Tale of Two Cities

I shot the boxer/reformed murderer yesterday.  I was dreading it.  My neck, et. al., was killing me.  The pain had drained me.  I sat in a chair waiting for the tenant to come pick me up.  I fell asleep.  I'd forgotten what a time bandit she is, and as usual, she was over an hour late.  I loaded my cameras into my mother's car.  She said she would ride with me.  

It turned out that she only had an idea of where we were going.  

"You haven't been here?"

"No."

We pulled up to the only apartment complex left in this gentrified part of town.  It used to be "across the tracks," but with oak lined bricked streets, those lots became too precious for the little wooden shotgun shacks that filled them.  The apartment building we pulled up to was a shambles.  It was a simple two story block building without porches or cupolas or any sort of extravagance.  The lot was dirt littered with bbq grills, broken chairs, and old bicycles.  On either side and across the street were new buildings, shops, and restaurants.  

Our fellow came out to greet us.  He seemed either aloof or shy, but it didn't take much conversation for me to tell he was high as a kite.  "Paragon of the community" is how the tenant had described him.  Straight arrow.  Didn't drink or do drugs.  

He walked us around the side of the building where a group of people were sitting with apartment doors opening to dark interiors.  Our fellow introduced us to his uncle, his uncle's friend, and a woman who did not want to be in pictures.  The uncle's skin was spotted with some sort of skin condition.  He was lame and walked unsteadily with a cane.  His friend sat with his shirt unbuttoned in an old, low, lawn chair.  

"Bobby's ninety-three," they said. 

"Ninety-three?!  You're almost as old as my mother."

Bobby had spent his working life as a school teacher and had retired at fifty-nine.  His mother lived here, and when she died, she left him her house.  He moved here from Miami and had, I assume, sold the house. He now lived in a condo down the street.  He was living off Social Security and his state pension.  

"I worked for 36 years," he said.  "I've been collecting retirement for 33 now.  I'm going to live as long as I can." 

Beer cans sat on the ground.  You could smell the remnants of marijuana.  

"Bobby's turning ninety-four in November.  We're having a party for him.  You should come."

"When is it?"

"Saturday, November 4th."

"Sure, I'll come.  What time?"

"Any time after three."

The Paragon was kind of wandering around and mumbling.  I spied a chair sitting in the lot in front of an old oak tree.  I said we could shoot there.  The tenant took him over and I went to the car to get a camera.  I brought three.  I took photos, but they were no more than a man sitting in a chair in a lot beneath an old oak tree.  I took the same picture over and over.  

"This is actually the most difficult thing to shoot--a Black man in a white shirt."  

I wasn't sure if the images were going to turn out well at all.  

In a bit, we walked back to the group and I shot a couple pictures of our subject with his uncle.  Our man kept talking about his mother.  Her boyfriend had beaten her in the parking lot across the street from the neighborhood bar.  That place isn't there any longer, but it was the same place that the characters in Zora Neal Hurston's "Sweat" went to go to "the stomps."  Now it is an upscale chophouse and bar, one of many that now line the street.  I'd lived in town long enough to know the history.  

"That place used to sell Colt .45 Malt Liquor tall boys for ninety-nine cents.  There was a man in there called "The Dollar Man" because he'd keep asking people, 'Give me a dollar, give me a dollar."

The uncle lit up.  He knew the fellow.  In truth, I only knew this story from a friend who had gone to the bar, a biker who wanted to buy some crack.  I'd never been to the bar myself. 

They began to reminisce.  The building next door used to be a store.  

"That was the place?  It was owned by a Korean man."  

The place was gone now, torn down to make way for a big new building that was built to house a women's clothing store.  I took a chance. 

"Ya'll are probably going to hate on me, but that place?  My ex-wife owned it.  Her husband is a builder."

The uncle lit up again and started shouting the husband's name.  

"Shane! Shane!" he shouted with a stupid grin, waving his hand like a debutante.  He was doing an imitation of Shane, the builder.  He always smiled and waived when he was around, the uncle said.  "He keeps trying to buy this building."

"I don't want nothing to do with no Shane," our subject said.  

"When he was a kid, he'd take off running to that store all the time."

"Let's take a picture in front of the new store," I said.  

"Where?"

"Just sit on the wall here in front of it."

I saw two women inside looking out at us.  

"If they come out, I'll tell them to fuck off," I laughed. 

Apparently, the interview the tenant had done with him the day before had upset him.  He kept talking about his mother's beating.  They moved out of town to get away from the boyfriend.  It's a long story that I don't feel like telling, but the boyfriend was chasing them on an interstate highway when their car broke down.  When they tried to run across the highway, his mother was hit by a car and then again and again by others, her body mangled.  Maybe he was straight.  Maybe last night, he just got high to kill the pain.  Beats me.  I'm just guessing.  

He wanted to make some photographs at the lake where he learned to swim. It is a park with two docks and a boat ramp.  Once it all belonged to the city, but Country Club College has bought the properties all around it and built some dorms.  When I first moved to the village, I used to come here to swim for exercise.  That was a long time ago.  

I was driving, and so was our informant, but, he said, he didn't remember how to get to the docks.  He would follow us.  I said to the tenant that she should just ride with him.  Uh-uh.  She'd been a little freaked by the whole scene.  So she said when she got into the car with me.  

"It is just like the places I hung out when I was a kid," I said.  "It's fine.  Your man, though, he's higher than a kite."

"It seems like it."

"Was he like this when you interviewed him?"

"No."

Out on the docks, our subject wandered around mumbling.  

"This is where my uncle taught me to swim.  He just brought me out on the dock and threw me in.  I dog paddled to shore.  When I got out on the beach, I ran right back and jumped in again."  

He said this several times. 

It started to sprinkle rain.  I had a bunch of nothing pictures, but they might please him fine.  They were all dust cover style portraits.  We got into the cars and I drove slowly so he could follow us back to the apartments.  He called the tenant once we got onto his street.  We were done and so I drove on as he turned into the lot.  

"Do you want to get a drink?"

"Sure."

A beer and a Caprese salad.  We sat at the bar next to the village elite just three blocks away from where we had just been.  The contrast was, of course, startling.  

"The old neighborhood is disappearing," the tenant said.  

"Yea.  It all depends on how you feel about having a ghetto in your town."

"I guess so."

She would never have walked through the old neighborhood on a bet.  It was dangerous even for the people who lived there, but the police didn't bother them unless they crossed the tracks.  It was a typical southern situation for the time.  Insert Foghorn Leghorn's voice here. 

It was time to go back to my mother's, so I ordered dinner to go.  I was back to her house by 5:30.  Friday night.  Sitting among the villagers having a drink reminded me of my old life.  At the bar, I'd sat next to a big blonde, youngish for the fellow she was with, salon skin and great legs showing below her white skirt that, with her legs crossed, just covered her panties.  She was wearing a diamond as big as the Ritz, as they say, a very expensive watch and a diamond tennis bracelet.  Once when I looked over, she was showing her man an expensive car on her phone.  I turned to the tenant, and in a low voice said, "Buy me this one, daddy.  Buy me this."  

The barmaid brought her a meal.  It was huge.  I asked her what it was.  It was something special she had them make, she said.  

"We eat here all the time."

If I hadn't needed to get back to mother's, I would have ordered drinks and chatted her up for a good while just for the story I'd have about her and her fellow. 

Before we left, I saw she had already eaten half of her giant meal.  As I say, she was a big girl, still attractive, but she sure had an appetite.  

Everything that day had taken place within a few blocks.  It was a very real Tale of Two Cities.  Developers must be offering many millions of dollars for that old, beat to shit apartment complex, and when the roof starts leaking or the plumbing or electricity needs upgrading. . . somebody's going to get rich.  It won't be long.  The reformation is rolling in exceptionally fast.  Big money always wins. 

Saturday.  I'm still in pain but hope against hope just a little bit better.  The day will tell.  Rain is predicted for most of the day, but since Trump cut their funding, you can never trust their forecasting.  As the song from a couple days ago said, don't let a little rain change your plans.  

I have no plans.  But it is No Kings Day, and there is a protest rally scheduled in front of Gotham City Hall.  If it isn't raining. . . .

Hands on Your Knees

I think I will tell you about yesterday.  If you don't want to hear about it, you should hang up right now, 'cause that's what I'm going to do.  

Where to begin?  I made an ill-advised trip to the gym.  How about there?  Why, you ask?  Why what?  Why start there, why did I go to the gym, or why was it ill-advised?  I thought you'd already hung up.  

I didn't do much there, but it was too much, so I would realize later.  The pain in my left side neck, ribs, scapula, shoulder, and arm is excruciating.  But I went because I'm paranoid about. . . well, everything.  Fat old cripple man who got his hair cut and then changed his mind.  I don't let myself look into the mirror now.  And so. . . here's the thing.  Are you still here?  I'm going to tell you something that sounds like a cock's crow, but I swear to you, it is all true.  When I walked into the gym, it was pretty quiet.  Nobody I kibitz with was there, so I could just get on with it. I walked into the back room where I would do a workout for ninety year old men living in a home where twice a week they get rehab therapy.  Three people were in the room chatting after a spin class.  I walked to the back and started with a dead hang.  A man was telling the instructor about some other class he took. He was a real nerd of a fellow.  I like nerds, don't get me wrong. They are fine people.  But this guy was telling the instructor about the music.  There was one song called "Hands on Your Knees" that he really liked.  He went on and on about it.  And just at the end of my dead hang, he and what I assumed was his wife walked out.  I was laughing.  The spin instructor asked me what was funny.  I said, "I don't think that guy listened to the lyrics.  That song is really dirty" (link).  

Bend that ass over (Baow), let that coochie breathe (Yeah) Shake that ass, bitch, hands on your knees (Ho) Hands on your knees (Ho), hands on your knees (Ow) Shake that ass for Drake (Yup), now, shake that ass for me Bend that ass over (Baow), let that coochie breathe (Yeah) Shake that ass, bitch, hands on your knees Hands on your knees, hands on your knees Shake that ass for Drake (Yeah), now, shake that ass for me

Thus our conversation began.  

"I love your hair," she said.  I wasn't prepared for this.  She went on and on about it.  There was a mirrored wall, but I wouldn't look.  My hair is just beginning to grow out enough that it is a little funky.  Just. But you know how flattery works.  It just does.  She seemed to be interested in everything I said.  She wanted to know more about me.  She was an attractive woman, fit, and had two children, a boy and a girl, in college.  She was a physical therapist but hadn't worked at that for year.  She was thinking about teaching a high school anatomy class.  Her husbands said she should do it if she wanted.  See?  I listen.  I'm a good listener.  I don't like giving out much about myself except for when I am bullshitting.  Except here, you know.  I never bullshit here.  

Ho!

And so, after a long while, the pretty lady said she thought I was a very interesting fellow.  

"You're somebody I'd like to hang out with," she said.  I was kind of taken by surprise and didn't say anything.  What was there to say?  

"Oh, I can't really hang out.  I have to take care of my mother."

No. I just stood in stunned silence.  She gathered up her things and walked toward the door, then turned and said, "I'll see you here again," and told me her schedule.  The cat had my tongue, so I just nodded and said, "O.K."  

What in the heck does "cat had my tongue" mean, anyway?  

I just looked it up.  Odd.  It is of unknown origin, but AI guessed at many gruesome origins.  That's a strange one. 

Maybe that little conversation is why I did more in the gym than I intended.  I would lose weight and build muscle and be a handsome young man once again.  

"Once again?  Ha!  When were you ever handsome?"

C'mon, now--you know what I mean.  You don't have to be churlish. 

By the time I got back to my house to clean up, I knew I'd made a mistake.  I was in big pain.  The doc gave me narcotics, and I've been taking one each night with a shot of Willie's Remedy before I go to bed.  They let me sleep, but I don't want to walk around narcotized all the live long day.  I'm worried about weaning myself off the narcotic already, but a man needs to sleep.  

I was sitting at the computer ordering my mother some compression socks on Amazon when the phone rang.  It was the tenant.  My balls always shrivel when she calls.  It is always something.  But this was about a documentary she is making on an Olympic hopeful boxer who has a tragic story of murder and redemption.  She wanted to know if I was at my house.  She was coming over. 

What she wanted was for me to make some portraits of the fellow.  More so, she wanted to borrow a camera for making b-roll video. Of course.  I was miserable with pain just then and told her I would come take some photos, but I didn't plan on sticking around long.  I could barely focus, I said.  The pain is debilitating.  As we talked, I thought about what I would need to do to get prepared.  With great effort, I got up to rummage through my gear.  Batteries to charge.  I'd bring the Hasselblad, too.  Lenses.  Every movement brought more misery.  

The thing is, I don't want to make pictures for other people.  Now both he and she expect something.  It makes me nervous.  Anybody with a camera can do this.  There is nothing really required to be a photographer today.  Everybody knows how to take pictures.  But, you know, I'm going to be expected to do something else, something more meaningful and magical.  Some funkiness.  

So that is what I am going to do sometime today--take photos of the tragically redeemed boxer. 

The tenant picked up a book off the side table and asked, "Have you read this?"

"I started it, but I didn't think it was very good.  It got good reviews, but. . . ."

She read a page and said, "The writing is pretty good.  Listen."  She read a paragraph aloud.  Some of what she read was O.K., but some of it was too ordinary, so I said.  I repeated one of the sentences then rewrote it in what I said was a more beautiful way.  

"Yes, I guess that line. . . ."

"Take it from me, I fellow who writes every single day for no purpose."

"Why do you write if it is for no purpose."

"I just meant I don't write for money or fame.  But it does mean something.  It gives my life a structure, a narrative existence.  It let's me know more about who I am.  It helps give my life form and meaning, so I guess it does have a purpose, just not one a person would expect."

Just then, my phone rang.  It was an "Unknown Number," but it must be somebody I have called before or it would just go to voicemail, so I answered.  It was my doctor.  She has never called me before, so this was a little spooky.  The tenant stood up and waved a silent goodbye.  

"This is Doctor Schmaltz. I had a question.  Have you ever had a colonoscopy?"

"Yes."

"How long ago?"

It had been awhile. 

"Would you mind if I wrote you a prescription for another?"

Holy shit!  What was this about?  

"Did my blood work come back?  Is something wrong?"

"No, no. . . I was just looking over your chart.  That is what I do on weekends, go over patient charts."

Uh. . . it was Thursday.  This whole conversation threw me for a loop.  

I asked her about the medication she had given me in the office for my blood pressure.  

"I didn't see that you had sent in the prescription for that."

"I wanted to see how you did on it first."

"I looked it up. Seems that it can have an affect on the sodium and potassium balance,"

"The change in potassium is small.  It is mostly an issue with people who have kidney problems.  You have great kidneys.  They are really good.  That shouldn't be an issue."

Great kidneys?  WTF?  How would she know?  

"I'm fearful that your insurance isn't going to pay for this medication, so I am sending the prescription to a compounding pharmacy."

Again, I couldn't make sense of this.  They'd pay if it is a compounding pharmacy?  And I was still wondering if I had colon cancer.  

I thanked her for calling, then sat trying to make sense of it all.  Weird.  Just really fucking weird.  

I called my mother to ask what she wanted for dinner.   She didn't want anything, really.  O.K then.  Soup and salmon salad sandwiches it would be.  An easy meal.  But first. . . what I needed was a cocktail in the garage porch.  I had a lot to think about.  The pretty lady blowing smoke up my ass.  The weird phone call.  What I had to do tomorrow.  And, of course, the constant pain.  It had been a strange day.   But sometimes I have a strange idea that people, some anyway, still like me.  Old men, though, should banish all such thoughts, for they can only lead to some horribly embarrassing moments.  And I would.  I would throw those thoughts out.  Just not yet.  I'd sit with them and the cocktail.  There could be no harm in that. What could go wrong?

After dinner, and after the news, I put on YouTube for a bit.  I let the algorithms do their work.  I love hillbilly music, what is most often called "Bluegrass."  But for me, it is just hillbilly jazz.  If I were more learned, I'd make the case.  If you are not a fan of it, though, you can skip it.  

Hello.  Hello?  

I guess you've already hung up. 

Eggcorns and the Lords of Misrule

Election Day is coming, and the proof will be in the pudding.  Or, as the old proverb goes, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating."  But even the eggcorn "putting" will do. You know, it's a doggy dog world, right? 

O.K.  I'll admit that I just learned the term "eggcorn."

But to the point, or my point, at least, we will soon find out if the liberal press is, indeed, fake news as The Don claims.  For months now, they have been teasing us with premonitions of a sweep in the house and senate by the democrats, and as I've said befofre, it smells like the Hillary mania they gave us oh-so long ago.  It is like every "We've got him now" moment they gave us at each of Trump's fuck ups.  It just feels like false hope.  As the old "eggcorn" goes, "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."  

Either way, though, we will not be a healed or unified country.  We no longer share, as one people, any unified myths.  It's enough to make you want to be Catholic.  

I've always thought that if I were to go to church, it would have to be Catholic.  They seem to have the most fun.  Sure, there have been some bad moments, but that is all part of the color, isn't it?  

Before I let go of this brief political moment, how about Musk?  Once the darling of the left, now the darling of the right, he is the Poster Boy of everything American for me now.  

I collaborated with Chat for this one.  It is better than anything I could find online.  What is it that C.C. always says?  The Lord of Misrule?  The Magpie of Mischief?  I can't remember exactly, but Musk doesn't need an election to fuck things up.  We can't even hope to vote him out of office. When Trump's gone (hear the horns honking), we'll still have Musk, the Government Handout Billionaire.  Trillionaire, I mean.  

This was my Grok version.  I didn't want to waste it.  

That's all I have, really, just the inside of my head.  My big adventure yesterday was taking my mother to the cardiologist mid-afternoon.  He took a look at her swollen legs and made two more appointments for her.  We had waited an hour and a half for that.  We stopped at the grocers and got to my mother's house just in time for dinner. 

Mine is a scintillating life full of daring and adventure.  

Oh. . . peptides.  Everyone at the Physical Fitness Club is doing one or another form of them, some to lose weight, some to muscle up.  The results are pretty dramatic.  I've resisted temptation, though, saying it was too early to tell the long term effects.  Sorry, but I don't believe we get anything for free.  Now that they have been around for a few years, we are starting to hear some bad things.  Sickness, illness, disease and psychological instability.  And worst of all--hair loss!  

But, some believe they will help you live longer.  I'm reminded of the old Greek myth:

The Wish: Eos fell in love with Tithonus and begged Zeus to make him immortal so they could be together forever.
The Omission: Eos forgot to ask for eternal youth.
The Consequence: Tithonus did not die, but he continued to age indefinitely. He grew older, withered, and eventually became completely incapacitated.
The Ending: In some versions of the story, Eos locked him away in a room; in others, she eventually transformed him into a cicada (grasshopper), whose high-pitched morning song is said to be his voice.

I let A.I. write that one.   But that is what living longer may end up being like.  

I think it wonderful that the Greeks had a story explanation for everything.  

So does YouTube.  Here's another one from my feed.  It's country music, the most popular form of music in America.  Why?  Somewhat, I think, because it is predictable, but I also think, sometimes, it can be just pretty, too.  Whenever I am out west driving a rental car at 100 miles per hour through open hill country with the windows down and the hot dry air streaming in, I feel I'm a little bit cowboy, too. 

The Photo

Correction: My accident was eight, not ten years ago.  I wasn't thinking straight.  I probably haven't been for quite awhile.  Presently, though, I will blame it on the pain.  I've really fucked myself up this time.  

And yet. . . one carries on.  

There was no way I could stand going to the gym yesterday.  I've started to lose feeling in my left hand fingertips.  It isn't fun.  But I could still walk, so I did.  I took the two mile stroll around the neighborhood in the opposite direction of the golf course that I haven't walked for a good while.  I decided to take a camera with me, my Mamiya 6 medium format film rangefinder.  Why?  Because I have been working on the surf series, and one day, and only one, I used it instead of the Holga, and the photos were intriguing.  I was planning to shoot Halloween decorations around the 'hood, but I had forgotten something living with my mother these past going on three years--the people who live in mansions don't really do that sort of thing.  In my mother's neck of the woods, elaborate decorations are de rigueur. 

Thusly, I was carrying the brick around without making any pictures.  

As I walked the long shoreline on the brick cypress lined road around the lake, I waved and smiled at one of the landscapers working there as is my proletariat habit.  He smiled back and pointed to the camera.  He didn't speak English so very much or well, but he made it clear that he wanted me to take his picture.  Holy mackerel--it was like living in mid-century America before people were so paranoid.  I paired him with a female coworker in good light, stepped back, focused, bent at the knees, and hit the shutter button.  

I told him I could send him the photo when it was ready, and he handed me his phone.  I put in my number and said, "Make sure you call me so I'll know where to send it."

He hadn't asked me to send it.  I just offered.  And as I walked away, waving and smiling, I wondered why I didn't take two pictures.  Nervous, I guessed.  Then I thought some more.  I didn't even know what kind of film was in the camera.  It had been in there a long time.  How long?  I hadn't used this camera forever.  Shit.  What if the film was bad?  What if the meter battery was low?  What if I didn't get a photo at all?  

I was suddenly wishing I hadn't told him I'd send him a copy.  

When I got back to my house, I decided I would take the film in for same day development.  I was both excited by one prospect and paranoid of the other.  

I showered and dressed and thought I would get out of the house before the cleaning crew arrived, but just as I started to back the car out of the driveway, their Mercedes Sprinter van pulled in the other end.  I stopped the car and got out to greet them.  

Big confession--the woman in charge and I get along like thieves, but. . . I don't know her name.  I must have at one point, but I can't ask her now.  It has been years.  I know, I know.  I'm a self-absorbed asshole.  Still, we are buds, and she got out of the van with a big smile and a bottle of rum.  She gave me a hug and exclaimed, "I'm not saying you drink, but I brought this back for you."  She'd been on a cruise that went to her home country, Jamaica.  Appleton Rum.  

"I went to the Appleton factory on my trip to Jamaica in 1973," I said. 

"The year I was born."

We chatted for a bit while the cleaners got everything out of the van.  Then another hug and I was gone.  

I dropped the film off at the little hipster lab.  I'd never seen the pretty girl working the counter before, so I wasn't greeted with the hero's welcome I enjoy.   She was nice enough, though, and when I asked if they could develop and scan the film that day,  she checked with the lab and said yes.

"O.K.  I'm nervous.  I hope the film is good.  There is one picture on there that I am interested in."

Cha-ching.  I paid her a lot of money just to find out right away if I had a good photo of my Mexican friend.  

I drove across the street to the Punks in the Waiting Room brewery.  A turkey pesto sandwich and, of course, the beer.  The day had grown warmer than forecast.  I checked my phone while I waited for my sandwich.  My Mexican friend hadn't called.  Hmm.  I had no messages.  The tables around me were filled with boring tattooed people.  Nothing to do but sit and wait.  I took a phone pic of my beer.  The music playing over the outdoor speakers was loud and bad.  It was two.  The sandwich came.  I ate half and felt full, but I ate the second half, too.  I knew I wouldn't be hungry come dinnertime.  

On my way home, I stopped at the Cafe for a cafe con leche.  

"Hello, Fred," the counter woman said when I walked in.  A tall girl with a chiasma between her front teeth smiled big and said hi as if we were familiars.  I recognized her as someone who worked there many years ago.  Many.  She was certainly glad to see me, I thought.  

"C'mon," said the tall girl to the counter girl.  "I need you."

What she needed her for was to make some photo booth pictures.  Odd, I thought, but later I would understand that the tall girl was just visiting from out of state and wanted some memorabilia from her trip.  I sat with my coffee and journal and wrote a tale.  It was after three when I left.  

"See you, Fred," the nice counter lady called as I was leaving.  I didn't correct her.  It could be good to use a pseudonym.  You never know.  

Back home, I remembered that I wanted to see if ChatGPT could bring back to life my old photos that were not photos, really, but small images, 35mm from corner to corner, on deteriorating proof sheets that I had scanned.  

Indeed, it could if the image was not too grungy, but on some that were really f'ed up, it had a hard time.  

There was another thing, though.  These girls were standing in bikinis on a metal platform waving people in from the highway, but A.I. is so censored, it wouldn't give me flesh.  I tried, but "the gatekeepers" wouldn't allow it.  I have many images that A.I. will never clean up for me.  It drives me nuts.  Puritan Jihadists ruin everything.  

It was time to get back to mom.  I saw I had a missed call from the tenant.  As I drove away, I called her back.  

"What's up?  I missed your call."

"Where are you?"

"I'm driving back to my mother's."

"Oh. I was wondering if you could give me a ride home."

She was at an ophthalmology appointment.  She'd been waiting for a couple hours but had yet to see the doctor.  She was in the opposite direction from my mom's house.  I felt bad when I told her no, but everyone knows my schedule.  

Or so it seems to me, but my mother's neighbors don't seem to understand that I live with my mother now. 

"Are you going to be here tomorrow night?" the across the street neighbor asked me.  I can only shake my head.  

"I'm sorry, I can't," I told the tenant.  "I have to make my mother dinner."

Wait until I need something next time, right?  Yea.  But here's the thing.  She had a friend take her, but he couldn't stay.  

"Uber," I said.  

It wasn't much of a dinner.  Soup.  Neither of us was hungry.  I cleaned up, poured a scotch, and sat on the couch.  My mother is feeling poorly, and I can tell she is worried.  Her legs have swollen, so I am taking her to the cardiologist today.  I had to cancel a meeting with my broker to do so.  

"I may end up in the hospital again," she said.  

"Why?"

"My back."

She's in a lot of pain and thinks perhaps another of her vertebra has collapsed.  She didn't care what was on t.v., so I relaxed and let YouTube play some music for me.  It did a fine job.  

I checked my phone again.  The lab had sent the scans.  I went to the computer to download the images.  And holy moly--there they were!  The film, the camera, everything was good.  

But my Mexican friend never called.  I guess he just wanted me to take his picture.  

Here's some lo-fi music that YouTube played for me.  I like it.  This is what Sheryl Crow would sound like if her records weren't so overproduced.  But that is what people like.  Slick commercial sounds.  They've been conditioned.  Not us, though.  Uh-uh.  We're so cool.  

Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

I went to see the doctor yesterday, but the hangman wasn't hanging yet.  

"Come back in three weeks."  

But the news was bad enough.  My blood pressure was sky high.  Danger zone.  

"There are at least two possible reasons for that," I told the doc.  "First--I'm here.  Second--I'm in a lot of pain."

"What pain?"

I told her about my neck and the radiating pain into my scapula and shoulder and on down my arm into my hand.  

"Are you taking anything for it?"

I told her I took Aleve and Tylenol.  "Aleve is dangerous," she said.  Then she wrote a prescription for some narcotics.

Then she handed me a bottle.  "Let's try this for your blood pressures.  It seemed to work for another patient I gave it to."

So now I am taking four blood pressure meds.  I am rather worried.  It may be "the apnea," of course, but age and heredity, too.  I have a feeling I should go on a big fast, but I'm not inclined to at present.  

I gave them lots of my blood for testing.  In three weeks, I'll know the verdict.  

I have been to three doctors this week, and now I need a fourth.  I wasn't able to sleep at all last night for the sharp pains in my neck and shoulder.  I could find no position in bed that wasn't excruciating.  Tonight, I'll try the narcotics. 

"You've really fucked up this time, ain't ya boy?"

I think it was getting run over that did it.  Not run over.  I reportedly went flying through the air.  I just realized that happened ten years ago come Thursday.  I had just returned from a fabulous trip to Palm Springs and L.A.  It was Saturday, and the weather was lovely.  Saturday night was not so good.  

I was looking up something just yesterday and came across an article that reported the alarming number of people who die after breaking ribs.  Well, now. . . I was well past that mark--seven broken ribs, flail chest, and a punctured lung just for starters.  The doctors didn't give me very good chances for survival.  Besides the ribs, shit was broken everywhere.  

So, ten years on--I guess I've beaten the odds for awhile.  Now, however, it seems, things are catching up to me.  And, of course, I can't even run.  

I'm going to need to see a bone doc.  They usually have specialties--hips or knees or shoulders or hands--so I'm not sure who will handle all of this.  The guy who cut me open to plate the ribs was a cardiac surgeon, so I am a little baffled now about who to see.  

"What brings you in today?"

"The left side."

"What?"

"Neck, ribs, clavicle, shoulder, scapula. . . ." 

"I'll call a priest."

It's always hit or miss with doctors.  You never know.  

When I was released from the hospital after the accident, I told myself I would be O.K. with not being a hero anymore, that I would simply relish sitting in cafes and restaurants with my girl and having sweet, low conversations.  And it went that way for a minute.  Then it didn't.  Then came retirement, Covid, and my mother, Trump, Biden and Trump.  I have just lived through the worst six and a half years of my life.  I don't remember it, really.  There is nothing worth remembering.  

But, you know. . . I'm sure things will get better.  

 

Pricey

Here you go.  I can get you your very own copy of "A Few Days One Summer" for just. . . probably $900 with tax and shipping.  Not a penny of it goes into my coffers.  And you'll get almost every photograph I made at the beach in 2009 in a 12"x12" book, each and every photograph reproduced ten inches square.

That seemed a little pricey, though, so I went through the photographs, cut their number, and let some pages of the book carry more than one photograph. 

Here's that same 12" book abridged for aroune $200.  I can get you the 8.5"x8.5" edition for just over $100, but I think some of the photos may be a bit small.  Still. . . the price.  

New edition.  I think it is done. 

That is pretty much what I did on a cloudy/rainy Sunday afternoon.  I didn't realize that when I was finished, the prices would be out of reach.  I'll have to buy one of the "A Few Days One Summer," though, just to see.  

I would print the images in 5"x5" on delicate paper and put them into 10" frames for a show, but framing is very expensive.  Twenty frames and mats would set me back a bit.  I have two of them in my house, and they look very nice.  I would have a darn hard time, though, trying to whittle 20 photos out of the group. 

I have a doctor's appointment in an hour.  The closer this thing has gotten, the higher my blood pressure is.  I should be worried, too.  I'm not the healthy boy I was last time after doing a six weeks Dry January.  I did one this year, too, and should have had a February check-up, but I've put it off as long as I can.  Now we'll see what sort of damage this past year and a half of caretaking has done to me.  

I guess I'm resigned.  

I don't know if I'll bother putting together a book of street photos knowing how pricey that book would be.  But. . . something occurred to me yesterday that seemed a capital idea.  If you've been a team member here for a good long while, you're aware that my mother threw away all the negatives from my 1975 Kerouac Tour of the country by bus and thumb.  All that is left are some degenerating proof sheets and a few small work prints. I've scanned them all and worked hard in Photoshop to reproduce them in the digital world, but they are pretty bad.  But!  What if I took those digital prints into ChatGPT and had them "fixed" and made into good, rich prints?  I can do that, I think.  I will start on that in the next few days just to see. 

O.K.  I'm off to see the hangman.  Here's hoping.  

Saturdays

I spent a lot of yesterday trying to organize images from my surfer series to make a book.  I got. . . nowhere.  I wrote an introduction that I later trashed, and I made the cover.  I am putting the book together with Mixbook which is, by almost all accounts, the best of its type  It is the same company that I used to make the "Lonesomeville" copy that still needs revision.  For that book, I printed out every image I would use, laid them out on the living room floor, and arranged them.  Maybe I'll need to do that with the surfer pictures, too, because I've been trying to do it on the computer screen and it doesn't seem to be working.  

I am an organizational mess.  I really need someone to do this with me.  Or for me.  

I've decided to make this book, though, and to re-edit "Lonesomeville" and then put together a second "Lonesomeville" made from the digital camera photos.  Then I want to make a street photo book and maybe some travel photo books, too.  

Ambitious for a man who lacks real decision-making skills about anything concerning himself.   

Once I've made them, I'll let you know.  I might sell you one.  Not for profit, just to cover the cost.  Mixbook ain't doing this for free.  

I tried to get out and maybe make some more pictures yesterday, but things went south.  I thought to go to the great Farmer's Market in a distant town, but when I left my mother's house, the day had already grown muggy.  I decided to drive back to my own home and see what I felt like doing.  

I decided to go to the Saatva store on the Boulevard.

I am finally accepting after all this time the hard truth that my mother will live forever and I will be staying in her house until I die, so. . . I need a decent bed.  I've been sleeping on an air mattress here for years, now.  I didn't realize they could "go bad," but an article I read told me that they do--and quickly.  How, I wondered?  It's just air.  How does air become lumpy?  But I know something happens because I've been trying to sleep "uphill" on this thing for a long time.  

Saatva mattresses are always among the most highly rated, especially the one they call "The Classic."  At the store, I was invited to try it.  

It seemed too soft.  When I was in China, every bed I slept on was very, very firm, and I slept the sleep of the dead.  I like a firm mattress.  I don't want to sink into it.  So I tried a few more.  The one I liked was the firmest and, also, the most expensive.  

I may get an adjustable bed frame, too.  I don't know.  I told the nice lady thanks, etc.  

I decided to walk the Boulevard.  I am afraid to tell you what I saw, but there were hundreds of them, all brand new.  

I don't want to be old anymore. 

I went to the bookstore.  Apparently people still love buying books.  Or at least looking at them.  The place was shoulder to shoulder with bibliophiles.  I couldn't get close to the new book display.  I split. 

Back on the street, I walked slowly toward the car.  They come to the Brandy Melville store on the weekends, the older ones in groups of three or four, the younger ones with a parent who doesn't mind them dressing in that manner.  The groups of older ones are delirious, the younger ones with a parent self-conscious and worried.  

I crossed the street to walk parkside.  Across the paddock was the Saturday market.  My hometown, once a quiet village, has become a weekend "destination."  Women's clothing, bars, and restaurants.  Five jewelry stores.  Three expensive sunglass shops.  A flower shop has replaced the art gallery at the end of the Boulevard.  The gallery selling sparkly, shiny mall art, paintings of dolphins and the like, stays busy.  The national chain brands have begun to move back.  Country Club College is building a large art museum on the back side of the Boulevard.  They are investing in some other projects around town as well.  It is still a pretty little town, but the money keeps pouring in, and we all know the consequences of that. 

When I got back to the car, I was very hungry, which is unusual.  I go most days without eating much before dinner, but right then, food seemed imperative.  I decided to drive across town to get a sandwich at the brewery that sells Punks lager.  Camera at the ready.  

I made two passes through the small parking lot.  Not a chance.  Even the disabled parking spaces were filled.  That sandwich was not in the cards.  

I drove to a Chick-fil-A near my house and took home a chicken sandwich.  Much cheaper, of course.  

The rest of the day was spent wrestling with the surf project.  The rains came.  

The afternoon waned.  I tried calling my mother to see what she wanted for dinner, but her phone was still not accepting calls.  It was later than usual, so I drove straight back to her house. She was fine. 

"What have you done to your phone?"

"I didn't do anything."

Somehow, she had turned on "Airplane Mode."

"WTF?"

"I didn't do it."

It was late.  I hadn't been to the grocery store, so I made a quick meal of spaghetti noodles, tuna, peas, and garlic.  We usually like this light meal, but somehow last night I fucked it up.  It was not very good at all. 

"I think I've lost my ability to cook," I said.  

"Yes."

"Maybe you need someone else to prepare your meals."

"What?"

She hadn't heard anything I'd said.  She just bobs her head and says yes when people talk now.  

After dinner, we tried two new series on Netflix or Amazon Prime.  I don't remember.  We watched about twenty minutes of the first one and ten of the second.  Neither of them interested us, so I gave her back her commercial t.v. and went off to read.  

Saturday night.  Somewhere out there, people get together, tell stories, laugh, lie.  I guess.  I work the morning, late afternoon, and night shifts.  I haven't been out for a very long time.  But I was never much for going out, really.  The best Saturday nights were spent in my studio working on pictures, editing or printing or just sitting and thinking.  Sometimes, the artist in the studio behind me would be working, too, and we'd stop and have a drink together on the loading dock.  Good restaurants and bars were all around, and we could feel the energy and sometimes hear people laughing.  The Boulevard was a short ten minute walk away.  It might be early.  It might be late.  Maybe we'd say goodnight and head our separate ways or maybe one or both of us would go back to work.  It was not lonely.  There was everything everywhere around us.  Sometimes, if the weather was nice and I had the doors open, music playing, people would poke their heads in to see what the place was about.  They'd see the pictures on the wall, and sometimes I'd invite them in and photograph them.  

Sometimes it might be a friend.  

It was a time of creativity and enchantment.

I'll try working on the surf project again this afternoon, or maybe I will re-edit "Lonesomeville."  That is simply a matter of replacing a few of the images that I somehow duplicated.  There are people who want a copy of that, I know.  And then I will go to the grocery store before returning to my mother's where I will make a delicious beef stew.  I have to prove that I can still cook.  

I'm not sure.  I may have given you this song before.  It's o.k., though.  It goes well with a Sunday morning.  I think I'll make French toast.  

Disability

I just wrote for an hour.  It was horrible writing.  Now it is gone, and I am on my fourth attempt at writing a retraction.  Can't manage it.  I'll have to let writing go for today and hope this is not a permanent disability.  I promise, it is a terrifying thing.  Without words, good ones, what are we?  Half human, half beast, subject to primal gruntings and wailings.  

See?  Strained, stupid stuff.  

Bad juju.  And so, until the words return. . . . 

Who Wants to Read about a Very Good Man?

I don't think I've ever had a pumpkin spice latte or other drink of any type.  Man alive, though, I am enjoying little pieces of pumpkin croissants I've been getting at the grocery store bakery.  I know, I know, but just little bites with my coffee.  It is a simple pleasure.  

And now on to the news. 

"Fool me once, that's o.k.  Fool me twice, MAGA likes it that way."

I read the Times, WaPo, and CNN in the morning, so I get a certain political slant.  They have all been suggesting that democrats can or will have a very good November election.  I'm sorry, but I hear echoes of Hillary for Prez running all through those stories.  I don't trust them at all.  When push comes to shove and people have to choose between a lying, cheating, sycophantic republican candidate and an identity politics/social change democratic candidate, privately putting check marks in the boxes. . . .

But can you imagine the noise around the country and around the globe the day Trump leaves office?  And all bets are on him leaving before the end of his term.  

I'll not cheer a Vance presidency, though, that's for sure.  

Random stuff.  Remember how we thought the internet was so wonderful, then cable t.v.?  And then what happened?  Yea.  You know the same thing is going to happen to A.I.  It already is.  There is gold in them hills, and somebody is going to have to dig it our for the massas.  It won't be long before only the very rich or the very corrupt can access "real" A.I.  The rest of us will be running on A.I. Lite.  Just wait. You'll see.  

But not everything is awful.  In a bit, we'll be able to watch a man killed by a firing squad right in our own homes.  And I'm wondering--will sports bars carry it live?  Not the ones that show soccer for liberals.  The other ones with all the big tvs showing MMA, NASCAR, and the NFL.  Those are republican bars, by and large.  MAGA country.  Same crowd that is on TRT.  Hegseth's boys.  

I must confess, I have the NYT open on another page, and I'm just scrolling for my next idea. 

There's a lot on the Cornell story.  I'm not touching this.  I know what you think based on which sports bar you go to.  Same goes for the French riots and what is going on in Spain.  

Cultures collide!

There was another big article on the Cormac McCarthy bio today.  Oh, my. . . he seems to have been a very bad man.  I may have to subscribe to Vincenti Barney's Substack page to see what he has uncovered.  I mean, really, who wants to read about a very good man?  

A few posts ago, I told you about the t.v. series, "East of Eden."  I said it was better than most things on tv right now.  Well, people have gotten crazy for it.  I read something about the series or the book every day.  As I've often said, Steinbeck was a crisp observer and reporter.  He could tell a good story.  But, I think, there is no "Steinbeck" style.  He's easier to read than is McCarthy.  Steinbeck's novel is a real page turner.  If you dig deep enough into his bio, you will find it reported that he was a "sadistic womanizer" and a volatile man.  

So there's that.  

But let's end on a high note.  Last night, randomly, I chose to watch "Small Prophets."  Holy mackerel!  I am scared to recommend this six part series after having watched only two episodes, for I fear it is going to go south on me, but. . . it is really very, very good.  I'll let you know more after I watch another episode.  But yea. . . it speaks my melancholic language.  

And sings my melancholy mood.  

Intangible Grey

One step further, another picture.  A street ballet, of sorts, with a suburban soundtrack.  A poetry of space and light in an everyday world.  

Or simply another mundane snapshot of nothing.  

Whatever.  I like it.  

I just made a long diatribe against the adult mania for Halloween.  It's been going on for months, it seems, twenty foot skeletons and little robotic monsters in neighborhoods around town.  Obviously some pathology in our social psyche. . . but I did you a favor.  

Delete.  

Without much else to say.  Can't think of a thing.  The drizzling rain continues, a softness of intangible grey.  Rods rather than cones.  You know what I mean.  

Maybe I'll buy a rain jacket today--if one is on sale.  I don't have a rain jacket.  Long ago I did when I was constantly in nature, hiking, climbing, but the GoreTex peeled away for some reason and I have never replaced it.  I am not cheap really, but a rain jacket is something I can most times do without.  There are more exciting things on which to spend my money, less practical things.  Yea. . . I probably won't buy one.  I have a poncho somewhere that cost a couple bucks.  I don't think I've ever used it, but it should be fine.  

I really have nothing to write today which means nothing really bad is happening or on my mind, and that's o.k.  

Oh, my--I just remember what I had planned on writing today.  NYC and women.  Yes.  I'll have to save that until tomorrow or later.  I have not pulled together the photos yet.  Just a few.  But I've been sitting here writing and deleting for an hour, and now it is time to prepare breakfast for my mother.  

It's all good.  

Such Sweet Thunder

I wanted to find a warm, cozy picture of home to post today, but, as you know, I am not at home and all my images are, and I figured I needed color today but not bright colors, and so. . . this is all I had.  It does not really go with what I wanted to write about, though.  Now I'll see if what I write is influenced by the photo at the top or if I can. . . whatever.  

It is rainy here in the Sunny South, cloudy with a drizzle, not the tropical downpours we often have.  It is autumn rain, I'd guess.  After the gym, where I had the longest aerobic--oops--cardio--workout that I have had in months, I went home and put on the university jazz station and poured Epsom Salts into a hot tub.  And there I lay for a very long time.  Followed by a hot shower, after which, I was noodle limp.  The music was perfect, real rainy day jazz, and played on and on and on without a single mistake.  The slow, low light from the overcast sky barely shown through the windows, the house lit by many small lamps making pools of warm light.  A small lunch of crushed sardines with crackers and Sriracha sauce.  Then the big chair in the t.v. room, me facing the bookshelves and the passage to the kitchen, the the panels of the glass kitchen door and the big windows above the sink.  I sat for a very long time pretending I lived in my own home again, just sitting and looking and thinking, remembering, planning.  It was the closest I've come to bliss in a very long time.  

Oh, Christ, how I miss my home.  

The phone rang.  It was my mother.  She had gone to breakfast with the neighborhood gang which had released me from making breakfast and had wonderfully elongated my day.  But, she said, I had not left her pills.  Bliss shattered.  Reality intrusion. 

"O.K.  I'm sorry.  I'll be back in a bit."

It was difficult leaving the house, the light, the music. . . the buzz. . . but outside the day was still mellow with a misty rain and the university radio was still playing beautifully.  I drove slowly through my part of town with it's oak lined streets and the richer landscaping, the winding streets. . . .  The phone rang.  

"You need to stop and get me some whiskey!"

As I've said, she isn't drinking beer any longer.  In truth, I don't know what holds her up.  Narcotics and whiskey and whatever other pain relievers she gobbles during the day.  But as the doctor said, he can't really treat her, so let's just try to manage the pain.  I guess that is what we do.

Going from my house to my mother's house is like moving from a beautiful old private club to the lobby of a Holiday Inn.  I had the evening groceries and the whiskey.  I gave my mother the pills she should have had three hours before.  She was in obvious pain.  She downed the pills with a whiskey and coke as I got the rice cooker going.  I washed and cut the broccoli and cut the cod into bite sized pieces and put them in a bowl with a cracked egg and let them soak.  I washed my hands and made the cocktail I thought all afternoon to eschew.  Like my mother, we can't cure my predicament, so we try to manage the pain.  I took the drink to the garage/porch to watch the dying of the day.  

Sitting in the garage, I remembered that I had once wanted to live in a big metal hanger in the desert.  Twenty foot arched ceiling, open at both ends, sitting at the end of the day with a cold beer watching the sunset.  The garage is a bit like that, I thought.  As close as I would get to that old dream that I had picked up somewhere long ago from an unremembered movie.  I was still, I guess, wrapped in the aura of the day.  

At dinner, I asked my mother if she had fun at breakfast.  "No," she said.  She couldn't hear what anybody was saying.  It was just noise.  Her hearing aids weren't worth a damn.  She had two pieces of worthless toast and "scrambled eggs that weren't worth a shit."  Twelve dollars, she said.  I agreed that eating out anywhere had gotten expensive but that eating at Perkins was never going to be worth the money you spend.  I was looking ahead to Friday hoping to get away for another quick sushi dinner on my own.  

Today's weather will be like yesterday's.  I hope to feel some blissful peace again, but you know how that goes.  Same river twice.  

Driving from my home back to my mother's, this song came on the radio.  It is an old Duke Ellington tune done well.  I love Ellington, but this version has just a bit more kick to it.  If you click on it, give it a minute.  The intro doesn't really sell the song so very well, but thirty seconds in, if you have an old soul, the damn thing will get you.  

The Load

I've been wearing a heavy hat that has weighed me down for awhile now.  You don't know me, but I will confess to you now that I am a terrible coward.  I am also a man with an immense ability for imaginative thinking.  This last part is surely largely due to my being an only child.  I grew up quiet in rural Ohio and then in my own home state.  As an only child, you must entertain yourself much of the time.  You have to make up things to do without playmates.  Often, I would take things I'd seen and make up games.  Take Tarzan and King Kong, for instance.  The movies.  Daring and adventure.  I'd play Tarzan on a rope tied to the branch of a tree.  I'd imagine I was on Kong Island.  How'd that work out?  As an adult, I slept in the jungles of the Amazon alone with natives in their jungle camp.  WTF?  I watched Sea Hunt and floated around in the clear coastal waters off the beaches of south Florida where seahorses and fish with tattered brown skin that mimicked the Sargassum weed thrilled me.  The result?  Later, I would get lost in underwater caves at 150 feet, and flub decompression charts on deeper dives where I almost made a mistake that could have paralyzed me.  Again, double WTF?  

There are a million more examples.  Later I would realize that I enjoyed the pretending most.  

So. . . when a spot popped up on my arm a couple weeks ago that was small and red and crusty, my mind went into overdrive.  It itched and burned at times.  It was on the skin above my elbow, the one I can't straighten fully after busting it up in a kick boxing gym, the one that has bad arthritis in it, the one that was hurting from straining it too much in the gym.  The pain was shooting, and so I imagined for certain that the spot was melanoma and it had metastasized and spread into the bone.  

Stop it.  I'm confessing here.  

I called the dermatologist's office, but I couldn't get in for five days.  I was sure this was a fatal delay.  The spot seemed to be growing, the bones hurting now down my forearm and into my hand.  I was sick with it.  What if I had to go to the hospital?  What would happen to my mother?  What if I had days to live?  I had a student once who died within days of being admitted to the hospital with melanoma.  Only a couple. He was a big, blonde, handsome boy, a real charmer.  When the other students learned of this, they were devastated.  There was no time for planning.  I've never planned anything.  What would happen to my house, my money, my stuff?  There were things I thought of destroying before I died.  Did I want to leave all those journals, the pictures. . . the evidence of what had been my life without me there to defend it?  

I was having trouble moving from room to room the dread was so deep.  I was using the last of my Xanax to cope.  

Yes, yes. . . I am telling this for your amusement.  

I even bought some Willie's Remedy.  I asked A.I. if it was different than other THC drinks that I don't like because they make my heart race and me paranoid.  A.I. told me Willie's wouldn't do that because they use more cannabinoids so you don't get the THC dump.  

Uh, just an aside--it is true.  Willie's is rather gentle, but know that it sneaks up on you.  It begins in about fifteen minutes, but it keeps growing for about an hour.  Just one shot over ice.  It didn't make me paranoid, only stupid.  It's ok for sleeping.  

Yesterday, I had my appointment with the doc.  

"How are you?"

"We'll see."

I showed him the spot.  

"You're lucky," he said.  "It is a pre-cancer.  I'm just going to freeze it off."

He sprayed it with liquid nitrogen.  

"Leave it alone.  You can put some petroleum jelly on it if you like.  Don't scratch it.  It will heal in about ten days."

I stripped and he checked the rest of me.  No other problems.  Just old skin. 

The weight was lifted and I was fairly filled with helium as I floated across the parking lot to my car.  I called my mother to tell her.  She had been worried. . . about her.  She had called my cousin on the coast to tell her so that she would come take care of her if I went to the hospital.  

I was happy for mom.  

I drove back to my house, sat in the car for a minute, then decided to celebrate.  I went to the Cafe for a strawberry French soda.  

When I got back to my mother's later in the day, she said, "Prayer works."

"Not always," I said.  "When I was a boy, we all prayed the school would burn down, but it was fireproof."

The entire incident, the fear, then the despair, the wishing and hoping and, yes, the praying, reminded me of the old joke about the desperate man betting his last dollars on a horse.  The horse is doing well around the first turn, and is running second down the far stretch.  "Oh, God, please, please, please let him win," the man pleads.  As they come around the last turn, the man's horse begins to take the lead.  "Oh, God, oh God. . . please, please, please. . . ."  Coming down the home stretch, the horse takes a commanding lead and the man's mood begins to lighten, and without thinking he shouts, "O.K., God,  I'll take it from here."  

Yea.  I felt like indulging in some guilty pleasures.  

"You look a lot happier," my mother said as I made a cocktail.  

But just the one.  After dinner, I would have a Willie's.  

And so. . . the photo.  This girl was experiencing joy close to rapture.  She had just gotten a Haagen Das ice cream and was skipping and grinning with childhood pleasure.  She made me laugh.  That is how I felt leaving the doctor's office, so the picture seemed apropos today.  

After dinner and after cleaning up, I sat down to keep my mother company for the evening.  We watch t.v.  After the news, I usually watch some crazy shit on YouTube for awhile before I put on a program we can share.  For the past few days, we've been watching "East of Eden" on Netflix.  I wouldn't give it a high recommendation, but it was better than many things on t.v.  It is Steinbeck's take of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel, and the postlapsarian world set in early 20th century Salinas.  

But before that, I watch brief things about photography or sailing or a lot of strange Japanese food things. I have become a Japanophile.  Here is what I watched last night.  I've watched several of these.  They are strangely calming and seductive to me, a sort of quiet existential moral ceremony to succor the soul in a spiritually chaotic world. 

Try it.  You might like it, too.  

"Gonads!"

In a 1971 Town Hall meeting to discuss Norman Mailer's "Prisoner of Sex," Cynthia Ozick rose from the audience with a question about Mailer's statement he'd written in "Advertisement for Myself": “a good novelist can do without everything but the remnant of his balls.”  To his credit, I think, Mailer was demure, almost pixie-like and disarming when he said he had written some pretty stupid things and that was surely one of them (link).  He ceded the point to Ozick.  

The photographer Robert Capa famously said, "If your photographs aren't good enough, you are not close enough."  

About this photograph, I would say, "Balls!"

I forced myself to make a little outing yesterday with camera in hand.  You can't make photographs if your not taking photographs.  So I've been told. 

Read some biographies of writers and artists and what do you discover?  Right? 

I read a review of the new, first biography written about Cormac McCarthy (link).  Uh-oh.  Sounds like the man might have had some flaws.  Huh.  

I got an email from my buddy Vincenzo Barney.  Just kidding.  We are not buddies.  We've just corresponded a couple times.  I'm sure he remembers.  

"I am very pleased to announce the sale of Augusta: an American Muse to Claiborne Hancock and Jessica Case at Pegasus Books."

 I had to Google that.  

"Pegasus Publishers (also known as Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie) is a hybrid/vanity press rather than a standard traditional publisher, meaning authors often have to pay fees for publication services."

So much for that.  What Barney wants is for me to subscribe to his Substack page so I can read all about the things he's learned from materials not available to others, especially those stodgy academics.  I told him they wouldn't like him, that they would come after tooth and nail.  But I didn't think that in the end he would have to publish on a vanity press.  

 Dirt.  

I've almost finished the Salter bio.  Yea.  These two are among my favorite contemporary writers.  Each is a stylist.  Each was a bit of a dandy.  They had similar passions that will problematize their legacies.  I have to separate the writing from the writer in both cases.  I met Salter.  No bueno.  I wish I would have met McCarthy, too.  

Why are creative people so problematic?  

I guess you have to tip your hat to someone like Edward Hopper, though I have never read a lengthy biography about him, but he stayed married to his wife and used her as the female model for almost all his paintings.  He didn't talk much, I understand.  God knows what was going on in that noggin of his.  

I guess there are great painters of still lifes.  But, so it seems to me, a writer has to be interested in the very darkest of human psyches.  Students used to ask me why all the stories were so troubling.  I would tell them a story about a little boy who did everything he was supposed to do.  I'd throw in some temptations to which he never succumbed.  At the end, I'd see the disappointment in their faces.  

"How's that?  What did you learn from that tale?"

Then I'd give them some Bible tales.  You know the ones.  The darkest of dark.  

"Y'all are destined to be pillars of salt. I can tell that already."

But I always ended with a caveat.  

"Maybe you'd like to write, but how many of you would like to live the life of a writer?"

And there's the rub.  Art without suffering?  Uh-huh.  Maybe you should think about being a scholar or a critic instead.  

C.C. is in NYC taking pictures of funky places and characters.  I'm wandering around farmers markets trying to find something of note among the t-shirt, shorts, and athletic shoe crowd.  If you look close enough, though, you can find the danger there.  They are all terrorists in their own way.  There is always danger in a crowd.  

I asked one of the booth owners yesterday how much she was paying to rent her space.  Forty dollars, she said.  What?!  Only forty-dollars?  Oh, my.  Why haven't I set up my photo booth already.  I need to get on that, I think.  My pulse fairly quickens. 

If Mailer had been better equipped, he might have said "Gonads!"  Could have saved him some trouble. 

You Can't Win with a Losing Hand

Have you talked with anyone about the Cornell fiasco? Want some advice? Don't. It won't turn out well.

I'm not.  But here is my takeaway.  Don't have sex with another person.  Almost everything that can happen is bad.  I know the attraction.  I know the allure.  But let's look at the possible outcomes.  

If you are lucky, it will be fun.  If you are not, it will be unsatisfactory or even embarrassing.  Bad sex is awkward at best.  But let's say it was great.  

You might pick up an STD.  There are many.  You won't know for awhile.  If you are lucky, you will get one that can be cleared up with an antibiotic.  If you are not, it might take years before the disease raises it's ugly head.  AIDS.  Cervical cancer.  Throat cancer.  

There is always the danger of the jealous boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife.  There is likely some disgruntled person in your lovers history, and if you are lucky, you'll only get your car keyed or a beer bottle thrown through the living room window.  

Of course, there is always the chance of a pregnancy.  Oh, shit.  Now what?  You have two options, keep the baby or abort.  If you keep the baby, do you marry or just be a baby daddy/momma?  Either way, you will be tied to that person for life.  

Now there are economic considerations.  

But if you decide to marry, you will most likely get divorced.  Then a court will decide who gets what, and the kid will be shuttled back and forth between homes.  Bad for everyone.  And, in the course of things, you will gain a husband or wife-in-law, and your child will be partially raised by someone you don't really know. It becomes a four-parent parlay.  

If you are lucky, you will stay married.  Sometimes, that is not so lucky.  There are plenty of marriages that have been maintained long after the love has faded.  And that is why we are always so amazed to see a couple still together and in love after thirty or forty years.  It happens, but it is rare.  

And, of course, there is the crapshoot of how the kid will turn out.  Too much there to go into.  

In the end, what are the chances of something good happening?  I don't have Vegas odds on it, but I'd say they are low.  Boys, better keep your pecker in your pants, by and large.  

The other issue that the Cornell situation raises is where you get into the crazy conversation, and I am loathe to bring it up. . . but. . . how many times have you had sex when you were drinking or getting high?  How often do you have sober sex?  I tried calculating my own sex history.  It is much smaller than yours in number of partners, I'm sure, but I think I'm often in my cups.  I'd say this has become a dangerous feature.  Sex and alcohol or other drugs are now a legal matter.  Drinking and driving might have lesser consequences than drinking and fucking.  

Just saying.  

Somewhere down the road, somebody might claim they weren't able to make rational decisions.  

"How drunk were you on a scale of one to ten?"

Whatever you do, don't supply the substances.  One of the things I hear clearly is "they gave me."

Sex, my friends, should put the fear in you.  When it goes bad, there is no going back.  

Now I know many of you are going to scoff or criticize this post.  You're going to say you've had lots of good sex with no bad consequences.  I know it's true.  But one day you might just hear a distant voice crying out, "He did sex to me!"  

And so, I think it is understandable that Gen Z has eschewed alcohol and is having far less sex than former generations.  As the song goes, "those were different times."  We live in the new era of "looksmaxing" and ultimate fighting.  This generation is the most physically beautiful and athletically talented ever to strut the planet.  Maybe there are lessons to be learned.

But all this is an easy pill for me to swallow.  I've always been more sensual than sexual anyway.  I love the way things look and smell and taste.  It thrills me.  

And I've always been a cuddler. 

But you do you.  I'm not telling--I'm just saying:

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

Dylan wrote it all in his own Nobel Prize prophetic way.   

A Pain in the Neck

This post will be a hodgepodge of unrelated things.  My mind is unwell.  I'm trying to deal with a whole lot of pain that is keeping me from sleeping.  I may have told you before that I was run over on my Vespa. Yea.  Well, in my efforts to overcome the disabilities and disfunction on the left side of my body, I have overdone it, and now my shoulder, scapula, and ribs are causing me terrible pain, and I've "pinched" a nerve in my neck that sends shock waves every time I try lifting or turning my head.  I'm still attempting to be Mighty Mouse at this late date, I guess.  I am going to need to stay out of the gym for awhile now until this things mends itself. 

If it will. 

And what causes me to try to be Mighty Mouse?  When I get up in the night and walk naked to the bathroom, there are mirrors and I see my body from every angle.  Woe is me.  It shocks me each and every time.  I look like Arnold Schwarzenegger now.  Not the good one but the current version.  Have you seen him.  Oh, my.  Nature abhors. .  . something.  

I could go into more detail, but I know you've already checked out on this, so. . . .

It is the weekend, and there are lots of sports for me to ignore.  As I say often, I can't stand the commercialism.  But the NY Times ran an article about the unifying power of rooting for a team.  Brings people of differing ideologies together.  Apparently, it is good for the community.  I say it would be better if there was not so much money involved.  But that's just me.  

Probably.  

The Times also had an article about Elder Care.  Oh, boy, I was very interested, and it started off well enough.  Apparently people love putting their parents into care homes.  Then I got to this:

Care managers don’t come cheap. Ms. Wagner said association members’ hourly rates range from $150 to $350, with big geographic variations. In Texas, Mir’s standard rate is $185 an hour, billed in 15-minute increments. In Washington, Ms. Murphy’s practice charges $210 an hour.

I should have been a rock star so I could afford this. 

Speaking of rock stars, who in the fuck made Michael McDonald a "rock legend," and why are they making such a fuss about his offspring?  

We don't need them anymore anyway.  Let's see if I can gift you another Times article. I have no idea if you were able to open the last one. 

www.nytimes.com

If not, selavy.  It is an article pitting professional musicians against A.I. to create a song.  It took A.I. about ten seconds to make what I consider to be a much better song than the musicians made after a week in the studio. And the A.I. "musicians" didn't spawn any "illegitimate" babies to be put up for adoption.  

Just saying. 

Which I shouldn't.   People have become dangerously judgey.  I say things in a casual manner that people want to argue about and debate.  WTF?  I thought I was talking to friends.  You know. . . you say things to friends that you wouldn't say professionally.  You let your guard down.  Friends know you are kidding or just thinking out loud.  I talk like that here, but I get letters of complaint about my ideology.  Fuck me.  It doesn't pay to let anyone know what is on your mind unless you are certain everyone will agree (The Simpsons).  

Were I better at writing fiction. . . . 

I wish I had more power of conviction, but I don't.  I can always easily change sides in an argument or run my own out to its most absurd logic.  It's called revision, I think.  What I've always thought was great about being human is that you can always change your mind.  No idealogue, I.  

Like many men of the Rocky Marciano era,  father couldn't stand Mohamed Ali--until he could.  

As are most of my friends these days, C.C. is out of town.  He's living in Brooklyn for awhile.  He wrote that he was making some shoot from the hip photos with his iPhone, trying it out.  He sent this to me.  Sure.  Fuck me.  Were I in NYC. . . .

Old C.C is one of the last people who doesn't judge me for all the stupid shit I find hilarious.  Oh, sure, he'll correct me, but that is different.  It is fun. It's different from taking a stand against the thing.  The one is like a punch in the arm.  The other is like getting sucker punched when you are relaxed.  

God, I hate that.  

Right now, I'm hating the pain in my shoulder and neck while I'm keyboarding.  

Here is a thing.  If you have IG, you'll be able to view it.  If not, too bad for you. I tried to find it on YouTube but couldn't.  I sent this to some people I know.  I want to live this life, of course.  Maybe you'll come, too.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbF4V5rsusr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==