I Don't Want Any Trouble

I'm going to watch what I say about Putin here.  You never know.  There are a lot of new Russian immigrants living in my state.  It doesn't take much to make a person disappear.  I mean, if the Free World, as we like to refer to it, is afraid to oppose Russia and our next president kowtows to Putin, who the fuck am I to be brave.  I don't want to end up like Navalny.  

I've been watching a lot of the testimony in the Willis/Wade inquiry.  Holy shit, Batman, what a bunch of halfwit shit has been going on there.  They are turning out to be every bit as shady as the Trumpeter.  The irony of Black History Month shouldn't be lost on anyone.  These have not been some upstanding characters.  Privilege and power corrupts, they say.  "They"?  You know. . . the experts.  I remember reading about that a lot in my psychology classes.  I'm not saying I would be above it.  Nooooo. . . not old C.S.  It's a bad old world.  My days of being an ideologue are long gone.  I no longer think the bourgeoisie are Spawn of Satan.  I'm not big on McDonalds and Taco Bell and the like, but I don't mind some of the things a bit up the ladder.  

There are plenty of Russian bourgeois.  Make no mistake about that.  The revolution. . . well, you've read "Animal Farm."  

I read this morning that Yale apologized for its role in slavery.  Now if Harvard will apologize for the Holocaust, we'll be a step closer to a better world.  When Putin and Trump apologize for. . . well. . . it could be a perfect world.  Maybe the state of Virginia will apologize for cigarettes and New Mexico for nukes.  

Etc. 

I'll apologize for anything.  Hell. . . I don't want any trouble.  I'm like Lenny Bruce and the torture bit (link).  There's no sense in being brave in a corrupt and fallen world.  I used to be a martyr.  I don't know why.  I may have given it up too late, but you know, it was never really my gig.  

More from the news.  

Who knew?  They seem fine.  I don't think we should blame the parents.  Plastics.  We know it is plastics that have caused all the damage.  I think Tupperware and Rubbermaid should issue some apologies as well.  

You might be able to tell that I am feeling more "myself" today.  I've been feeling like shit for days.  That left me last night.  I was blaming the crummy weather that has plagued us this winter, but now I am thinking I must have "had something."  Whatever it was, I'm happy to have a little relief.  

It rained all day yesterday.  I never left the house.  But I did decide to clean up some messes I had made and left lying since my birthday.  I cleaned out the refrigerator and threw away the science experiments, then swept the floor and cloroxed the counter tops and stove.  Then I loaded some film in the developing tank and processed it while music played.  Getting busy was a key to recovery, maybe, but the music helped, too.  I have eschewed music as much as I have friends of late, but my Apple station was hitting all the right notes.  

"She lives her life like the words in a song."  I wish I had written that.  Son Volt did.  Kind of.  That is not exactly what he wrote, but it is the way I would have written it.  It is a beautiful suggestion.  All the songs, really, that came across my speakers all day.

I cooked up more images.  I'm still liking "the look," but I am refining it a bit, too.  I'm working with two things now, really, the old Canon with the plastic lens attached and my medium format Fuji with its high res images.  I'm not exactly sure how I will use the camera yet.  The images are incredibly clean and sharp which is not the way I have always worked, but I will figure it out.  So far, I have not been mucking them up.  I am just shooting and thinking.  I'm sure that product and wedding photographers like the images just as they are, however.  For "straight" photography using a digital camera, they can't be beat.  

I know that should be "beaten" and not "beat," but I don't want to be a prick.  "Common usage" as the dictionaries have begun to say.  I'm just one of the "folk."  

O.K. then.  The outside world has lightened so that I can see the cloudy skies and falling rain.  Let me check the weather.  Yup.  Today will be dismal.  Not a day for roaming the streets with a camera.  But who knows.  I feel better, almost good, really, so I might be adventurous.  

But. . . I would like to apologize.  For everything, really.  The world is a pretty big mess.  I feel in large part responsible.  I can't pay any reparations, for I haven't Trump's money, but I am hoping that my apologies will succor some.  What can one do?  I suggest one listen to Dinah Washington on a Sunday in the rain.  She always makes me feel better.