but there was still that weird Arbus thing in my head: “Should I shoot it?”

I was timid about asking him if I could post these photographs, but he was very gracious about it. I will have my photos from the rally tonight. I am pretty certain, after posting these, I won't be posting mine. But who knows? It is my blog, and I may be drinking.

Arbus and the Crowd

(Photo by Diane Arbus)

I've been reading "Diane Arbus: Revelations." The photos always compel me, but this time it is the writing that is getting under my skin. Her brother was the poet Howard Nemerov, and talent must have simply been a genetic gift that graced and cursed that family. Her letters and journals are marvelous. This photo of a boy at a political rally as well as some photos I have recently seen by Mark Tucker inspired me to go to an Obama rally yesterday. I went for selfish reasons, only to take photographs. I parked illegally in a parking lot and worried the entire time that my car would be towed away. When I pulled out my Leica M7, the battery was dead, and I didn't have a spare, so I had to set my camera on 1/60 of a second and guess at my exposures. I don't know if I got any good photos, but I sure had fun. People were very happy, excited and nice, and only two people said no when I asked if I might photograph them. There were no suits in the crowd. These were working class people who were hopeful and excited. They were young and old, brown, black, yellow, and white. There was a palpable energy that ran through them all. I am a cynic by nature and not very susceptible to yea saying, so some of what went on was shocking to me. When people chant in unison, I feel a certain amount of fear. There was a rabidity that struck me when I heard "O-BAM-A, O-BAM-A," but it was a rally, so I guess there is little else to do. They weren't goose-stepping or anything, but I get these terrible images.

One on one with the people, though, was more than pleasant. This is a loosely-joined crowd, diverse people brought together by a few common causes. The campaign music reflects the difficulty of holding the coalition together, a crazy quilt of soul, easy listening, country, and rock. But just seeing all this craziness brought together peacefully is enough to make you happy.

I must find a McCain rally to attend. I want to feel the difference. There is sure to be another vibe.

But make no mistake about it, the country has deep problems to solve. I am reminded of Hemingway's short story title, "Winner Take Nothing."

"Entourage": The Documentary

"My girl and I are done for good this time." I was trying to get a read on how he felt about it. He said it matter-of-factly.

"That sucks, I guess."

"Yea, it does at first, you know. But it all works out in the end, doesn't it? I mean, things happen for a reason, don't they?"

"I've never thought that way. It all seems pretty random to me."

"I guess you would feel that way. It always happens when the holidays are coming, doesn't it? I've been through this before. I'll start making plans for a trip so I can be away at Christmas. I'm not staying around town for that."

I've been through the holiday break ups, and I had to agree that getting out of Dodge is far and away the best thing, though that doesn't always keep you from being miserable, either. I spent Christmas alone in the desert once. Worst thing I've ever done.

"Right now, I just have to be careful and not go crazy. I've been watching "Entourage" like it's a documentary. I stayed home last night and got stoned for the first time in years. They made it look like fun, smoking and drinking whiskey. Of course, they always have girls. That's going to be the hard part."

Seems like it.

Citizen McKane

"It has become increasingly apparent that John McCain's erratic behavior is the result of pharmaceuticals," he said.

"What?! Why do you say that?"

"I have a friend who works for the McCain campaign. He said it is well-known. They've been giving him Vasopressin before the debates. That is why he starts out so well and then becomes agitated and confused within an hour or so. The drug's effect won't last. He's taking the host of the required old man pills, just the requisite pharmacological soup to keep someone his age on his feet, but there seems to be some drug interactions going on that they can't predict."

"Get the fuck out of here."

"Hell, man, I'm not making this up. You wait. He's going to pull an Ed Muskie before this is all over, stumbling around, weeping. They've told him to stay away from the goddamned Ibogaine, but it seems to be the drug of choice for losing politicians. They're really worried about all of this."

Ibogaine. There was a drug I hadn't heard about for a long time, not since Dr. Thompson buried Muskie with his silly accusations. Here is an excerpt from "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" from an online source. Hmmm.


Not much has been written about The Ibogaine Effect as a serious factor in the Presidential Campaign, but toward the end of the Wisconsin primary race -- about a week before the vote -- word leaked out that some of Muskie's top advisors had called in a Brazilian doctor who was said to be treating the candidate with "some kind of strange drug" that nobody in the press corps had ever heard of.

It had been common knowledge for many weeks that Humphrey was using an exotic brand of speed known as Wallot . . . and it had long been whispered that Muskie was into something very heavy, but it was hard to take the talk seriously until I heard about the appearance of a mysterious Brazilian doctor. That was the key.


Big Ed discussed the marijuana question for the dope-smoking students in Madison, Wisconsin, moments before refusing to take a toke himself. Later in the campaign, however, it was reported that Senator Muskie was a known user of a powerful drug called Ibogaine. I immediately recognized The Ibogaine Effect -- from Muskie's tearful breakdown on the flatbed truck in New Hampshire, the delusions and altered thinking that characterized his campaign in Florida, and finally the condition of "total rage" that gripped him in Wisconsin.

There was no doubt about it: The Man from Maine had turned to massive doses of Ibogaine as a last resort. The only remaining question was "when did he start?" But nobody could answer this one, and I was not able to press the candidate himself for an answer because I was permanently barred from the Muskie campaign after that incident on the "Sunshine Special" in Florida . . . and that scene makes far more sense now than it did at the time. Muskie has always taken pride in his ability to deal with hecklers; he has frequently challenged them, calling them up to the stage in front of big crowds and then forcing the poor bastards to debate with him in a blaze of TV lights.

But there was none of that in Florida. When the Boohoo began grabbing at his legs and screaming for more gin, Big Ed went all to pieces . . . which gave rise to speculation. among reporters familiar with his campaign style in '68 and '70, that Muskie was not himself. It was noted, among other things, that he had developed a tendency to roll his eyes wildly during TV interviews, that his thought patterns had become strangely fragmented, and that not even his closest advisors could predict when he might suddenly spiral off into babbling rages, or neocomatose funks.

In restrospect, however, it is easy to see why Muskie fell apart on that caboose platform in the Miami train station. There he was -- far gone in a bad Ibogaine frenzy -- suddenly shoved out in a rainstorm to face a sullen crowd and some kind of snarling lunatic going for his legs while he tried to explain why he was "the only Democrat who can beat Nixon."

It is entirely conceivable -- given the known effects of Ibogaine -- that Muskie's brain was almost paralyzed by hallucinations at the time; that he looked out at that crowd and saw gila monsters instead of people, and that his mind snapped completely when he felt something large and apparently vicious clawing at his legs. We can only speculate on this, because those in a position to know have flatly refused to comment on rumors concerning the Senator's disastrous experiments with Ibogaine. I tried to find the Brazilian doctor on election night in Milwaukee, but by the time the polls closed he was long gone. One of the hired bimbos in Milwaukee's Holiday Inn headquarters said a man with fresh welts on his head had been dragged out the side door and put on a bus to Chicago, but we were never able to confirm this. . . .

Faces in a Crowd

I hope Joe the Plumber knows he's getting worked. I'm wondering if today he is feeling flattered by the attention brought to him by Citizen McCain? He will probably benefit in some way. Maybe he will get to be on "Dancing with the Stars." Me? I'm petty. I resent Joe now, his problems somehow more important than mine. I have problems, believe me. But I don't want them called out by politicians.

Sometimes A Simple Question

"What life do you wish for?"

I thought for a minute. What if he were a genie? Would I know what to answer?

"I'm not sure. I have taken on too much and I am running thin in all areas. I think about living in a monastery. Monastic life appeals to me, quiet and contemplative. I think of rising in the morning and sweeping the floor, tending the garden, meditating, preparing the meals, reading, and taking long walks in the country, sleeping, knowing what it is you must do each day without distraction. But how does one quit a life? That is the part I have trouble with."

"You make it sound very romantic, but I don't think you would like a monastery. I've seen them, the tired boys looking dull and distracted, worked to the bone to rid them of desire, still doing what someone else decides. I don't think you'd like that."

"Maybe you are right. I almost lived in a big tent once, safari-style, in my buddy's backyard. I just want something simpler than what I have now."

"Well we all want that. I've never met someone who wanted a more complicated life."

He was right, of course. So how do we fuck them up so badly? We don't pay attention, distracted by the lights and the noises, driven by our own desires. Can one really live without desire? Especially once you've known the pleasures?

These are the things I think on now. Sometimes the dumbest questions can set us off. I realize, though, I wouldn't do well with three wishes.

A Camera in the Hand. . .

I don't remember how this conversation started or even some of the best parts.

"We had a lot of mice living in the barn. Uncle Elvis said we ought to try fishing with them, so we caught a bunch and put them in a big box and went down to the river. We wore gloves and would reach in and grab a mouse and hook it behind the neck. As soon as the first one hit the water, a big old bass came up and swallowed it. If we'd had enough mice, we could of cleaned the river of bass. You never saw anything like that in your life."

I didn't take his photograph. My cameras are beginning to rust.

Gradual Withdrawal

"The years between thirty-five and sixty-five revolve before the passive mind as one unexplained, confusing merry-go-round. True, they are a merry-go-round of ill-gaited and wind-broken horses, painted first in pastel colors, then in dull grays and browns, but perplexing and intolerably dizzy the thing is, as never were the merry-go-rounds of childhood or adolescence; as never, surely, were the certain-coursed, dynamic roller-coasters of youth. For most men and women these thirty years are taken up with a gradual withdrawal from life."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Prettiest Mouths

Pretty mouths, lunar secrets. Lies are never revealed in moonlight.

It is daylight now.

As If

"What would make you happy today?" he asked over coffee. The weather had flip-flopped again, a dead, leaden summer sky, air too moist to be comfortable.

"Nothing that's going to happen."

"How can you say that with such certainty?"

"It's not certainty, per se, but probability. It is the old philosophy. Just because something happens a million times in a row doesn't mean it will happen again, but we must live 'as if.' Who said that? Christ, I can't remember anything any more."

"We must live as if what?"

"That's right. Thanks." He was just reinforcing the theory.

Tough Times, Good Kid

Tough times make for tough people. This kid doesn't have it so rough, but he still wants to be a hero. He's pretty good at doing the right thing.

Dylan Redux Squared

Oh. Here is disc two. This from the man who almost died from a heart fungus, who thought, in his own words, that he "was going to meet Elvis." Elvis can wait. This is important. But as old Bob notes:

"You can always come back,
But you can't come back all the way."

Dylan Redux Redux Redux

OK. So now he looks like Kinky Friedman. I like that he hasn't tried to save himself, not tried to look smooth and silky slick. He knows more than me, more than you. Argue, laugh. It is true. NPR is streaming his new album, "Tell Tale Signs" this week. If you don't believe me, click the link. Sixty-seven years old he is. My, my. Don't be the last to hear it. Be hipper than your friends. Friends! Whatever on earth am I trying to say? Old Bob Dylan. And the Bobcats.

Lost Film

I am not organized at all. I keep things in my head and it all usually works out, but I lose a lot of things, especially film. I shot a couple rolls with my big Bronica SA2 a week or so ago. I know I am not supposed to, but I love the slap of that big mirror. THAWACK! Everything looks 3D through the viewfinder. It took me a while to get the film to the processor. And when I picked it up, it wasn't what I had shot at all. There were only four exposed frames that I had shot a year ago. What the hell? Where did the other film get to? Where had this been? I hope the other turns up.

End Days. Since Palin has been around, I hear the words a lot more. I like the sound of them. End Times, too. I began a project a while ago called "Last Days." Same concept. Things seem to be unravelling. It feels like somebody is helping the process, just pulling on the strings. In this, though, I don't think I need any help.

The Holler

They lived hard lives but didn't know it.  You can never know what is not there.  They worked and ate and took their pleasures from each other in the night.  Behind the house was a river.  On the other side was a woods that ran for miles.  He hunted in the woods for rabbits and squirrels, the meat of which they ate.  She hunted mushrooms and brought home hickory jacks bigger than the frying pan.  Her grandfather had a small farm with cows and pigs and chickens, so there was always some side fat and maybe an egg or two.  And vegetables.  In the fall, they canned for days.  Those jars went into the root cellar behind her mothers house, a shallow cave in a lump of hill that stayed cool all summer.  It smelled of "must" and housed mice and spiders and an occasional snake.  Up the hill just off the highway, a cousin owned a diner where the truckers stopped.  Jenny ran the diner and fell in with the truckers from time to time which ended up ruining her marriage.  Most of the holler was related to one another in some way, so there was that.  Speed, his second cousin, had a coon dog that had been sick and needed to  be put down, but Speed couldn't bring himself to do it himself.  So Speed came up to the house and asked if he would help.   Without thinking, he said yes and took the dog down the road where Speed would not be able to hear and shot the dog in the head to put him out of his misery.  Then he dug a hole and buried the dog in ditch next to where it had fallen.  The next day, the dog was back at Speed's house acting healthy and dancing around like a pup, but two days later, the dog suddenly dropped.  That spooked Speed bad.  

He had gotten off the farm when he was drafted into the navy.  After that, unlike most people in the holler, he liked to travel.  A year after they married, he drove her north where they rented a little cabin by Lake Michigan.  

Forgetting

Seven o'clock on a Friday night. What to do? I wonder. I used to know. At some point, though, it seems you just forget how to live. Not everyone, of course, but most. It is not that I don't know what to do. I know too many things to do and want them all at once, and I haven't either the money or the time.

For a long while, I had a sailboat on the coast and spent many weekends there alone with food and drink and good books. I would sail to some cove or bay, cast anchor, and make my dinner while drinking the night's first rum. Eating under the stars, swaying at anchor, the halyards lightly tapping in the wind, reading by lamp light until the rum and wind and stars made it impossible any longer to stay awake. And then, crawling into my bunk, under the sleeping bag, alone with the shifting tides and currents, slightly waking to be certain I was still anchored, going back under, tired, happy.

The night is lovely, the air cooling and sweet. I will pour myself a drink and read. Perhaps I'll re-read. I've forgotten so much, it may all seem niew. But I must make plans, simple plans. I shan't go on this way.

Becoming Ernest Hemingway

I was looking for the Hemingway quote about Henry James riding a bicycle in "The Sun Also Rises" when I stumbled upon this. What wonders.

"'Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that.'"

The Sun Also Rises,
Ernest Hemingway

Dreams and Night Mares

I haven't had dreams for years. I dreamt, of course, but I remembered only a few. Months would go by. Lately, I dream and wake, dream and wake. In the morning, it is as if I've lived through all of them. Mostly, they have been disturbing.

When I was in Jamaica the year of its liberation from English rule (do your research), I travelled everywhere by country bus. On the way to Negril, I met a woman holding a hen who told me to look up her friends, that they would rent a room to my girlfriend and I. Norma and Jolie. The resorts were not there yet. We stayed in a one room cement building Jolie had put up to serve as a guest house. That first night, we were attacked by robbers. Norma and Jolieheard them and came running like the proverbial troops with spear guns. The robbers fled.

Each morning, Norma would bring a pot of Blue Mountain coffee sweetened with condensed milk. Jolie would tell me about voodoo. He said he could hypnotize birds and pick them out of trees. He told me how to keep duppies in the grave. Toast two peas and three kernels of corn in the oven, place them in a Bull Durham sack with the first shaving from the coffin, and throw it all in the grave with the first shovel of dirt. Barring that, place pins in the feet of the corpse so that it can't walk around at night. Of course, they can always ride a mare. Ride a mare, I asked? Of course. Hence the name. Nightmares.

Philip Larkin Society

Day by day your estimation clocks up
Who deserves a smile and who a frown,
And girls you have to tell to pull their socks up
Are those whose pants you'd most like to pull down.

Philip Larkin

There is a Philip Larkin Society website, if you like.