We didn't leave town for the coast until after noon. It turned out to be way too early. Weird shit doesn't start happening until after five, he said. Well. . . at least I got out of town.
Bike Week, the small part I saw, was exactly what I expected. Sort of. I really had no idea of the number of motorcycles that would pack into that town. I didn't realize there were even that many in the entire country. And the crazy thing to me was that people go to look at the bikes. Up and down mainstreet, people stood behind barricades as motorcycles slowly went by revving engines for hours. I imagine it never stops. Everywhere people taking pictures of motorcycles.
Unimaginable.
But the crowd--it was mostly an aged thing. I don't think I saw more than a handful of people under thirty, and hardly any in their thirties, either. It was not a pretty crowd.
But I HAD expected to see weirder shit, naked people dancing in the streets, I guess, or having sex up against walls--I don't know why. Well, yes I do. It's kind of why I went.
The International Speedway was packed with corporate bikers looking at motorcycles and eating hot dogs. Various other places around town were doing much the same. There must have been hundreds of thousands of people--85% male.
There were derelicts and old guys jacked on steroids walking with lats spread and chests out. Everybody seemed to get along.
I was excited to use my Leicas for street photography, though. I had two with me, one with a 35mm lens and one with a 50. I was especially excited about experimenting with something I thought would look rather good. I put a strong neutral density filter on my lenses so I could shoot at 1/8 of a second. Now if I were really going to do it right, I would have shot at that speed with a flash, and I had brought two, but T was not to keen on that.
"It's really noticeable," he said.
I waited until the end of day to shoot that way, and I thought they were coming out well, but next time, I will shoot at 1/15 of a second. 1/8 was just a little too much.
I would like to go back on Saturday.
I don't know how much fun T had. I was in a zone, just making pictures and not talking about what we were seeing. He kept trying to talk to me, but I didn't really hear him.
We walked for hours.
At some point, we stopped for a beer, and just where we were, there was a bunch of nearly naked girls. We were by the big stage staires that the musicians climbed, but apparently they were now getting ready for a girl show. I don't know why, but I was able to walk among the girls and into tents and up the stairs taking photographs.
"You look like you are supposed to be doing that," T said. Apparently it was true because nobody questioned me.
To keep myself in the realm of fiction, I made this from an actual photo T made of me. I look better in the actual photo, though!
As we drank our beers at the bar, the pretty barmaid was kind of chatty. The girls like T and he loves to talk them up. He told her she would have won the bikini contest if she'd been in it, and it was true. Then he told her that I was a great photographer and asked her if she wanted to see some of my pictures. She did. My gut kind of tightened, but she ooed and aahed looking at me with a newfound respect.
"You like them?"
"I love them."
"Do you want to do some?"
"Yes!"
T liked talking it up, and two more times, barmaids put their phone numbers into my phone so that we could arrange a photo shoot. Unbelievable.
"See what I do for you?"
"Probably fake numbers."
But T is clever and had already pulled up their IG accounts. It was true.
"I don't have anyplace to shoot them."
I need everything. I need a studio. I need a big printer. I need a new computer.
I need a lot more money than I have.
These were not the pretty barmaids. These were girls on their way to dance somewhere, I guess. Such is Bike Week.
Around five, we headed off to get dinner in another coastal town. There are two main restaurants there and they sit side by side. There are blocks and blocks of parking lots for them. . . all full. . . but T has a big assed truck and pulled it into a field that cars wouldn't park in. Now the challenge--how long was the wait.
There was a line, but we passed it by and went straight to a small bar. There were two seats.
"Can we take these?" T asked the very pretty barmaid.
"You guys can certainly take these. You will get to watch me make drinks all night long."
She was a swell gal with a crazy, shocking tale to tell, and while we drank cocktails and ate pan fried scallops wrapped in bacon, then wine with HUGE filets of tuna on crunchy potato pancakes with edamame and delicious noodles, and then a very generous pour of whiskey, she leaked it little by little. I don't have time to tell it now, but I will, eventually.
T showed her my photos. She wants me to photograph her, too.
T dropped me off at nine. I'd been on my feet without sitting for four hours walking hard sidewalks and now my back and hips and knees were tight and sore. I grabbed my camera bags and did a Frankenstein walk to the house.
I didn't have the energy to dump the cards into the computer. I poured one drink, watched the day's news, and packed it in just at ten.
But I was up before five this morning and decided to download the photos before anything else. That took a good long while. Then I perused them giving little stars to the ones I would come back to. Then I cooked up three photos, the ones you see. Nothing I do is instant, and suddenly it was eight o'clock.
I have rushed this telling and have done an incredible injustice to the day. I could have taken my time in telling you that I might be making photographs again without sounding a sleazy braggart, but I don't have time to fix it now so I will have to seem the fellow you see in the illustration, a creepy old guy with a camera.
Selavy.
Just remember, though. . . I have no life and I'm a good son who takes care of his mother. I had my first full day off in a year, but not really as I went to see my mother in the morning before we left, so. . . .
Until tomorrow. . . .
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