Away from the Past and Into the Future

What scares me, of course, is that what intrigues me will not intrigue you.  I mean, everyone likes a scantily clad woman, no?  But these street photos are another thing.  

"Why is his head at the bottom of the frame?  Why is the building leaning backwards.  It looks like you took this by accident."

Etc.  

Yea, the pictures are all kinds of fucked up which is what I find to be part of their particular charm.  But I liked my models to be awkward in pictures, too.  I abhor most commercial photography.  Not all of it.  There is some good stuff, but those are by men and women who have been given permission.  Nobody cries to Sarah Moon, "Your photos are blurry," or to Paolo Roversi, "those are overexposed."  Just part of their particular charm, you see.

So come with me on a journey through NYC in awkward photos taken through the decades prior to the pandemic when people still gathered without fear of consequences.  I'm traveling back through the years.  You come, too.  

I didn't do so well on mending my broken life yesterday.  Maybe.  I didn't go all rock 'em, sock 'em after I wrote.  Indeed, I did the opposite.  I sat at the computer working on old pictures all the live long day.  I didn't plan it that way.  It just happened.  And once again, I didn't eat or drink until I noticed the time and called my mother.  

"Do you want to have a pizza party tonight?" I asked her. 

"Sure."

So I got a big-ass pizza from Mellow Mushroom and headed her way.  The pizza was not as good as it was the time before, however, and we were both disappointed.  Still. . . we ate. . . and ate.  

"That's going to swell up in your belly," I said taking a hit off my ale.  "You're going to feel like you're pregnant later." 

A Saturday night pizza party with your mother may not sound like real adventure. . . but such is my life, or the way I choose it.  To liven things up, though, I stopped at the liquor store on my way home and decided to go to Fresh Market to get some sweet things, too.  Yea, yea. . . now it was a party. 

And when I got home, I went back to listening to music while I worked at the computer, ass spreading, belly swelling.  I hadn't showered and now I smelled like pizza.  

But goddamn. . . the photos!

"Same thing. . . head at the bottom of the frame, a tilted building dominates the space.  It's like you gave the camera to a two year old."

"Yea, man, but look what it says--PRINCE ST!  Huh?  How 'bout that?!?!?"

There's just no educating some people.  Pearls before swine.  Creative peasants.  They would never have appreciated Gaugin, Van Gogh. . . .  

"Here, then. . . ."

"Who's that?"

"What do you mean 'who's that?'"

"Why'd you take a picture of her?  Did you know her?"

"Fuck off.  You're impossible. Are you just fucking with me or are you simply a moron?"

"I just asked a question.  Why're you getting mad at me?"

O.K.  Maybe now that I'm looking at them, they are not so good.  It was probably the music that was getting me jazzed.  That and the pizza and whiskey and the chocolate chip cookies that were waiting in the kitchen.  I don't know.  Yea, yea, yea. . . that's the way it goes.  

Someday I'm going to start a new project.  

Maybe today.  There is nothing that can't be done in the future.  Nothing.  It's all out there just waiting form me to grab it.  I'll get off my butt today.  I'll take a long walk, do planks and wall squats.  I'll eat vegetables and fruits and take my vitamins.  Sitting for so long has clouded my judgement, placed a miasma between me and my vision.  Today I'll heed Dr. Naturlich's "Great New Message of Health."  

Yep. . . yep. . . I'll turn away from the past and all those old photographs.  I'll look to the future.  The future, though, looks a little strange. . . and it sounds a lot like this.