A Little Good Thing

"Oh, God."  I came to in the dark. . . sort of.  I thought for a minute.  "O.K.  Good.  This is my bed."

Fuck.

"'This is culinary grade hashish,' she told me.  'Make sure you don't smoke it.  It is only for cooking.'  Right?  Like I'm not going to smoke it," she said, rolling up a perfect number with expert hands.  It was a present from her girlfriend.

The shoot.  It had gone funky from the get go.  She hadn't a working phone, so we communicated through email.  We'd shot the week before.  Now she was coming back.  What would we shoot, she wanted to know.  Do you have any gowns? I'd asked.  I have a series of women in gowns.  Sure, I have a couple I'll bring.

When she showed up, she was coming from the gulf coast.  She'd gotten an invitation to stay with some friends, so she'd spent the week lolling about eating and drinking and playing on the beach.  She had not been to her storage unit to pick anything up.  But she had a gown in the car, she said, and she went out to get it.

"Oh," I said.  "I didn't mean a nightgown.  I meant a formal gown."

She looked at me and laughed.  "Why didn't you tell me that?"  I didn't know.

I was a mess anyway.  The week had been a rough one at the factory, and with the whole Great Poet thing, I was exhausted.  I didn't really have the energy to shoot, so I was secretly glad that things were getting fucked up.  No matter what happened now, I'd blame it on her.

But she had brought her vintage bathing suit, so I scrummaged around with the bags and boxes piled from floor to ceiling on various storage shelves looking for a swim cap and goggles.

"Here they are!  Alright.  Let's go."

And so we drove down to the little dock on the lake by my house to shoot a few pictures that might be part of the "Swim Club" series.  It didn't take long.  In a minute it was done.

"We could go to my storage unit," she said.  "I might have some things there."  It didn't matter to me.  The more time we spent looking, the less time I would have to spend being creative.  She had been a little late, and I had not eaten anything but a small yogurt all day; still, I decided to pour a little scotch whiskey anyway.  It might get the juices flowing, I told myself.  It could be just the thing.

Soon enough, however, I realized it wasn't.  Not only had I not eaten, but I was pretty sure I hadn't had a sip of water in a couple days.  All the nerves and muscles and bones around my occipital bone were hurting when I tried to turn my head.  I recognized it as a sign of dehydration.  My stomach began to rumble.

"Maybe she won't come," I started to hope.  "Surely. . . ."

And I fell into a doze on the little studio couch bathed in the bossa nova music coming through the speakers

Suddenly I sat up and listened.  Nothing.  Sure I had heard something, I went to the door.  And there she stood.

"Did you knock?" I asked.

"Yea.  Like three times."

She apologized for being late.  "The interstate was terrible.  Downtown, it was just gridlocked.  I couldn't believe it."

"Well then. . . here. . . you need a drink."  I handed her a glass and the bottle of scotch.  She poured a pretty good one.  "Here," I said extending my glass.  "Freshen me up."



"Can you get that suitcase right there?" she asked pointing to a piece of luggage at the bottom of a pile of other suitcases, boxes, and furniture.  "Can you get it?"

"Yea, after I move all of this shit."  I was sweating that oily sweat you do when there isn't any water left in your veins.  I grunted and groaned and pulled up things at awkward angles over my head feeling the strain of work and old injuries.  Finally, I got to the suitcase.

"Jesus Christ, what do you have in here?"  It was wrongfully heavy.  It felt to be filled with metal.

"Just some clothes."

"Buuuuullllllllshiiiiiiit!" I said.  I sat it on the ground and she began running the zippers open, laughing.

"What's the matter?" she grinned.

And just then, I spotted it.  "What's this?!"

"It's an old chaise I got from the Goodwill."

I began digging it out of the pile of crap that surrounded it.

I sat it flat on the floor and looked at her.

"You want it?"

"I think so.  I'm not sure.  You think this will fit in the car?"

"It fit in mine."

And so we huffed it to the elevator and across the parking lot to the truck.

"It won't go," I said, looking at it.  "It's too wide."

"No it's not.  It will fit."

And so we pushed down the seats and piled it in the back snug as a bug.  Perfect.



I was still fucked up when I woke.  I turned to look at the clock.  4:30.  She'd asked if she could sleep in the studio for the night.  She was too fucked up to drive.  The night had gone crazy somehow.

After we'd put the chaise in the truck, my head was really pounding.  "I've got to get something to eat," I said.  "I'm going to fall out."

"O.K." she agreed.  She was a good sport.  So we stopped for sushi on the way back to the studio.  Early evening light and a soft breeze.  We ordered Kirin Ichibans.

"Good idea," I said.  "I need to rehydrate."

"Maybe you should drink some water," she offered.

"Oh no," I countered.  "No, this is better.  Plenty of water here."

Dinner seemed to go on forever.  She's a good storyteller, too, so it didn't matter that the meal stretched on.  We ordered again.  And again.

After dinner, we dragged the chaise out of the car, through the doors, and into the studio.

"Wow," I said.  This might work.

And so I turned the lights on and got the cameras out.  She got to the mark and looked at me where I looked back through the viewfinder.  Jesus.  My heart was stopping.  She was too beautiful.

A bit later, though, I had a good idea.  And that was where things began to go wrong.  My mouth was full of sand, but I was talking, talking, talking.  There was a big weight on my head that my knees didn't want to support.  I could see myself talking both inside and out.  She was lolling about on her chaise giggling and talking, too.  I don't know what she was saying, but I picked out the word "culinary."

"We'd better have more whiskey," I said.  "No, wait, wait.  Let's go up and sit in that little alley and get a pitcher of sangria.

When everyone had gone, we walked back to the studio.  I was lying on the chaise posing for her, going through all the things I wanted her to do.

"You want to shoot?" she asked.

"Do you?"

It was late.  The music played.  She sounded like a great cat, like the panther she'd told me she'd been dreaming about.  I turned the lights way down, turned the strobes off, the music up.

"I want to shoot like this," I said, "all blurry in the low light."  I zoomed in on her face, her eyes, her lips, her hair.  And it was too much for me.  I just couldn't do it any more.  I knew it would haunt my dreams.  That is what I told her.



Fuck, I began to think there in the darkness.  I imagined her curled up on the chaise at the studio.  I thought of something going wrong.  What if she. . . went outside. . . and got. . . abducted?  What if she drank of the rest of the whiskey and. . . her heart stopped?  Holy shit.

I was worried.  It would be in the paper.  My mother would find out about the studio.




"Do you mind if I just sleep here," shed asked, pulling a blanket over her and closing her eyes.  I can't drive.




I must have fallen back to sleep.  When I opened my eyes again, it was morning.

"You need to get up," I told myself wondering if she would even be there.  I felt like shit.  I put some clothes on and started the coffee.  I turned on the computer before I remembered that I still had no internet.

"FUCK!"  I thought to just reassemble all the pieces and try it again.  Blink, blink, blink.  The series of LED lights began to flicker in the proper order.  It was working now.  For some reason, it was on.

I poured a cup of coffee and drove to the studio.  It was still early, but I didn't know if she'd been awake waiting for me to come lock up so she could leave or. . . what.

Her truck was still there.  I opened the door.  The lights were off.  I walked back into the studio.  I could barely make her out curled into a tiny ball.  It must have been hell at some point sleeping that way.  I put my hand on her shoulder.

"Hello," she said in a small, cracking voice.

"You O.K.?"

"Yea, I'm good."

I didn't know what she might think.  I was hoping I hadn't done anything that. . . well. . . .

"You want to go get some breakfast?"

"Sure," she said.

Outside, I knew that she hadn't seen a morning in a long while.  This was the middle of her night.  She looked about with a bit of wonder.

"It's kind of pretty," she said the way one says that about some oddity that has caught you by surprise.

"I think that they ought to pass a law that makes stuff like that illegal," I laughed.

"Yea," she said, but she wasn't a quarter as serious as I was.

Somehow, everything was alright.  Everything was O.K.

"I'll be in town all week if you want to get together," she offered.

"Really?" I said with the odd mixture of happiness and fear.  "O.K."  But let's not do it on a work night."

*     *     *     *     *     

Sorry this is late again.  But the internet connection is back up and I am going to live the old, safe life again.  I'll get back on schedule.

Just a Little Mania

Sorry this is late.  The internet is out at my house.  I will write about those travails when I am back up and running.

*     *     *     *     *     

I'll write tonight because I won't be able to in the morning.  Work will come too early then.  I must attend to "issues."  Supervising and all of that.

But tonight I had a touch of mania after a long and draining day at the factory.  And in a nutshell, it was this.  I walked into Whole Foods after a late night at work and then an hour at the gym.  I was dragging.  Still needing to shower and then to make my dinner, I was envious of anybody who had help in life, of anyone who, however occasionally, goes home to a dinner made or dishes cleaned or. . . a thousand other things.  Really and truly, tonight I'd had it and was tired of doing it all.

But walking past the meat counter at the grocery store, I saw an old woman stooped with age and arthritis and all else talking to the butcher.  Heard them, rather.

"Really," said the butcher, a young fellow about twenty-five.  "I'm from there."

I think they were speaking of New York.  Then the young butcher said, "My family's name is Artelli."

"Really," said the old woman in the sweater and the heavy New York accent.  "My name is Antoni."

"That's incredible," said the butcher with true vital.  "My aunts name is Bertolucci!"  I mean, man, there was real glee in it.  Then at the top of his voice he said, "Italiano, eh?  Forget about it!"

Hell, I didn't know what it all meant, but I felt I was in the old country.  I've been in Italy in the little towns and villages and have seen the kids all pierced and tatted up walking their grandmother's on their arms through ancient Roman streets.  And I will tell you--I was touched.

"Forget about it," I kept yelling in my head, and suddenly I was smiling.  I'd heard this sort of thing in New York all the time, and just then it brought me great joy to think about the wonderfully simple pleasures that I forget in life.

"Forget about it," I almost yelled as I was picking out my cage free eggs, the woman beside me looking at me surprised but laughing.

"Yea, yea, yea," I grinned at her.  "Forget about it."  And she smiled.

And then I was walking on the balls of my feet, bouncing like some Italian actor in a Fellini film.

"Forget about it!"

At the deli, I was still smiling when the tall blond girl with the Rastafarian hair asked me if I needed help.

"I don't know," I said looking at the deli case of prepared foods.  "I've never been here before when you didn't have the Asian beef."

"Oh, we ran out a little while ago," she smiled.  Just then a tall boy with a hipster beard and a bunch of tats said, "We still have some in the back if you want it."

"Sure," I said, and he brought it out.

"Good job," said the Rasta girl smiling at him.

"Here you go, boss," the boy with the tats said.

It seemed that everyone was dancing in the aisles.

At the register, the pretty nerdy girl rang me up.

"How's your day?" she asked.

I just moaned.

"Maybe we should leave your beer out," she said.

"Sure, let's open it," I replied.  The short young guy bagging said we should drink it outside.

"Do you drink?" the pretty nerdy girl asked him.

"Of course," said the young fellow.

"I mean alcohol," she clarified.

"Not so much beer.  More wine and scotch whiskey," he said.

It was getting to be a glorious night.

In the car, the radio was playing good jazz and the sky was turning cobalt.

"Stay happy, stay happy," I told myself, knowing I still had much to do when I got home.

The cat was waiting at the door having heard my car coming up the street.  There it was, of course.  My homecoming.

After a shower and after dinner, I watched the very last episode of "The Wire."  And I will tell you this.  If you haven't watched it. . . .  The last episode was the best last episode I've ever seen.  If you want to know what life adds up to. . . you will have to watch all five seasons and get to the finale.  But man oh man oh man. . . it is a great and wonderful job.

And so I sit here now, fed on the wonderful wholesomeness of the evening's grocery shopping and good vibes having viewed five seasons of one of the classic shows to ever have shown on t.v.  And two sheets to the wind on beer and wine and whiskey and now Campari, I bid you a good night and good morrow.  For the first time in many many many months, my weekend is booked.  The emptiness that is life will have to take a detour tonight.  I'm putting the final punctuation on this and am off to bed.  Goodnight, goodnight, good morning.

Drifting Back Into Greatness

You Know Who by Matthew Brady

O.K.  I don't want to mislead you.  What happened with The Poet was nothing dramatic externally.  It was internal, that's all.  The Poet is a Great Man.  You sensed it when you spoke to him.  He was not a person you would like to exchange witticisms with onstage.  Perhaps not even privately.  He was intelligent, learned, prepared.  And he had developed a trunkful of tricks that he kept up his sleeve, inside his pockets, and, perhaps, even in his hat.  I admired him.

It was what I did or did not do that mattered to me.  In part, it was the role I was given, or rather allowed.  My part was to chuck him softballs that he could hit over the fence.  And he could really hit them.  I am not an obsequious person by nature.  Nor by culture.  But there I was, smiling through the dismissive gaze, the butt of a joke suffering minor taunts too small to matter.  Next question.

I won't do it again.  I'll tell it this way.  I kept thinking of the high school drama teacher that all the students adored.  He seemed sooooo. . . everything.  He made us dream, inside the cramped walls of his tiny classroom, of the great stages beyond.  He was too good for that half-pint institution, we thought.  He told us stories of acting in the theater, of meeting great playwrights, of performing with famous actors before they were famous.  He'd even had small parts in some independent films.  How did he end up here, we wondered?  He was by far the most interesting person in that drab and dreary place.  He seemed, to steal a phrase, to glitter when he walked.  The girls were in love with him.  The boys wanted to be him.  And he, on that smallest of stages, may have begun to believe it all himself.

And that is what I felt sitting with America's Poet.  A fellow who plays at art and literature and maybe starts to. . . but  I do not want to kid myself.  Maybe sometimes, and maybe a little, but really not at all.  And truly, The Great Poet didn't get there by accident.  There is luck, of course, but luck is what you ready yourself to greet as you prepare yourself for greatness.

And so you will not find his name here.  No, no, there will be none of that.  I know how Google works.  The thought sends shivers up and down my spine.

I was right, of course.  This did not get written as it was felt a day before.  It never will.  We are time travelers floating away from the things we no longer wish to remember, drifting further and further back into our own incontrovertible greatness.  It lies behind us like all the promise of the world.

The Poet

I have spent this morning trying to tell you about last night's epiphany, but I have done so without wisdom or wit.  And so it goes.  Now, time running out, I fear the thing I want to say will never be said for my life is never my own.  In brief, last evening I interviewed The Great Poet, America's Poet.  He has been wintering at Country Club College, but for a moment he went ghetto and spoke before the masses.  And therein lies the tale.

I was introduced to The Great Man before the reading, and I knew right away he didn't care for me at all.  It was not an active dislike but more the garden variety distaste, the sort you have for going to get your driver's license renewed, something you don't want to do but know will be over soon enough and not have to be done again for quite some time.

And truly, I am used to it.  The reaction of The Writer, I mean, for I have suffered through it before.  Many times.  At The Kennedy Library for a PEN event, Updike disliked me in front of an august crowd--Caroline Kennedy, Annie Prouxl, George Plimpton, et. al.  Rick Bass scowled at me when I offered him a compliment at a writer's conference and again years later when I met him once more.  I will tell you sometime about Q's and my adventure with James Salter at the 92nd St. Y, but Q can attest to Salter's disdain (for me--he and Q were quite chummy).  Of course, I've already told you about my misadventure with Thomas McGuane.  I brought that on myself.

But last night, juxtaposed on barstools before the crowd, I had time to contemplate the thing and to wonder.

And in juxtaposition, I came up short.

But I haven't time to tell it now.  I've struggled here too long.  There will be time later to tell it wisely.  Perhaps.  Or at least to tell it so that my failures have a certain charm from which we all will gain insight.  Yes, yes, that will be my point.  My failures will be successes.  And if I do not gain victory, I will have a noble defeat.

If I can write it.

But not this morning.  Not today.  The factory whistle blew long ago.  I will have to climb the fence and sneak in the back door hoping not to be found out by the bosses.  And now, tail between legs, I must dash.  Another day I will never get back.

Google Searches

It worked.  Sort of.  I got a lot of hits from people who Googled "Jessica Pare Naked."  Who would do such a thing?  You should see the sort of weirdness that people search through Google that lands them on my blog.  One of my favorite today is "evening loneliness vs. morning awkwardness."  What could that person have been looking for?  I get a lot of artist searches, especially for Sarah Moon.  My blog has been around long enough now and has had enough hits to move me up the charts on a lot of searches, I guess.  I don't count on anyone who is doing a Google search to come back to my blog, of course.  They are lucky to have found the site, but really, how many are smart enough to run with this crowd?

This morning's photo is not a Rudolph Rossi hand-colored print, and it is not part of the Jim Lindeman Collection.  But I had it lying around and it is hand colored and it is kitsch, so I thought it ever so apropos. It is actually from the first batch of Polaroid Sepia film I've ever shot.  I overexposed it terribly and could barely pull an image from the positive.  It was shot only last week and I am shooting with the model again on Friday.  Perhaps the I can get the exposures right this time.

That's enough popular culture for now, though neither "Mad Men" nor Rossi are really popular with the masses.  But we will turn our attentions to higher things now. . . like factory work and "evening loneliness."  Selah.

Jessica Paré

Rudolph Rossi original hand-painted photograph, circa 1950

Collection Jim Linderman

Jesus Marimba, was "Zou Bisou Bisou" a success!  I got a million hits from people Googling the song.  Let's see what happens with this title.  

Zou Bisou Bisou

I can't watch commercial television.  I mean I can't watch shows that have commercials.  I was excited to watch the NCAA tournament until I tried.  I gave up.  I've been spoiled by HBO, movies on demand, Netflix, et. al.  I'd rather pay to watch the show than sit through a disjointed thing broken by commercials.  I wonder how much of an effect that had on the first generation brought up on television, though television had fewer commercials and more programming then.  There must have been a change in legislation.

So last night, I sat through the two hour premiere of "Mad Men: Season Five."  I won't do that again.  For $2.99, I can by the one hour and thirty two minute (that's right--twenty-eight minutes of bullshit advertising on AMC) today.  I can buy the entire season for $34.99.  I'd rather.  Or I'll just DVR the shows and watch them on Mondays.  But I can't do the other.

I don't know if last night's show was any good or not.  I remember some Miller Beer commercial that ran five or six times and some Chrysler commercial that had multiple showings as well.  And I remember the show in scenes.  Of course, the one everybody is talking about is Donald Draper's wife, Megan, singing "Zou Bisou Bisou" to him at his surprise 40th birthday party (one which sounded, by the way, very much like Brazil 66).  Or was it "Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo"?  That's what the New York Times declares.  Gillian Hills or Sophia Loren?  I'm going with the Gillian Hills version, no doubt.  She's a dish as they used to say.

Last night I think I dreamed of Megan Draper cleaning house in her underwear.  I'm pretty certain I did.  If for no other reason, it was enough to justify watching the show.  

I did notice that only Don and Roger Sterling smoked on the show last night, one of the subtleties that makes the show rich.  And there was one exchange that stood out.  Donald Draper is watching his young wife chatting with her younger, hipper friends at the party.  They are laughing and having fun.  You can see the shadow pass across Draper's face.  Roger Sterling says, "I know what you're thinking. You're wondering what they are laughing at.  Don't worry.  It isn't about you."  

Not yet.  

O.K.  That's enough of my silliness.  This is just a confession of the emptiness of my current life.  But it could be worse.  

Couldn't it?  

So suddenly, the Advil PM has quit working.  I will up the dosage, I think, since I don't know what the dosage is.  One liqui-gel capsule, though, just doesn't have the kick.  I am usually pretty sensitive to drugs, but I did not sleep so well last night.  I did, however, dream.  I remembered that I had while making coffee in the dark.  The night before, I dreamed of a woman whose face I can clearly see, a face that is an amalgam of people I do not or barely know.  She is a redhead like the model I shot with on Thursday but not her, a redhead with the temperament of the Irish jockey on the HBO series, "Luck."  In the dream, we had been together long enough for my heart to be breaking that we were drifting apart.  That was the dream.  We sat outside in a little front yard garden someplace that is not where I live, some idyllic place, knowing how sad this drifting apart was.  Why am I dreaming such sad things, I wondered in the morning?  Why would I put myself through such misery in my sleep?

Then last night, the face was intimately familiar.  It was the face of an ex-girlfriend, the Prodigal Girl who lives in New York.  All night, it seems to me now, she was in my dreams, once a figure of longing, now someone it was sad not to long for any more.  The death of longing, I guess, which is somehow worse than drifting apart.

So Jesus Marimba, what is in store for me tonight?  I must change my life, I think.  Surely photographing women day in and night out is working some ju-ju on my psyche.  "Good," some of you might think.  "That's a just reward."  If you only knew, though, what a sweet boy I am.  There is nothing like that going on, nothing to be mad about.

I think it all began when I was talking with my gypsy haircutter, the little Russian Jew who is due to have her baby soon.  I've been getting my hair cut by her since she was single, young, and fun.  Now she is married and pregnant, so of course all our conversations have changed.  On Friday, while she cut my hair, I told her about the model who kept me up, with whom I went to a late dinner and who came back to the studio to drink whiskey until I complained I had to go to work in the morning.  She told me that I was stupid and that I had no game.  I told her that it wasn't like that, that we were just drinking and talking, but there were three women in the room, all from other countries and cultures, with the heavy accents of those who came here after their teenage years, and they said I was silly.

"A woman wants a man who can take charge."

"That's not me.  I can't stand rejection."

"You need game."

I don't want game.  But that is the root of my nightmares, I think.  They've cast some gypsy's curse on me.  I will try sleeping with garlic and wolfsbane under my pillow.  I'll let you know how that works out.

I was in the studio yesterday working on some new processes and listening to this.  As a boy with his first car in a cracker village, I drove as much as possible as far away from that life as I could.  And this is what I listened to as with the wind in my face, I dreamed of escape.  It should be the opening song to tonight's episode of "Mad Men," I think.  It is a pop representation of all that culture had to offer, from a time when established movie stars were changing their hair styles and wearing love beads and Nehru jackets on t.v. talk shows.  I was in love with Brazilian music and places I'd only seen in movies.  Monte Carlos.  Sao Paulo.  St. Moritz.  St. Tropez.  I'd read about them in Playboy magazine.  This was the sound of Playboy, I thought.  It was the way the rich experienced the era.

Mad Man

I'm not prepared for the big disappointment that critics are saying I should have when "Mad Men" comes back tomorrow night.  I didn't believe the first reviews of the new season, but they have piled up.  I know that people have who have not been enamored of the show have been snide about it.  They think it too trendy and have rooted against it the way one might.  I, however. . . hook, line, and sinker.  I have watched the series through more than once, and the show gets more, not less, interesting with the second viewing.  It is an existential work of art.  There.  I've said it.  I may regret it later.  Whatever.  I'm looking forward to Sunday night.

I zombie walked through yesterday, ate sushi, and went to the store to buy a sleeping aid.  I need to sleep badly, and I no longer know any drug dealers to call on the moment.  I would have to plan out a drug deal weeks in advance, I think, involving multiple people.

"Hey, you know where I can get some. . . drugs?"

"What's wrong with you, man?  Why are you talking like that?  You sound like a narc."

"I can't sleep.  I need something.  Can you get any Miltown?"

"Any what?  What the fuck is that shit?"

"Oh. . . uh. . . I don't know.  What do people take now?"

"What's up, yo?  Get away from me!"

So I bought a box of Advil P.M.  When I got home, there were multiple warnings that people like me should not use this drug.  The rest of the box was a litany of all the things that I put myself at risk for if I took the gel capsule.  But nowhere on the fucking box did it tell me how many to take.  NOWHERE!  I was tired, I knew, so I kept reading through everything over and over again.  I stood in the kitchen reading the little box for fifteen minutes.  Then I guessed you were just supposed to take however many seemed right, so I popped open a bunch of plastic bubbles and washed down a handful with a big glass of whiskey.

I didn't, but that is what I want to write to the Advil company.  Really, all I needed was a little cannabis and I would have been in Sleepyville.

I guess, though, the Advil worked.  I slept a full six and a half hours before coming to, then slept off and on for another hour and a half.  And I don't seem to have swelling, blistering, rashes, or rectal bleeding, so I guess it worked out fine.

I read today that people living alone have a higher incidence of depression.  They become isolated and feel hopeless.  The lack of social connections makes them cynical and difficult to get along with.  They tend to rely more on anti-depressents and sleep aids.

Uh-oh.

And I was just thinking that if I could get my hands on some marijuana, just smoking it up and watching the big screen t.v. would be enough.  Another hope dashed.  If "Mad Men" turns out to be as disappointing as they say. . . well. . . stay tuned.  This could be ugly.  I'm going to begin working on my dating profile for Another Stinky Fish or whatever that site I've heard about is called.  I'll have to think of something that makes me sound attractive.

"Single male.  Photographer.  Art lover.  Social Drinker.  Contemplative.  Compassionate.  Loves Likes reading watching movies.   Likes Loves children and long walks on the beach at sunset."

This just isn't going to work.

"Wanted.  Roommate."

Oy.

Morning Misery

Exhausted bad.  I had a shoot at six last night. . . thought to make it quick and be home early.  Ho!  The model showed up on time.  Savanna, a translucent redhead.  She came in a big Explorer.  Said she'd been living in it.  She brought in a small, vintage suitcase.  In it was everything we'd need.  Fine Arts degree, she said.  Printmaker.  She recognized some of the processes I used.  She is a gypsy, working a hundred jobs in the years since college, most interesting.  She worked at a summer camp in Maine, danced at the Cheetah club three times.  Lived at a parachutists airport.  Jumped twenty times.  Is going to work on an organic blueberry farm.  We talked.  We shot.  Afterwards, we went to dinner.  It was already late.  A Spanish tapas bar, we sat outside in a brick alley.  Sangria, mussels, some sort of quiche-thing with sausage that we hadn't ordered.  Ox tail.  The night wore away.  She young, me not so much, I the more fascinated and exhausted.  We went back to the studio to get her things, sat, drank whiskey and told more tales.  She must go, I said.  I work in a factory.  Tomorrow I have an especially early meeting.  Then a luncheon for some employees and the head of the factory.  A hair appointment after work, then a shoot.  I was already dreading the day.  She poured one more whiskey for the road.

I was in bed before two.

I am dead now.  And I have to go.  I have no time to tell this as it should be told.  But she is coming back next week.  From somewhere.  She has no home, only a life.

This morning, dreading everything, I think I am only lacking one thing.  I have a house and a job.

Ooohhhhhhhh.

Assume the Position

Another ruthless night, a repeat of the night before.  Went to bed just after ten, woke up before midnight.  Etc.  But last night, the horror came.  It is the eighth inning and I'm way, way behind with hardly a chance to make up the deficit.  It is not that I did anything wrong, I just didn't do much right.  The stands are emptying; still, there is nothing to do but finish the game.  Maybe I should say it is late in the fight.  Whatever.  Suddenly one wishes he had trained harder, smarter, taken care of business.  The natural skills decimated, he can hardly weave or bob and takes every blow heavily.  Timing all gone, he misses punch after punch.  Why in the fuck, he thinks, doesn't somebody throw in the towel?  And all that is left is to try to keep your feet until the inevitable end.  Where once they cheered, now that laugh or even boo.  Younger fans can't believe the man before them was ever good at anything.  Or worse, they don't care.  A tap dancer who can't tap.  A comedian who has forgotten the joke.  A trumpet player with a busted lip.  A Lothario without a . . . you get it.

But with the light, there is nothing to do but put on the face.  I said I wouldn't speak yesterday, but I did.  And shouldn't have.  Somehow it is a shock to me that I am punished by my enemies for past indiscretions.  An escape artist with no escape.  Houdini without the hidden key.

There is nothing left but to assume the position.

Spring Faeries and Me

I give up, really.  Maybe I was made to do this.  More and more I think so.  I do it well.  I should have been doing it all along.  I'll do other things, too, but I won't struggle with this any more.  A duck in water. A pig in shit.  Whichever.  That is up to you.  I'm not questioning it any more.  

Last night I went to bed early.  Exhausted.  I think I was sick Monday, though I thought it was simply that I was dying.  I think that a lot now.  I felt so badly that I turned off the lights, shut my office door, crawled under my desk and went to sleep.  I felt better yesterday, the first day of Spring, and with little that demanded doing, I took to my bed early last night.  I dreamt and turned and had a very active sleep, then woke up ready for morning.  It was 11:30.  This is awful, I thought.  And I was right.  I did not get much sleep last night. 

It must have been the Spring faeries playing their games with me.

If only.  It is, of course, the other thing, the dreaded thing.  Fill in the blank.  Surely others must have it. And all it needs is a light for the night.  That is what I have now as I write long before sunrise, long before your day begins.  The cat, of course, ever ready, lies upon my feet licking my shin and grooming her fur.  She is glad for me to be up.  She is happy.  

I think back on yesterday, what I once referred to as The Carnal Equinox, and realize that I didn't have a conversation worth repeating.  The day was perfectly bland.  I shall give up talking, or at least initiating talk.  I will respond in the briefest way.  I will see how silent I can be until someone says something stimulating.  Or until I feel like quizzing someone about her life again. Which will probably be Thursday night if I agree.  Otherwise. . . quiet as a monk.  

I'll let you know how that works out.  

Spring Faeries and Me

I give up, really.  Maybe I was made to do this.  More and more I think so.  I do it well.  I should have been doing it all along.  I'll do other things, too, but I won't struggle with this any more.  A duck in water. A pig in shit.  Whichever.  That is up to you.  I'm not questioning it any more.

Last night I went to bed early.  Exhausted.  I think I was sick Monday, though I thought it was simply that I was dying.  I think that a lot now.  I felt so badly that I turned off the lights, shut my office door, and crawled under my desk and went to sleep.  I felt better yesterday, the first day of Spring, and with little demanding doing, I took to my bed early.  I dreamt and turned and had a very active sleep, then woke up ready for morning.  It was 11:30.  This is awful, I thought.  And I was right.  I did not get much sleep last night.

It must have been the Spring faeries playing their games with me.

If only.  It is, of course, the other thing, the dreaded thing.  Fill in the blank.  Surely others must have it. And all it needs is a light for the night.  That is what I have now as I write long before sunrise, long before your day begins.  The cat, of course, ever ready, lies upon my feet licking my shin and grooming her fur.  She is glad for me to be up.  She is happy.

I think back on yesterday, what I once referred to as The Carnal Equinox, and realize that I didn't have a conversation worth repeating.

Healer

She showed up late.  She had cancelled the week before, but she had done it early enough that I didn't mind.  It was one of those days when I was not looking forward to working in the studio after work anyway.  Now, I sat on the loading dock in the back of the studio in the late afternoon's waning light eating a Popeye's chicken dinner and drinking a sorghum beer that really didn't go right with the meal.  But the light was fine and the air cooling and I had not felt well all day but just tired and a bit achy down.  I didn't want to shoot this night, either, but I had committed.  I'd dreaded it all day.

She showed up in a beater, both the front and backseat full of stuff, wrappers and footballs and various bits of flotsam and jetsam.

"Hello," I said with a smile trying to psyche myself to work.  "Here, let me carry your bag."  I tried not to lean against the car as I reached into the backseat knowing my shirt would be covered in road grime.

She didn't look like the photos on her site at all.  They rarely do.  Often they have posted photos that are a few years old when they were young and slim, before the baby and the bad boyfriend and the job and the rougher times.  But this didn't look like the same person at all.  I kept trying to recall who she was.  Obviously I'd experienced a stroke.  That was why I'd felt so shitty all day.  I couldn't recall ever seeing anything resembling her before.

She was a pixie, 5'1" or so, a hundred pounds.  She had driven about an hour to get here in bad workday traffic, and I figured she'd need to chill for a bit with something to drink, but she was bounding around like Silly Putty or Flubber.

"Do you want something to drink," I asked when we were inside?

"Do you have any water?"

"Sure, here," and I handed her a bottle of designer water that was sitting unopened by the fridge.  "Let me show you what I do."  I began my normal spiel motioning to the big framed prints and pulling out some other things I had done, transfers and hand-colored, coffee-stained works, prints on glass and oiled butcher paper I'd printed on and put into the oven, and encaustic pieces that were still in progress.

"You should open a gallery," she said.

"Yes, sure, I should do a lot of things.  But now what I want to do is shoot with you.  Let's look at what you brought."

She obviously hadn't read what I'd sent her about the project.  It wasn't unusual.  Many of them don't.  She had a bag full of contemporary clothes and thong underwear, some crazy tops, and high heeled shoes.  It looked pretty hopeless.  And not being able to place her, I couldn't remember what her profile said.  I couldn't remember much at all.

"I don't know.  I hope you don't mind shooting naked."

"No, I don't care, I just don't shoot porn."

"What do you mean, 'porn?'"

"One guy tried to touch me.  I've got a taser in my bag now."

"Jesus Christ!" I said, "I'm not going to try to touch you.  I'm glad you told me about the taser, though.  I'd hate to end up on the floor flopping around and holding my heart," I laughed.

"Well, I'm a country girl.  I can take care of myself.  I'm not masturbating or anything like that."

"No. . . no. . . nothing like that," I said awkwardly.  What can you possibly say to something like that, so unusual and unexpected.  Of course now that was all I could think about.  I could see the moment when everything went irreparably wrong, the taser against my jugular making that hideous electrical sound.

"Well. . . let me show you the studio.  I may have some things."

We walked back and stood on the little platform looking into the mirrored back wall.

"Wow, this is cool," she said bouncing around.  Suddenly she was throwing ninja kicks and jumping around from combat pose to combat pose.

"You can put your makeup on over here," I said.

"I don't usually wear makeup, but I'll do whatever you want.  What do you want?"

"Hell, I don't care.  I just want you to feel good."

And so she began doodling about her eyes a bit.

This is where I start learning something about the person I am going to work with.  I ask them where they grew up, about their parents, about their siblings.  I am looking for a way to write them, I guess.  She grew up on the Florida/Alabama borderline, a redneck girl who liked pickup trucks, horses, fishing, and the rest.  Had a longtime boyfriend who she had just broken up with.  She caught him cheating on her, she said.  Twice.  "You don't cheat on me," she said like a line in a movie.  When I asked her if she liked "Country Strong," she said, "I don't know.  I don't watch t.v."  Her parents had been divorced since she was a teenager.  I asked her which one she liked better.

"I get along better with my mom, but I'm closer to my dad.  I took care of him since I was fifteen."

"What do you mean 'took care of?'"

"He was addicted to porn, so he lost his job.  Twice.   I had to go to work so we could pay the mortgage."

"Addicted to porn?  What does that mean?"  I thought somehow that he had spent all his money on it.

"He got caught looking at it on the computers at work.  He couldn't quit," she said matter-of-factly. "When I was seventeen, I moved out and he lost the house.  He was taking all the money I was giving him and spending it on women, I guess."

"I can see why you don't want to shoot porn," I said.

She paused a minute and looked at me.  "I had never thought of that," she said.  "Yea, I guess so."

She'd moved here to take care of her grandfather who was dying of cancer.

"That's a tough one," I said.

"Yea.  I hope he sticks around."

"What do you do for fun?"

"I like going fishing with my grandpa," she said.

"You really are a redneck, aren't you?" I offered.

"Yep.  I'm a redneck girl.  You like my haircut?"

I looked at her as she nodded her head back and forth.

"I just cut it.  Do you like it better this way?"

"I don't know.  I didn't see it before," I said not wanting to say more.

"You saw my pictures.  Did you like it better long?"

What was the point, I wondered.  But really, I couldn't remember a damn thing about her.

"I don't usually say things like this, but you are really a surprise.  I mean, you are sooo much prettier than the pictures on your site.  Really."

"Really?  I've been getting that a lot lately."

"Well it's true," I said knowing she felt pretty.

"My hair used to be really long, down to here," she said touching the lower part of her calf just above the ankle.

"No."

"Yes.  I was raised a Pentecostal."

That stunned me a bit.  I thought of dad racing through the porn sites like a demon, forgetting all else, losing the jobs, working his daughter, spending the money and losing the house.  I looked at the naked girl in front of me with no tan lines making herself up for the camera, a girl who took care of her dying grandfather who said she just wanted to be remembered for loving her family.  She didn't want kids, she told me, didn't want a family herself.

Maybe, I thought, if I'm lucky, something good will happen tonight.  Maybe. . . she will begin speaking in tongues.  I knew, though, that would be asking too much.  But I was glad that I'd come to the studio now, glad I decided to shoot.  I liked this girl who had not finished school, who didn't watch television but read all the time, fantasy things, she said, a girl who didn't date, who liked to fish, who cared for the sick and dying.  A girl who wouldn't do porn.  And when she was ready and stepped up on the little constructed platform in front of the curtains and the strobes, she hit the first most beautiful pose.  And just then, I was healed.  All the tiredness and pain of the day was gone.  It would be, I could tell, a most remarkable shoot.  

The Liberator--Black Cat Edition

The Black Cat Edition of John Minnicks' "Liberator" cameras is finally finished.  Ordered on 9-11, it was the 13th camera of its type to be made.  It was completed on St. Patrick's Day.  Here is a photo John sent to me of the final product.  I can't tell you how much workmanship and care goes into making this camera.  I will have to ask John for a list of things that have to happen.  I remember the non-technical stuff like the bronze plaque that adorns the camera which is made by a company in Asheville.  It has my name and a picture of a black cat.  I can't wait to see it.  The wood on the front of the camera comes from a cherry tree harvested near John's studio.  The especially bright mirrors that have no equal are sent from Japan.  The fittings are all chromed by an artisan John knows.  Oh, the list goes on and on.  And best of all, I am one of the only people to purchase this camera who actually visited John at his home and workshop.  I got to see what he does, got to pick out the pieces of the camera.  I have been shooting with the original Liberator.  Now the "Black Cat".  I love this photo.  It shows John as the skilled maniac that he is.

The man who made the camera famous is Dave Burnett (website).  In 2004, he covered the Presidential campaign of Al Gore using this camera.  People thought him crazy until they saw the photographs.  I don't know how much he uses his now, but I know he still owns one.  Now I must see what I can do.  I feel the burden of responsibility.  I hope it doesn't crush me.

This weekend was more beautiful than possible.  It set some sort of record.  And now. . . it is done.  I must return to the brutality of the weekday world made more awful by contemporary culture.  I have to be at work early, and I have a shoot in the studio in the evening.  I will try to exercise at some hideously early hour in the morning.

But now, having eaten dinner with my mother and having poured the first whiskey, I am going to watch Dustin Hoffman in "Luck" and go to bed.  I'll see you in the morning.

Minor Swing

I have no desire to read the news this morning.  Maybe not for a long, long while.  I want to make something, to say a thing.  I will walk early, go to breakfast, and begin on some new mixed media pieces I've had in mind.  Later as the day gives way to afternoon and the crowds begin to disperse anticipating the mundanity of tomorrow's horrors, I will walk through the blocked off Boulevard of my small village's downtown and look at the end of the weekend's art show.  Then, of course, I will go to my mother's for dinner.

Last night, I went to a party with artists and lawyers, or so it seemed to me.  The friend who gave the party is a lawyer and an art collector and a pretty swell guy.  I know that "lawyer" and "art collector" sound precious and terrible in their own ways, and I'm sure this fellow would not wish to be categorized as such.  He is a traveller and a reader and many things that no longer exist or are not supposed to any more.  I usually run into him in the places that you would go, the "best places" in that sense.  You would like him as I do.

Many years ago, he bought a small house on the edge of our small town in what was the transition between chic and run down.  It is not so transitional any more, and he has expanded the house and built outdoor gardens and seating areas designed by people who are brilliant at that.  And so last night I was tempted to leave my house after dark to venture into a select crowd.  It was not without some trepidation on my part.

I parked on the street lined with cars and walked into the back yard just where the food was being served. I was hungry and thought this a good sign, so I filled a plate with barbecue and sides and looked for a place to sit.  Right away, I found a chair just in front of the trio he had hired to entertain.  It was absolutely the best place I could have been that night.  Beneath the clear sky and bright stars they played Gipsy Music lit up by a set of small blue lights.

(here is the trio who played last night under the moonlight)

Enthralled, I sat with a small group of people bobbing my head up and down with a goofy grin like the kid that I am.  My friend had left a message that said if I wanted to I could bring a date but that wouldn't be necessary as there would be lots of single women.  "What would they want with me?" was my internal response, so I was happy to sit and eat and drink and listen to these fellows in so intimate a setting with no need to interact with the crowd.  

After about an hour, though, they took a break, so I got up to throw away my paper plate and to get another drink.  I stood about for some time looking at and listening to the crowd.  The easiest to hear were the older attorneys, especially if they were from the south.  They are quite funny, really, if you are used to them.

"How do you know Harvey?" a woman asked the man standing behind her waiting to get a drink at the bar.  

"Glad to meet you," he said in a loud, Alabama voice.  "I'm Reverend Spilker, Divine Guidance at your command."

"Oh," said the woman, "nice to meet you.  How do you know Harvey?" she asked again as if it really mattered.

"I'm his spiritual advisor," said the reverend.  "And I'm available for service."  

"Really," the woman said again in an astonished voice.  Apparently she knew Harvey well enough to be surprised that he had a spiritual advisor.

"No. . . not really."  

"Oh," she said.  You could tell she had lost some balance.  "What do you do?"  

"I'm an attorney, sorry to say," he offered with the old apparent pride.  He'd made it long ago.  

I drifted off into another conversation but that booming drawl kept drawing me back.  He was talking about cattle and land.  

"All land isn't the same, you know.  You hear somebody has a cattle ranch down here, but it might take twenty acres to raise a cow and a calf."  He was full of wisdom.  But he was cleverly drawing her into a joke set in Montana that I knew well as a hillbilly joke set in the holler, but there are versions set in Alabama, too.  By the time he had finished, I had my drink and was headed for the house to see what my friend had hanging now.  

The art had all been changed and was, as always, magnificent.  As I stood gazing at a portrait, a friend stepped up to say hello.  He, too, is an attorney, a generous fellow who leaves me books of art and literature on a regular basis, another traveller and adventurer and a fellow full of good tales.  In a bit we wandered outside to sit and chat.  And after awhile, halfway through an interactive tale (nothing, of course, gets to be told as planned), I felt a dash of something cold thrown against my shirt.  I looked down and saw that it was red wine.  Oh shit, I thought.  And I looked up to see who had thrown it.  Surely this had to be retribution for something I'd done in the past.  Now would come the reckoning.  

I looked up to see a big fellow waving his hands approaching me.  It didn't take me long to realize he was in good shape.  I was seated and didn't think I had much of a chance of swinging first.  Hell, I probably would have to ask him to help me up out of the chair.  But then I realized he was dismayed that he had spilled his wine.

"Oh Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, I don't know what happened, shit, I can't believe it, I was just standing over there and it just flew across I've never seen anything like it. . . ."  He was unbuttoning his shirt, pulling the tails out of his pants.  "Here, man, I'm giving you the shirt off my back, take it, man, I'm sorry. . . ." I was glad we weren't fighting because he didn't have much fat on him.  Suddenly his girl was standing in front of me with some club soda and napkins.  "Here," she said, "here. . . " and she began dousing my shirt with water and patting it down until I was completely soaked.  But her blouse was low cut and so I couldn't help but stare at her breasts as she worked her drunken motherly magic.  Then my friend offered, "He'd rather have the shirt off her back," and she turned her head and laughed.  

"Don't worry about it," I said.  "When you have the kind of friends I have, this is a nightly occurrence.  It's not a party without a spilt drink.  I thought you threw it on purpose.  Hell, I'm just glad I don't have to fight."  

The apologies went on for awhile.  The fellow obviously felt badly, not for me, really, but for himself.  Obviously, he wasn't an attorney and didn't know the host.  It was obvious, too, that he had embarrassed his girl before.  He was just a fellow who couldn't live above his station, I guess.  Not like the fine hillbilly whose shirt he had just ruined.  

And so the night went on, my shirt drying to a nice shade of purple.  And after a few more tales, it was time for me to go.  The night was still clear, and the Gypsy Trio was playing its last songs.  Walking back to the car, I thought, "You need to get out more.  There are so many nice people to meet."  But really, the music was the best thing that had happened so far this year.  Such is my life.

I've spent more time telling this tale than I intended and the morning is no longer that young, so I must now hurry if I am to do what I had thought to do when I woke.  Then, lying in bed, I imagined opening a small cafe where Gypsy Trios would play.  I'd need a piano player, I thought.  Something like this.  

The Best Unplanned

O.K. That entry sucked, but I don't have it in me to change it.  I'll just say this.  I've looked forward to this weekend unreasonably.  I've dreamed and felt it and made too many plans.  Now, Saturday, the sun is up and dreams recede.  That is the way it is.  The best things happen when you aren't looking.  They catch you by surprise.

St. Patrick's Day.  Let's lift a cup.  Here's to the best surprises that make our memories past and futures.  I'm going now to look for Leprechauns.

The Wisdom

I have put on much weight in the last two years, but it has recently really begun to show.  A combination of vile and pernicious conditions have conspired to waylay my good looks.  We'll overlook the inevitable slowing metabolism.  That's the given.  And of course the degeneration of the padding between disks that serve to shrink us, too.  Injuries abound, the knees and hips hurting most.  Torn tendons that scar and are never as strong again play their part.  But given all of that--it's the fucking job.  Stress and a tyranny of time management rob me every day so that each weekend I think I am beginning once again a new exercise regimen.  But this is not my point.

Having gained weight and not being happy about it, I knew that I would have to change my eating behavior if I was to get back to my original weight of eight pounds, eight ounces (and even at that, I was a chubby baby).  So I went on a diet, the high protein thing, the old Atkins diet that allows you to eat all the calories you want as long as they don't include carbohydrates.  I did that many, many years ago for a very long time.  It is boring, but after awhile your mind changes and you look at the carb eaters with disgust.  I used to get coffee every morning at the Dunkin' Donuts just to watch people eat.  I was in the Devil's Den and wasn't tempted as I watched those voluntarily marching to perdition.  I was staying lean.

Eggs and bacon for breakfast, sardines or fried chicken (peeling the skin, of course) for lunch, a one pound steak smothered in banana peppers for dinner.  And gallons of diet cola.

All of you who scoff must do your research.  It works in many ways.  You have to avoid complete ketosis of course, but studies done on people maintaining this diet were surprising.  They had lower bad cholesterol levels, great triglyceride levels, and were generally more healthy.

I had based my decision about this restricted diet on the look of the Masai tribesman of Africa whose diet consists of a mixture of cow's blood and milk and the occasional stewed meat.  Of course, there are plenty of carbohydrates in both blood and milk, so years later I opted for a milk diet.  I had been watching people around me spend lots of money on liquid diet drinks that I thought little of.  One day I looked at the nutritional label on one and it was milk with vitamins, minerals, and flavoring thrown in.  And it was expensive, too.  I calculated that if I drank a gallon of low fat milk every day and ate a normal meal at night, I'd be better off than they were and spending much less money.

All the while, I was able to work out every day at the gym, bang the heavy bag, play basketball twice a week, and run the rest.  With my buddies I climbed mountains, paddled kayaks, swam in rivers, etc.

Where in the hell did the time go?

But again, I've strayed from my point which is O.K. because it isn't much of a point at all.  Written out this way, the behavior looks obsessive enough to be in the same category as anorexia.  Except I was very healthy.

So this week, when I said at work that I was on a diet, I constantly heard the modern wisdom, "Diets don't work.  You can't just cut calories for awhile.  You have to change the way you live.  It is about being healthy, about maintaing a healthy life style. . . yada, yada, yada."  I got this from all camps, from those who are obsessively skinny to those who are perpetually overweight.  No matter, they were all imparting The Wisdom.

I was unable to maintain my diet this week.  I had too many lunches and dinners to attend.  And when I was out, I just forgot.  Sitting with the famous '60s activist, I realized that I'd been reaching around the table eating fried potatoes off everyone's plates as I drank beer and kept up my end of the conversation. "How long have I been doing that?" I pondered.  Then again yesterday at a luncheon.  Tonight I am going to a party with spectacular food.  All of that combined with The Wisdom has done me in.  Thusly, to the last person who lectured me about the difference between dieting and changing the way I live, I announced, "I don't care if I'm fat.  I'm going to be fat. I like being fat.  It is fun."

I'm not fat, but I may soon be.  It is just a matter of changing the way I live and the way I think.  That is the truly remarkable thing about being human.  You can always change your mind.

Another Piece of History

Exhaustion finally gives way to a full night's sleep.  I was busy all day and didn't get home until ten.  I went to bed exhausted but didn't wake for eight hours.  When I opened my eyes to look at the clock, I was grateful.  Tonight, an attorney I know (who has a fabulous art collection) is having a party to kick off our little hamlet's weekend art festival.  The weather is to be gorgeous, the people beautiful, etc.  Truly, that is how I want it.

I worked on a video with Jane Fonda's ex husband yesterday.  No, not that one, the other one, the '60s activist.  I taped an interview then later a group of us went to dinner.  I sincerely liked him.  Some may have been disappointed, I think, because they want the figure to be an ideologue all the time.  Some people are looking for a Jesus, I guess.  But he wasn't that.  He was a guy who liked to play baseball and fish and take hikes with his son.  Of course, I didn't try to engage him in political talk and enjoyed that he had a tremendous eye for the women. Remember, Jane left him because of his infidelities, not vice-versa.  We were seated outside in the most beautiful weather (he lives in L.A but swore he loved the weather more here this time of year) waiting for our meals when someone asked if anybody knew the score of the Syracuse/UNC game.  A fellow pulled out a phone and checked.  Three points with a minute left.  And like jackrabbits we made haste for the bar.  Yea, he was just a good guy I think.  And now I'm "pals"* with three of the Chicago Eight.

Friday at the factory.  I have about ten models who want to make pictures in the next five days.  It is impossible.  I want to shoot them all.  As I've said before, I want to photograph everybody in the world.  I can't, of course, but I'll settle.

With sleep, I hope, my head will clear.  I've been muddled and anxious for days.  And with a clear head, perhaps I can write something coherent.  Maybe not, but there is always hope.

The proof, as they say. . . what is it?  In the "putting" or in the "pudding"?

*means I remember and am not remembered 

Rise and Fall

“Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way.”    

(Charles Bukowski)

I fall asleep easily, wake hours later at two or three, then can't sleep until dawn.  But with the time change, dawn is past the getting up time.  Body and brain now ready for sleeping, I rise muddle headed.  This hangs on me for the rest of the hideous day.  They've increased the speed of the assembly line at the factory, and complicated the process to boot.  "Profits are down," they say.  "We must increase productivity if people aren't to lose their jobs.  You can help everyone here."  So the capitalists make a socialist appeal.

So the workers work harder and the foremen work longer and. . . the cheese stands alone.

At home, bills must be paid, tax information collected.  I eat, sit, fall asleep.  Some nights, some weekends, I try to make "art."

But I have an idea for a story about Lonesomeville and the Cripple Factory.  A series of stories.  They are outlined in my head.  They loosely tie together like the stories in "Winesburg, Ohio."

And I'm afraid they will never get the chance to be written.

I am dizzy and need to hurry.  I've taken to calling ahead, asking someone to open my office door.  Jesus, I say, I'm running late.  I'd never survive working for real, working seven days a week in Mexico or China or India.  No, I'd be locked up, beaten, thrown under some prison.  The leisure class float on a sea of stolen life, on workers' sacrifice.  They've even convinced the workers that they don't like unions.

No shit.  Why wouldn't a kid choose to be a drug dealer instead?

The South Looks Like a Moveable Feast

The world is hellish.  It is best not to think about it.  Santorum won primaries in the southern states last night.  What's his platform based on?  Evil stupidity.  Read your Faulkner.  He didn't make that stuff up. It is real.  And there isn't much defense against it.  That's why Faulkner was a drunk.  O.K.  That's a supposition.  But it is a logical defense.

I want to think it is just "the south."  It is not that you can't enjoy it from afar, can't get a kick out of its provincial ways, its shitty food and consequent obesity.  Even the ignorance is funny if you don't live in it.  Boss Hogg is alive and well, of course, and Smokey and the Bandit was hardly a joke even if a few of you laughed.  Some of you who live in bellwether cities and who know some educated and sensible people will object, I imagine.  Your friends aren't NASCAR addicts, don't live for professional wrestling, and have sensible tastes in wine.  You may even have a bookstore and a small theater that shows "films" rather than movies in your town.  But you know what I mean.  Insulate yourselves from the hideousness all you want--it is there.

However, this is just an hors d'oeuvres on a global scale.  In Iraq, police are killing "Emos."  That is what they call anyone who looks too western, has longish hair or tight clothing, who wears t-shirts with emblems of any sort, listens to western music, etc.  Well, somebody is killing them, and it is assumed to be the police.  What the police admit to doing is arresting anyone who is Emo and doing whatever it is they do to scare them straight.  They are called "morality police."  It is considered a good thing.  If only they liked NASCAR.  The American south looks like an educational mecca if you live in Iraq.  And Fundamentalism is just that no matter where you are.

In China, they have passed a law that allows the government to keep anyone they want in secret jails for up to six months.  "What happened to Xi," a mother might ask.  The only answer she will get is "the cold twinkling of a distant star."  They are provided with a pretty strong liberal arts education in China, too.

Iran.  Whatever.  Makes Russia looks like a safe house.  Kenya.  Somali. The list isn't just long.  It is ubiquitous.

I don't know what I'm saying here, really.  Probably never do.  I'm just frustrated this morning.  I have a little voice in my head that keeps yelling, "Run away.  Run away."  But when I ask, "Where," I get this.  Perhaps I should have married a rich girl when I had the chance.

Enlarge Your Hippocampus

I read that love in early childhood causes the brain to better develop.  It increases the size of the hippocampus which is a good thing.  The bigger the hippocampus, the better one deals with stress and depression.  Etc.

I've been wondering about the size of my hippocampus.  I was an only child, was breast fed, and got lots of love early on.  Still, I don't believe that love is the only factor.  Genetics.  So now I want to go have my hippocampus measured.

But I have an idea for making money off this.  I must do some research, but surely there are some nutritional factors that play a role in the creation of the larger hippocampus.  And surely I can market it.  People will pay, even if it doesn't work.  We know people will pay to grow larger organs.  I get ads every day.

Hippocampus Enlargement Pills

A Proven Enhancement Program

Double Your Size in Seven Weeks

I'll get as rich as a Russian.  I'll work on it.  

Thinking about it, though, all the mean ass, stupid, rotten kids I grew up with had mean ass parents who hit them every day.  But meanness was their heritage and their pride.  It wasn't looked down on where I grew up.  It was an adaptive trait for dealing with a cold, cruel world.  They rarely smiled, but when they did, you were not happy.  Their smiles looked like something cut from a pumpkin.  

Working at the factory can't enlarge your hippocampus.  Studies need to be done.  I am sure it causes shrinkage.  Reverse development.  It is a crippler.  Henceforth, the factory in which I work shall be referred to as The Cripple Factory.  Or maybe simply Cripple Factory.  Yes, that's better.  

In Lonesomeville, there is the desire for love, the pretense of love, but little love at all.  It sits just around the corner from Cripple Factory.  A little bit of mother's love.  

American Splendor

So last night, I had my Harvey Pekar moment.  My mother was coming over for dinner, and I had already chopped the garlic and sliced the avocado and gotten the Brussels sprouts ready for steaming.  The big chunks of tuna were cooking in lime and salt while they waited for grilling.  So I poured a glass of wine and sat down to find a movie for us to watch on television.  "American Splendor" had just begun, and since I hadn't seen it since it came out in 2003, I watched for awhile.  My mother and I, I thought, would watch "Game Change" when it came on in half an hour, but until then, I'd get a kick out of this.

My mother showed up and talked up the cat while I prepared the salads.  We sat in front of the t.v. with trays (o.k., o.k., I too much info), and she began to chuckle.  By the time I had the tuna on the grill, the other movie was about to start.

"You want me to change it or do you want to watch this?" I asked.  She said to stay with this.

And so we watched and laughed at Pekar's life, but too soon, I recognized too many scenes from my own.  There he was, for instance, sitting in the bathroom with the cat between his feet.  Walking by the mirror, he says famously, "Now there's a reliable disappointment."  A frame from a cartoon shows him with a dish and dish rag in his hands saying, "I could wash this ten times and it wouldn't be clean."

And then as he walks across a highway bridge, the narration is about loneliness, and I suddenly realized that tomorrow, I'd be back at the factory.  An entire week had gone by, and I'd barely left the house.  I looked at my mother surprised and said, "I haven't seen anyone all week."

"What?"

I thought hard about it.  I'd been to the gym and to the studio and out for meals, but other than that, I'd talked to no one.  It startled me that I hadn't thought about this at all.

What had I become, I wondered.  And just then, Harvey was asking his wife:

"What's wrong, Harvey? What are you doing up?  What is it?"

"Tell me the truth. Am I a guy who writes about himself... in a comic book? Or am I just a character in that book?"

"What are you talking about? What are you saying?"

"If I die, will that character keep going? Or will he just fade away?"

I've never been a comic book fan, and I've never read an issue of "American Splendor."  And I wasn't perturbed by the intimations about me the movie seemed to be making.  When I drew the parallels, my mother laughed real good.  There is not tragedy in it, I guess.  It is just the way things work out.  But tomorrow--yea--I'll be back at the factory, and later, I'll write about the things I see in my life.  I'll even show you pictures.  

Here is the song over which they rolled the credits.