Originally Posted Monday, January 6, 2014
That is what I felt working in the studio alone. If someone critical were there, of course, I would be doing a lot of explaining. It is like singing in the shower.
But today is Monday, and I go seriously back to the post-holiday grind. That is even less interesting than working alone in the studio sleeving prints. How in the hell can I justify writing a blog? I am about as interesting as a panelist on a sport's show.
"That's right, Bob, there are three keys to the game today: block, tackle, and desire."
Holy shit!
So. . . I'll tell you a non-story. More of a reflection. I was driving through the main street of the 'hood where my studio is located which is in the historically black part of town across the tracks from the Boulevard, less than a quarter mile away. The 'hood is being gentrified because of it's oak-lined streets and proximity to the Boulevard, but it is still predominantly one of the nicest traditionally black neighborhoods anywhere, rich in history and culture and family heritage. O.K. And there is more crime than anywhere else in town, too. And here's a side note to the non-story. I was driving one of the black models I sometimes work with through the 'hood on our way to eat after a shoot, and as usual, as I passed the convenience store, there were people just walking about in the middle of the street in no hurry at all to get out of the way of the advancing big-assed SUV heading their way.
"Don't get mad at me," I said to her, "but I have to ask you something. Why in the hell do black people walk in the fucking street?"
She looked at me and laughed like I was an idiot.
"Because it's fun," she said.
"Bullshit," I shot back. "It's because none of them have jobs or cars and they hate white boys driving through their streets on their way to work."
"No," she said again, "its just fun. You should try it."
I didn't bother saying that all the brothers who do have cars pull up to the curb to talk and deal a little boo or worse. I never figured out if she was just fucking with the white boy or not.
Anyway (as my mother so often says), New Year's day I was driving down that same street and saw three people walking toward me in the rain. One was a woman with a good figure carrying a big girl of about three. Beside her walked a thin, bearded hipster, sort of skipping and explaining something or making an appeal or a deal or a plea. As I got closer, I saw it was a woman I had shot with before, and I could see that her face was twisted up in distress. She was crying. The day we shot, she was lovely and confident, and after shooting, we went to eat at a nearby restaurant where we sat at the bar and chatted away much of the afternoon. We got along well and laughed and ate and drank, and she was certain, she said, that she wanted to come back and work together again. She told me stories about her life which was rather off-beat. Her dreams were the typical foolish ones of young girls who do not wish to be trapped in a "normal" life. She told me about her daughter who, it seemed to me, may have been living with her grandmother right down the street. She, it turned out, had partially grown up there. She was quite familiar with the 'hood. I sent her pictures from the shoot, but I only heard back from her once. She liked the pictures, she said. Then the line went dead.
I assumed that she had left town. She did that a lot from what she told me at lunch. The father of her child lived in Austin and she went there often enough. She was going to L.A., too, to give her unrealistic dreams a try. She was poor-ish, I'd guess, and so when I didn't hear back from her, I just figured she was on the road, a gypsy without internet. Etc.
But there she was, unglamorous, carrying her very big daughter, crying in the rain. I wondered if the hipster beside her was the father or somebody else. It didn't matter, but for I really wanted to know.
She didn't look up at the passing car.
Too often we--no, I--assume that other people's lives are like ours in some way. And they are, but not to the extent I think. I have worked myself a long way from where I started out, and things about my life have imperceptibly changed. I only realize it from time to time. I once dated that girl, the one crying in the rain who had not yet realized her dreams were fay. I can see the drama now, but I am looking through a telescope and all the perspective has changed. It isn't one thing, it is everything. I have to remember carrying my laundry to the laundromat, eating noodles and tuna and drinking the cheapest white wines chilled to freezing to make them palatable, of not having the price of a movie at the end of the month, of not having enough money for everything I needed let alone for what I wanted. I have to remember what I thought was the right way to live, free of middle-class values, unburdened by material things.
Watching her, I just remembered that it was hard enough to carry all those silly dreams that once had me, too, crying in the rain.
And maybe one day I'll try walking in the street. Maybe that girl wasn't fucking with me after all. Hell. . . maybe it is fun.
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