Recognize the picture? You might. The photograph has been here before. It is difficult to keep the facial features when ChatGPT makes an image, though. They don't want users making fake pictures of people that might be offended.
I guess.
Chat and I may be breaking up. The rules, or as it refers to them "guardrails," keep shifting. What you can make one day, you can't make the next. Right now, it isn't letting me make much. And yet, it can still be useful.
I'm getting back in the groove of living my life in four hours a day. Everything must be done in that window. The rest of the time, I am at my mother's house.
Selavy.
It is autumn. Often, at least in memory, the first day of autumn here is a surprise. You get up to a cool, crisp day. It happens. But not today. It's not horrible, but it isn't crisp. We won't see that until after Halloween if history is any guide.
But history is changing.
Even a dumb sock puppet shouldn't be murdered. But the farce is when a dumb sock puppet gets to be called a martyr. Here's how Trump justified it:
Mr. Trump said that Mr. Kirk had valued debate and “did not hate his opponents.” And that, Mr. Trump said, is where he and Mr. Kirk differed.
“I hate my opponent,” Mr. Trump said, standing behind protective glass on the stage. “And I don’t want the best for them!"
There you go! And the millions weeped.
There is nothing to be done about it. It is genetic. That gang is hardwired that way. You won't argue them out of it. You might as well be screaming at a wall to change its color. If you and all your friends think otherwise. . . .
In my own home state, one of the best liberal colleges in the country was taken over by the governor who put his conservative Christian buddy in charge. They have determined they will erect a statue to the slain martyr on the college campus.
See? I told you Chat could still be useful. And I also told you that it would change the face so that. . . well, in this case it isn't William Shatner, is it?
"Tomfoolery," you have the right to claim. Maybe you're right. But as I've said, since coming to my mother's, I haven't much else to do other than cook and clean and run errands. Today we have an appointment with the hearing aid tech to see how mom is doing with her nearly $4,000 hearing aids. What can we tell her?
"She doesn't really wear them. She likes to make people yell."
It seems as if there was more to tell this morning, but I can't remember what. My life is mostly on hold right now. I have to figure out my mother's car and house insurance today. Now, if you knew me, you'd know I'm not really the man for the job, at least I never have been. I am not a good businessman or accountant. About as far as I can go is, "Do I have enough money to buy this?" That is why my financial friends consult with me. They say I'm an "indicator." I have bee attracted to other people like myself in this fashion. They are some of the most celebratory and adventurous friends I have. I have friends of the other sort as well, but they are not the ones I count on for adventure. Expensive meals and drinks, sure, but not the kind of stuff you get outside a theme park.
Oh. . . I remember now. I'll end with this brief anecdote. I had to go to the grocery store to get "fixin's" for dinner. Just that--pork loin, asparagus, and potatoes. The store was full of "normal" looking people. What I mean this time is that they did not look like the people who spend their days in the gym which is what one usually sees around here now--fitness people. No, these people were "normal." They weren't overweight but they weren't muscular. It looked like they had been shipped in from the 1960s. Men and women without obvious muscle, smaller people, meeker, perhaps. I don't know. It was noticeable is all I'm saying. Maybe the rest had gone to watch the Charlie Kirk Funeral Show.
But that isn't the point of my story at all. I shouldn't even say it, but the women were pretty in their non-athleticism. Maybe both genders. What I felt was that I was in a less hostile, nicer crowd. Gentler. Yes that was it. They seemed gentler.
Anyway, as my mother likes to say, when I checked out, I was watching at the prices being rung up on the screen, and I must have appeared accusatory, for the elderly cashier looked at me concerned. I just shook my head.
"Everything is getting more expensive," she said.
"I can't believe it. Three small red potatoes cost three dollars. A dollar a potato."
"Wait until you buy apples," she said.
I didn't go into the politics of it with her. We were on the same side. It was a gentler store that afternoon. But I don't know how we are all going to make it.
Sunday, the final day of summer. What will you do? I know what I will be doing.
Oy.
My mother is home, but she is not doing well. Pain. And other things. She can't remember much now. If I ask her if she took her pills, she doesn't know. She has had lots of visitors. They always ask, of course, how she is doing, and she tells each and every one of them in dramatic fashion all about her miseries. She is not celebrating her homecoming. She tells everyone she will be back to the nursing home soon.
Now I must cram my life into a few hours a day. The rest are spent tending my mother.
Still, it is the last day of summer, and somehow I'd like to celebrate. How, I wondered, do people do that? Well, I asked.
People celebrate the end of summer by holding outdoor gatherings like barbecues, picnics, and field days, enjoying nature through walks or camping, and engaging in relaxing activities such as reading or having movie nights. Traditions often include activities that savor the remaining warm weather, like eating seasonal produce, enjoying ice cream, or having a campfire, and some people use the occasion for reflection, like decluttering or journaling about their summer experiences.
I guess there are no historical or cultural traditions like dressing up in nettles and walking barefoot across briars. Barbecues and ice cream sound nice but not so different from so many other weekend activities. Perhaps I will make up my own. Seems like I've waited a long time, though, to be curious about this.
I'm not old, baby, I"m brand new.
In the days before Google, you could just imagine something and tell people it was true and they would have had a devil of a time fact checking you. There used to be many myths and urban legends masquerading as facts back then. Now, a prof gets fact checked real time in the classroom.
And yet. . . Kirk.
I was ill once again yesterday. At first I thought it was just the Tylenol PM hangover, but I went back to bed after breakfast and slept until near noon, and when I got up, I was still feeling ill. When I went home, I managed to do a little work at my house. I moved everything back onto the deck, heavy things including the big glass table top that I should not be carrying alone. Of course I was wearing flip flops, and when I picked up the round glass, I got a flashback of when I dropped one on my toe at the end of last century. I damn near lost the thing. So, being a clever boy and know round things can roll, I rolled the glass top to the table. I still had to lift it, though, to put it on the wrought iron table, and when I did, I felt myself pitching forward so I quickly put it into near middle and let it fall. I was afraid it would shatter, but I got lucky.
By the time I had the deck put back together, I was soaked in a sickly sweat, so I showered and got ready to come back to my mother's house. Before I did, though, I asked ChatGPT to give me glass plate image of a ju-jitsu fighter in a slumped contrapostto stance inside a beat old wooden gym.
This was the result. I had forgotten to say female, but that A.I. platform already knows me--ha! So this is how I imagined the photo I will take of the ju-jitsu champion to look. Good separation between subject and background, a good silver-toned sepia tint. I can try to shoot the image on my big assed Black Cat Liberator or I can use my Fuji GFX with a Leica R 105 mm lens. Or I could shoot it with my Canon digital with an 85mm lens. As long as I shoot with the lenses at full open aperture, I should be able to get the separation. I have glass dry plates I could try to shoot with, but that is a real hit or miss project. What is important in this picture is the lighting, natural, coming from an open source like a window or door. All in all, there is much to think about. But I'm glad I can get mood board from Chat so that I have some visual idea what I want to do.
It gave me ideas for a project I've long thought about, so I asked for some other creations.
I swear, it would be hard to beat these A.I. images. But at least now I have a visual representation and can show people what I am trying to do.
I stopped at the grocery store on my way back to my mother's to get the fixings for a spaghetti dinner. And when I got back to her place, she was sitting with the across the street neighbor lady. The neighbor was thrilled to tell me all the things she had done for my mother that day. Earlier, that morning, another neighbor came by and said she could help with my mother.
"O.K." I said. "You take nights."
I made a Negroni and went out to sit with the neighbor and my mother. My mother was complaining about the pain, about her feet beginning to peel. When the neighbor left, the pretty woman who walks her two big dogs stopped by to say hello.
"How are you doing?" she asked my mother. I shook my head "no." But the floodgate was open. My mother poured out her miseries again. Then the blind trike rider from down the street road up with her little dog and the big dogs went mad, so I ran out to keep the little dog from jumping out of her basket. The pretty lady left and the blind woman stayed. She asked my mother how she was doing.
The thing is, when any of these people come up, I have to carry the conversation. They talk to me or to my mother through me, and that is another whole job in itself. I am the social director, the entertainer.
Negroni long gone, I excused myself to go in and begin prepping dinner.
And that's life its own self.
I took nothing to help me sleep last night and so I slept poorly, but I feel better this morning. With the start of the school year, infectious diseases are all about and spreading, and I seem to have already been subject to a couple. Today, here in my own hometown, the weather will be sunny, and I hope to take my big boy Liberator out to make a couple photos to see if I can manage to hit focus with it. I just need somebody willing to stand in front of my camera.
My algorithms are turning a bit more toward "club" music. Not the kind that Q plays, but old nightclub music stuff. . . and I like it. Yesterday this song came up while I was driving. I recognized the words but for the life of me, I couldn't remember who did the original. This morning, it came to me, but I'll leave it to you to puzzle it out for yourself.
If you want a treat for the eye, I'd recommend, "Black Rabbit" on Netflix. I had to watch it on my little 13" Apple computer last night, but I've ordered a new Fire Stick for my mother's house which will be here today, and I am going to start over and watch the first episode again on the larger screen. I don't know how enamored I will be with the story, but the cinematography is beautiful.
And that's about the cheeriest thing I have to say about yesterday. I brought my mother back to her house. This has been all she has wanted, her constant cry--"I want to go home."
I thought it was going to make her happy. There is no happy left, I guess. There is no happy when you are in constant pain. Of course, there is nothing I can do to alleviate that. And so. . . we are back in the same place we were just before she went to the hospital last.
I had to make a grocery store run. And a liquor store run. $300 between the two. Then I picked up our "celebratory" pizza from the hippie place. When I got back, the first order was to put all the groceries away. The second. . . you see it. We sat in the open garage as always, and as usual, some neighbors on their late afternoon stroll stopped to chat. My mother sat fairly silent. So. . . again, I had to carry the conversation.
We went in to eat the now cold pizza and watch the 6:30 news.
I left my mother to the television. All there is for me to do here is read or futz around on my little laptop. And so that is what I did.
I went to bed early, woke up an hour later and decided I would need to take a pill. I didn't sleep well at all, and I got up before six, put on the coffee, and read the news. But the drug still had me, so an hour later, I went back to bed. And now I am up. . . sort of. I still have a jittery buzz running through my body and my brain. My mother is up now, too, and makes constant slow motion trips back and forth through the house pushing her walker before her. I must prepare her multitude of meds to take with the breakfast I will make her. There are a lot of them.
I won't go on about it. I'll just say it is not a Happy Homecoming at all.
So. . . to make life more hospitable for me here in my mother's house, I have ordered a new Fire Stick for the television and a $200 bluetooth speaker so I can sit in the living room and listen to music in hopes that it will calm me.
What to do? I will leave her after breakfast and go home to do some work that desperately needs to be done. That will be the highlight of my day.
I look forward to a nap.
I just need to be out of reach of constant need. I know some of you raised children. I have thought about that. But your child, I hope, was not in constant pain. And you did it in your own home. You had your things. Time management is one thing. This is something else.
I will be looking into getting help. I am not able to do 24/7 shifts. It is impossible. I've been told I can get people who will stay with her at night while she sleeps. They don't sleep. They sit up and read or watch t.v. They are just on "the night shift." I've heard, too, that it can be affordable.
This is me this morning. And it hasn't even been an entire day yet. It feels like weeks.
Pleasant notes. The weather has been nice. Other people seem to be feeing festive. I've been taking photographs even if mostly bad ones. I am determined to do so again today if only for a little while.
And that is all I have for the "Pleasant Notes" portion of the program. This is like the Evening News, I guess. A bunch of terrible reports and then ending with something upbeat.
And mundane.
That's it for now. I hear my mother groaning and moaning and grunting in the kitchen. I must tend to my duties. As they say here in the sunny south, "Y'all have fun now, hear?"
I pick up my mother today from the rehab center. I won't be home again for. . . . My last night spent at home was not celebratory. Nope. There was much to do. I was anxious. Frenetic.
But the entire day was bad. I had much to do but couldn't get going. Catatonia was setting in. Has been. I was supposed to meet the Brazilian girl at the ju-jitsu gym. Time was getting close. I decided to make a few photos with the 4x5 camera before I went just to see, so I put together the whole tamale and went outside. There was nothing to photograph, so I just carried the camera, tripod, dark cloth, film holder, light meter, and magnifier around the yard. I set up, put my head under the dark cloth, focussed the image, metered the scene for exposure, then started to set the values on the lens. WTF? I couldn't find the aperture ring or the exposure time. It had been so long since I have used the camera, I forgot that the lens I had chosen was an old, old lens that I could only use for long exposures.
"One thousand one, one thousand two. . . ."
I went back to the house to get another lens. Mounted it. Set the exposure. Put in the film holder. Removed the dark slide. Cocked the shutter. . . .
But the shutter wouldn't release. WTF?
I went inside again to try to find a release cable. I have several, but I couldn't find any of them. I looked and looked and looked. Nope.
I got a toothpick and futzed around trying to release the shutter. Nope. Nope.
Yes.
My fault.
Did it all again and took a photo. Then I narrowed the aperture and did it again.
I took two more photos, then took the whole shebang back inside. I looked up development times for the film. I thought I knew which film it was, but I wasn't certain, so I got a changing bag and put the film holders in along with a box of the kind of film I thought it was. I opened the box of film. It was empty. Got a new box of film. Repeat. There are notches on the film that identify which kind it is. What I thought I had shot, I had not. It was a good thing that I checked. I looked up development times for the film I had actually shot. O.K. I got the developer tank for the 4x5 film, put it in the changing bag, and loaded the film. Then I went to get the beakers, thermometer, jugs, funnels, and chemicals that I needed to mix the "soup."
Shit piss fuck goddamn--the developer had gone bad. Rock-like crystals had formed in the liquid. I searched for a new bottle. Everywhere. I knew I had one. Somewhere.
Nope.
It was time to meet the ju-jitsu girl. I got dressed in my gym clothes, for that is where I was going after meeting her, and jumped into the car.
When I got to the gym, a fellow was locking the door. He, too, was Brazilian, tall and built like a fighter.
"Can I help you?"
"I was supposed to meet Marissa here now."
"She's not here. I can call her."
"Oh, no, that's o.k. I was just going to look at the gym. I'm going to make some photos of her here."
He was nice and unlocked the door for me. The inside of the gym didn't look like what I had hoped for. Too modern. I had something else in mind. I looked around briefly and told him thank you.
It was one-thirty when I finished my workout. I still had much to do, but I needed to shower and eat, so I went home. I needed to get to the photo store, too. As I ate, I planned out my routes. First mom. I would get all her stuff out of the room and take it to her house. I'd put the things away and clean the refrigerator. I'd check her mail, email, and texts to see if there was anything important. Then I'd drive across town to the photo store.
And that is what I did. My mother had things packed up--kind of. I made two trips to the car with bags of clothes and clothes on hangers and boxes shoes she'd had me bring. She had used none of it. Then we sat in the t.v. room. When the nurse came by, I asked her about mom's meds and about how to check out the next day. It was clear my mother is completely dependent on me for this stuff. Then we sat and talked for awhile before I said I needed to go.
"There's a whole lot to do and I am not doing it," I said. "I need to get busy."
At her house, I put away her things and checked her correspondences. Oh, man. . . her car insurance was past due. So was the extended warranty on her car if she wanted to renew. There were notices of upcoming medical appointments.
I cleaned out the fridge and swept out the garage. Then I headed to the photo store.
It was the traffic hour. Cross town is horrible. By the time I got to the store, bought what I needed, and was headed home, I didn't want to cook a dinner, so I stopped at the good bbq place and got a sandwich to go.
But first, a Negroni.
After dinner, I mixed the chemicals, developed the film and hung the negatives to dry. I put some laundry in the washer.
I poured a scotch.
And, of course, I slept poorly. I had the jitters and the jags all night about the next day.
I woke up before six. It was the next day. I put on the coffee, did ablutions, then I took down the four negatives that I would scan. And, of course, I couldn't find the 4x5 holder for the scanner. I looked through all the drawers--lots and lots of them in an old, tall lawers cabinet holding my art supplies. Looked twice.
Shit piss fuck goddamn.
Then I spied it on top of the cabinet. Right.
I scanned the negatives.
How many hours had I put in to make this dumbass picture? I decided what I had decided before. I am going to sell all my large format equipment. It sounds fun and intriguing, but it just isn't worth it. It just isn't.
As I sat at the computer, I got a text. A bunch of them. They were from my Miami friend. She is in Edinburgh and was sending me pics. Lots and lots of them.
Well hey now. . . that was a treat. I wrote her a nice note back, then remembered it was Tennessee's birthday. I knew it would be a family day, so I said. For both of us. I would see him next week for a birthday drink.
"Oh. . . and Miami is in Edinburgh. Just sent these."
He's always curious if I've heard from her lately and I'm always pleased when I can tell him yes. She makes me look cool. Sort of. Maybe not so much. Maybe pathetic. It is a downward spiral.
And so now we are all caught up. Are you still here? Have you been fascinated by the report of a life frustrated?
Ha!
I pick my mother up around noon. I will clean my house before then and do some outside work, too. And then I will return to the life of Gunsmoke and pain management. I need to make a liquor store run.
Oh. . . here's something fun. It began when I ran a photo of Q through AI asking for a painting by Botticelli or maybe a Botticelli/Ingres fusion.
By the time I'd run it through the gamut and got to Goya, he looked like this.
The original photo was taken after he'd been up partying for three days celebrating his birthday. He gave me pop eyes. I made the photo years later into a hand colored crazy thing and sent it to him.
Now we know what he would look like with a beard.
I heard this yesterday when driving. . . somewhere. Driving, driving, driving. I laughed. All I have is gasoline.
I thought this might be a Tom Waits cover. I can imagine him doing this one.
My mother comes/goes home tomorrow. This will be my last night staying in my own house, sleeping in my own bed, for who knows how long. Years? No matter, I guess. On my second to last night of sleeping in my own bed, I barely did. Rough night. I finally gave up and put on the coffee just before five. Maybe I don't always sleep well here, but I do love the nights I spend listening to music while working on pictures in the office on my big computer. Those are not lonely nights, and I will miss them.
When I went to see my mother yesterday, she wasn't in her room, nor was she in the Great Room or on the veranda. One of the workers told me she had gone upstairs to listen to the concert on the 4th floor. The concert started at three. It was three-o-five.
When I got to the "concert," there was half a room full of people, many of whom were sitting in wheelchairs. I'd not seen any of these people before, and I realized this was where the residents of assisted living were housed. My mother was sitting with another woman from her floor in a row of chairs. The other woman saw me and tapped my mother. There was nowhere to sit with them, so I waved and sat at a table in the back where I had a disadvantageous view of the unfortunate crowd. It was obvious that many didn't know where they were. Heads hung, chins on chests.
The "concert" was a man singing karaoke. He wore a tropical shirt and played a Tamborine along with the recorded music. In truth, he wasn't bad. He had a good voice and a nice selection of songs, and watching him, you might think he was performing on t.v. before a live studio audience. A few in the crowd were able to bounce their heads along with the music while the caregivers who worked there were smiling and giving the singer all the support they could. The caregivers were all women, most Jamaican. They busied themselves with shuffling people around to make room for the new patients who were rolled in. It was obvious these people were not going home. This is where they would spend the rest of their days.
I applauded the singer after each song and smiled and nodded my head. As I said, you wouldn't know if you didn't see the crowd that he wasn't performing before a lively bunch, but I knew that, as nice as this facility is, my mother needed to get out of here.
The singer finished another song, something like "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," and said, "Alright. . . now we're going to kick it up a notch." The crowd went breathless. O.K. Joke. But when he dove into The Temptations "My Girl," two of the staff stepped up before the small stage and began to dance. God, I have to give it to them. They were really going at it like they must have on some club's dance floor in their disco days. And all around me, the caregiving staff started dancing and singing, too. At first, I thought it was spontaneous, that the song really registered, but of course it was part of the schtick. Throughout the room, people in industrial wheelchairs, akin to couches, drooled along.
As heart wrenching as it all was, I was giggling because back in the days when my band was performing, I used to sing a little New Wave version of this song. I have a live recording from one of the pubs were played in. I certainly was no Smokey Robinson. This guy, however, was nailing it.
My mother kept looking back to see if I was still there, and about forty-five minutes in, she got up with her walker and came back to where I was sitting.
"Let's go," she said, and so we took the elevator back to her floor. I made us a couple cups of coffee and we went out to sit on the veranda.
"Are you feeling better?" she asked.
"Yea. I went to the gym today and was talking to a fellow. I told him I'd had a bad gut for the past few days and he said yea, it was going around. Some stomach virus that causes diarrhea and vomiting for three days. Bingo, I said, that is what I had. I was glad to know it wasn't just me."
"This is my last night here," she said with enthusiasm. "I get to go home tomorrow."
"No you don't."
"Why?"
"You go home on Friday. Today is Wednesday."
"You mean I have two more nights here?"
"Yup."
She was really upset by this. I didn't blame her. I wouldn't want to be stuck in this place, either. I can't imagine what it would be like in one of the other places. The one she is in is top of the line.
In a bit, her across the street neighbors came out.
"We've been sitting inside waiting on you," the woman said.
"Well, I'm glad you are here because I was just leaving," I said. "You can keep my mother company."
Of course, I couldn't leave right away, and I was stuck hanging around for another half hour.
Earlier in the day, when I was at the gym, I was talking to the retired nurse who was asking about my mother when a big Brazilian girl waked into the room, grinned, and said hello. She is a three or five time world Brazilian Ju-Jitso World Champion, a real badass who has a twin brother who is also a fighter. When she walked over to shake hands, I did something that Tennessee told me he had done to her before. It is a Krav Maga move meant to counter someone who is aggressively grabbing hold of you. He has shown me how to do it several times, so I thought I would do it to her. As we clasped hands, I pulled her toward me while hooking the back of her elbow for leverage. Fortunately for me, she thought it was funny. She was quite chatty, and in a bit my retired nurse friend excused herself. I don't really remember now how the conversation went, but it was settled that I would be photographing her in the gym where she teaches. I was excited at the time, but when I got home from visiting my mother, the reality of it set in. Shit. When I had the studio, I used to take a thousand or more photographs a week. I knew what I was doing. I was confident. Now I don't take any pictures and I was overtaken by the epiphany. . . WTF was I thinking?
I decided I would photograph her with the beautiful 4x5 camera that I haven't taken out of its case for. . . how long? More than a year. Before making a Negroni, I thought I should go get it out and set it up.
But I had forgotten how! After futzing about for a bit, however, I started to remember. There are a whole lot of movements with the camera's front and back standards that are crucial, and I was recalling how many times I had not set them properly and had strangely out of focus pictures. And "how many times" was not so many times as I never really used the camera much because it was a pain in the ass. But holy mackerel, sitting there on the tripod, it sure was beautiful.
I told the fighter I'd come to look around the gym at noon today without a camera, just to get an idea. Once I do that, I am fairly committed I'd guess. I can see the picture in my mind, but I'd sure as heck better be able to translate that into something everyone else can see.
Oy!
So today, my last day of semi-freedom, will be very busy. I need to prepare my mother's house for her return. I need to pack up all the things she has had me take to the rehab center and truck them back to the place. I need to clean out the refrigerator and go grocery shopping for victuals. And I need to pack up a whole lot of my stuff to take over there.
I wish I had slept better. Maybe tonight. I am trying not to take any sleep aides before bed, and I am cutting back on the alcohol, so. . . . Last night I had two cups of hot chocolate while I listened to music and worked on pictures.
O.K. "My Girl." You can imagine that this is EXACTLY how my band performed the song every single time!
I felt so bad yesterday, I didn't manage to visit my mother. I'm trying to figure out what is causing this. I do wish I'd wake one morning soon and not feel tremendous dread. I used to love two things: going to bed at night and rising in the morning. Silly, I know. It runs counter to a hip/bohemian thing to say. The old saw: Ghandi said that a man should do two things every day that he doesn't wish to do every day. Churchill said he did. He went to bed every night and got up every morning. That's clever, and Churchill led a tremendously interesting life. But I've always been an early to bed, early to rise kind of fellow, and it always made me happy.
But this year, for the most part, I have dreaded both.
Selavy.
I know I've already said that Charlie Kirk was a dope, factory made for the anti-intellectual. I watched three YouTube videos last night that were released a week before the shooting of Kirk debating some kids at Cambridge. They were prepared for him. They had his schtick figured out, as predictable as a drumbeat. If you are interested, here are links to the three videos: (link) (link) and (link). If you are not, I understand. Watching his bullshit is tedious. But here's the teaser for a Vanity Fair article.
“It is not just, for instance, that Kirk held disagreeable views—that he was pro-life, that he believed in public executions, or that he rejected the separation of church and state,” Ta-Nehisi Coates writes. “It’s that Kirk reveled in open bigotry.” By ignoring the rhetoric and actions of the Turning Point USA founder, Coates argues, pundits and politicians are sanitizing Charlie Kirk’s legacy.
Duh.
Of course, there is the morally required disclaimer that must be made: His murder is a horrible and terrible thing. And I mean it, too. Having such a person as a standard bearer for the Republican Party was like shooting retarded fish in a very small barrel.
He also showed, by and large, how unprepared American college students are for debate. An education system run by congressional republicans has failed the country pitifully. O.K. Maybe it isn't just republicans. "Every kid a winner, every child a success" rhetoric from the left has been equally harmful. But the idea that everyone deserves a non-competitive college degree has not been helpful. Funding based on "success rates" has been a travesty. Even the Ivy Leagues schools have fallen victim. Look at what has happened to GPAs there in the last twenty years and you'll see the cost of the easy "A."
But enough of that.
Last night, I watched a documentary on Goya. I guess I really knew nothing of Goya. His biography is a crazy narrative of tragedy, and yet he succeeded through multiple political wars and the rapid changing of monarchs, survived the Inquisition, and managed to make insane portraits of he Royal families which one critic claimed made them all look like "butchers who had just won the lottery." And it's true. They are the most unflattering portraits of royals ever created. And they loved him. He was being paid a salary of $250,000 a year in today's money--plus perks.
And for half his life, he was totally deaf.
He was, I learned, the first painter to paint a nude that was not allegorical, The Nude Maja. Even before the more well known "Olympia" by Manet.
And it just goes to show that anyone can succeed if they try hard enough and keep at it.
Ha! Just kidding. That is one of those idiotic things people who win some award usually say.
These painterly illustrations of my photos are killing me. As you know, I am not opposed to the straight old photograph, but I've spent much of my time messing them up. I've scratched negatives and solarized them in the days before digital processing. I "invented" a process for using Polaroid 669 film to make grungy, painterly things, and when the film was gone, I began to make encaustic works and used alternative processes like image transfers and hand colored and drawn on prints. So using A.I. to fool around with my images is just another step toward "the next thing."
But I have yet to find an A.I. platform that will process much of my body of photographs. So yesterday, I asked ChatGPT if it could give me some prompts that would allow me to do much the same thing in Photoshop. It did. It gave me a whole lot.
When I tried it, however, it was too tedious and didn't really work. I will spend some more time with what it told me, though, and maybe find some new tools to let me "mess up" my photos. I've been printing out some of the altered versions to see how they look on different types of paper, and I am impressed. Now I am trying to think of ways to work with them so that they become "mine" again.
A fool's errand, probably. . . but I am enjoying it and it helps distract me from my current situation.
And so. . . .
That k.d. lang version of "Angel Eyes" from yesterday's post was a lovely surprise, but you know, that's what happens to the educated ear. Often now, the algorithms give me things like this. . . and the algorithms are right. Here's one from yesterday that soothes me. Hey. . . let's go to the Cafe Carlyle and sit, have a drink, listen, and relax.
I have as many bad days as good ones now: glass half full or half empty? Is the mental killing the physical body or is the body killing the mind? I just know this year has been shitty and I don't see any way out of it. I could use a good dose of mania again.
Just as I wrote this, a banner flicked across my computer screen from the N.Y. Times. Robert Redford died, age 89. With his money, I imagine he went peacefully. Money makes the difference. Have you ever read an article about the wealthy who have long term residency care suites at Mount Sinai Hospital? My mother's place is the nicest in town, but it ain't anything like that.
When I visited my mother yesterday, she said the woman we have eaten with a few times at the rehab center asked her how old I was. The woman replied, "No way! He's the same age as I am."
"So was the fellow we ate with yesterday. He was a couple years older than I."
The Golden Years.
And yet. . .
When I came home from the gym yesterday, there was a big van parked in my driveway, the rear doors open, tools on the ground.
"!!!"
When I walked up, I looked in back of the house, and there was a guy working on my gas line.
"Hey, you're the gas guy?"
"Yes."
"Are you putting on a new meter?"
"I was just shutting you off."
"Holy smokes, I didn't realize that you were coming today."
"We're here."
I started scrolling through messages on my phone thinking he was wrong.
"How long have you been here?" I asked.
"About five minutes. I'll go ahead and put in your new meter now that you are here."
They needed me to be here so they could get into the house to restart all the pilot lights.
"Oh, man. . . thank you. I'm sure glad I got here when I did."
When he'd finished putting on the new meter, he came in to check the pilot lights.
"Are you a photographer?"
He saw the cameras on the dining room table I had taken out on Sunday.
"I guess."
"Me, too."
"Really? What do you take photos of?"
"I do mostly astro photography but I just started taking pictures of cars, too."
Oh, boy. I didn't want to get into this. But he started asking me a whole lot of questions about cameras, so I should him some of mine. He saw some of the big framed Pola-things I have hanging. He got excited and started showing me his photos on his phone. The astro stuff was interesting. And as always, I was finding out about his life. Like I say, people like to tell things. He was from New York, Westchester County. He was a plumber there but had a friend who got him a job here with the gas company. Easier work, he said. He didn't have to crawl around in dark basements with rats the size of dogs that didn't fear you. His parents lived here. He was a tall, half-Black kid. He said he'd been spending a lot of time in his parent's pool and was starting to get dark. He liked road trips. He'd just bought a new sporty Saab and was going to a car show this weekend on the far coast. But, he said. . . we should get together after that. He'd bring over his cameras.
Yea, yea, yea. Just what I wanted. Reluctantly, I gave him my phone number. What could I do? He'd done me a solid by putting in the new meter.
I had a new twenty-something pal of the wrong gender.
Whatever.
Later on, I got a call from the carpenter. Just checking in. Considers me a friend, he said. Wanted me to know he was taking off for a week in Hillbilly Country, Ohio, the next day.
I'm overwhelmed with my shitty life, so I told him I had decided to hire someone to pressure wash and paint the house and apartment. He said that he should do it.
Cha-ching.
"You've got something that people like," my mother said.
"Yes. . . all the wrong people."
People talk about charisma. I've said long ago that I think I have figured out what it is. It is a form of hypnotism, I believe. Some people learn early in life that they can command people's attention and unconsciously develop the skill with inflections and movements. Maybe it is a cadence of speech. Maybe it is the way they look into your eyes. These were the ideas I got, anyway, from being in the classroom and working with people in my studio. There is a power of suggestion, I think.
Isn't that the title of a famous book?
Brando had it. I watched him work it. But not everyone can be hypnotized. There is always a subset with which one can work. Just like those televangelists. Watch them. They have their audience in a trance, but it only works on some.
Maybe all forms of attraction develop this way. I've certainly been hypnotized by the women I've fallen for. They absolutely put me in a trance.
I think one of them is still working her bad juju on me .
It was too bad I didn't have it with the girl in the fur hat and boots on Sunday. I did, I think, but the spell was broken by her two friends. But her eyes were saying "yes."
So, yea. . . I went to the outskirts of proper society to make pictures then. Got photos of a couple strip clubs. That photo at the top needs one of the strippers leaning against that hurricane fence to make it good.
The "Milk Spa" was long gone. I think. It looked like it was abandoned, but who knows. Probably shut down by the authorities if the name of the place is a suggestion of what went on in there.
The old "Asian Massage." Releases tensions, they say. Probably.
I have to admit, I am not as confident running around certain parts of town as I used to be. "Running" is a joke. That's the problem now--I can neither run nor fight--and there are often some unruly looking characters lurking in the corners and the shadows. In the past, I was a little nervous, too, but I always figured I could get myself out of trouble. Now I just look like a wounded fish flopping around in water filled with reef sharks.
Still. . . I try to soldier on.
It is house cleaning day. I have a lot of mess to put away before the wrecking crew comes, mostly photographic, but there is a lot of paperwork I've been dealing with concerning my mother, too.
Fortuitously, yesterday I got something in the mail about a seminar right here in my own hometown giving information about services and resources available for caregivers. It is one of those stiff cardboard adverts that you get tons of, ones I don't usually glance at before tossing them into the trash. Yup. Providence, I guess. I'm signing up for it. Next Saturday.
"Enchantment." That is what I think they call it, that spell one falls under that we identify as love.
I wanted to rally yesterday, but I was still feeling punky. I wanted to get out of the house, but I sat. I talked to my mother and told her I was still feeling poorly. It was ten. I futzed around some more and wondered how much of my illness was mental. I decided I had to put on some shoes and go. I grabbed my big Fuji camera and headed to a part of town I decided I wanted to photograph a week or so ago.
I parked my car around the corner on a side street beside the Goodwill on a busy highway on the east side of town. Most of the businesses are Asian, but this is not the hip part of Little Hanoi where the expensive bars and restaurants abide. This part is run down and filled with nail and lashes shops, massage and acupuncture salons, mixed martial arts gyms, tax preparation offices, a skateboard shop, and weirdly enough, the Haitian Embassy.
Right?
I grabbed my bag and walked around the corner. On the sidewalk a crazy man was dancing and yelling at cars and passerby's. O.K. I thought. Just a nice Sunday afternoon. It was getting hot. Just a few yards more, there was a fellow sitting in a low camp chair on the sidewalk with his possessions around him. I don't have interest in photographing human misery which is all too common here, but I raised my camera to my eye to photograph a building across the highway. When I turned back, the man addressed me.
"Are you from Seattle?"
"What? No." I laughed. "Why would you think that?"
"Where are you from?"
"Here. I live here."
"Oh, you just looked like you were from Seattle. I know a woman in Seattle. I thought you were a tourist taking pictures."
"Well that would be a strange vacation photo, wouldn't it?"
"How much did you pay for that camera?"
"Not as much as it cost when it was new. Here. I'll take a picture for you," I said.
"O.K. Wait a minute. I have a picture in here."
He began searching through the bag at his feet searching through the many sheafs of papers, pictures, objects and who knows what, mumbling all the while. He couldn't find what he was looking for and started again. Then. . . BINGO. . . he pulled out a drugstore print of a girl.
"I want this in the picture. Can you see it?"
He held it onto his chest.
"Yes," I said.
"I want to send it to her."
I took the photo for him, not for me.
"She's from Seattle," he said.
"Here, let me take on of you not smiling."
"You don't want me to smile?"
"No."
"O.K. Let me get something first."
Again he dove into his bag, searching, and in a minute he brought out a little gold chain with a pendant and slipped it over his head.
"Do you have someplace you want me to send these?"
"Oh. . . yea. . . here. . . ."
He reached down to fumble in his bag again. He had pads of paper that he skipped over looking for some scrap, I guessed. I'd been with him about ten minutes now. He was still digging.
"Why don't you just tear off a little piece from that pad?" I asked.
"Oh . . ."
He started writing something very slowly as if he were trying to remember. When he handed me the slip of paper, I saw that he had written down a P.O. address.
"O.K. my friend. I'll send you copies."
"O.K." he said. "Take care."
"Wow!" I thought, "Just getting out of the house. . . "
I walked slowly down the street taking photos of billboards and signs and shop windows. Then I came to what appeared to be a popular restaurant. In the parking lot, I saw three young girls walking toward the entrance. We reached the walkway about the same time. One of the girls was half Asian and wearing an outrageous outfit--a fur hat with earflaps, fur boots that came halfway up her shins, and the smallest jeans shorts she could legally wear. Her eyes were darkly outlined and her lips were bright red.
Oh shit. . . oh shit. . . . I'd photographed one person. Maybe I was on a roll. As they approached, I raised my camera in the air and said, "I just have to ask." She hesitated, smiled, then looked at her friends. I knew this was a bad sign. She looked back to me and shook her head minutely in the negative, but her face was saying yes. Fuck, fuck, fuck. . . I just smiled and put the camera to my side and nodded.
Piss shit fuck goddamn. . . it would have been a perfect bookend to the photo of the Goodwill man. But hell, I was looking pretty homeless, I guessed, and so the fellow on the sidewalk engaged me. I needed to look young and hip, I assumed, to get the other picture.
"You just look like a creepy old man with a camera," I laughed to myself without humor.
I spent the next couple of hours walking about but didn't get any more pictures of humans, just the dilapidated buildings and closed businesses that I tried to make look interesting. When I got back to the car, I decided to drive to a different part of town, more distant, to make some photos of things I had in mind. But more of that in other days.
When I got home, I was beat. I had done alright, but I still wasn't feeling well. I made a little salad and had part of a beer, then ran a hot tub and crawled in. It was three. By the time I had finished my soak and had showered, it was four. I took the card out of my camera and downloaded the day's images into the computer. As I did, the phone rang. It was in the kitchen, and so I didn't answer. A bit later, it rang again. It was the tenant.
"Are you o.k." she asked?
"Yea, why?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm at home."
"Your mother called me and said she has been calling you and couldn't reach you and she said she was afraid because you said you weren't feeling well."
"Jesus, what the fuck? I was in the tub and shower."
"Well call her back. She's worried."
That's it, though. I can't have even hours to myself any longer. I was just getting into the car when I called my mom and told her I was on my way to see her.
"O.K.," she said.
My mother was in her room when I got to the rehab center. She wanted to go sit in the t.v. room. She got her walker, and she was slow, slower than she has been. She was looking very frail and deformed, her shoulders and arms getting thinner. When we got to the tv room which is connected to the dining room, she stopped and looked around. She was in pain, she said. She wanted medicine. She just stood and looked at everyone who walked by thinking they would give her something. They were servers and janitors and I don't know what all, but they weren't nurses. My mother couldn't tell. Finally, she turned and took a chair. That meant we wouldn't be sitting together on the couch which meant we couldn't easily talk. On the big tv was the after game football show, so I watched the highlights of the day's games while my mother stared out through cataract eyes. It was quarter 'til five.
"They are going to serve dinner at five. Let's go in and get a table," she said.
"Whatever you want."
She sat down at a table with someone else's drink on it. I sat beside her. We were the only ones in the dining room.
"I'm not really hungry," my mother said. "We just had lunch."
"And yet you are the first to the table."
One of the servers came over and asked my mother if she would like the soup.
"No," she spat with a hillbilly distaste. "I didn't like it at lunch."
I felt a little embarrassment, but I was sure that they see this sort of thing here all the time.
"The food has gotten worse," she said. "When I first got here, it was good, but now. . . I think they only give you the good food when you first get here."
A nice woman who has been sitting with and talking to my mother came out.
"Have a seat," my mother said, but mom had picked a littered table, so the woman sat at the table next to us. The server brought my mother a plate of food.
"What's that," the woman at the next table asked me?
"Beats me."
The plate had two pieces of meat, one white and one brown, and a roll.
"Is that it?" asked the lady at the next table.
"That's all she ordered," said the server.
"I don't know how to order," my mother said, and it was true. I don't know why, but she cannot fill out a menu card.
"Would you like some vegetables?"
"Sure," my mother said offhandedly. The hillbilly was just coming out of her all over.
The server brought out vegetables, a fruit cup, a desert, and a salad. Just then, a man rolled his way in slowly in a wheelchair. He joined the lady at the other table. He was fairly formal of speech and said he hadn't been coming down for his meals because of his catheter. He was embarrassed, he said. We made introductions and they brought him his food.
"The food here is great," he said. I laughed inwardly at my mother. It turned out that the man had been at another rehab center. It hadn't been nearly as nice.
"Yes, this is the nicest rehab place in town," I said.
"The other place was horrible. No, everyone is nice and attentive here, and the food it good."
My mother has been arguing with everyone because her call bell/light isn't working in her room.
"I've had some minor strokes, they say. They can't fix my light so they gave me a bell to ring. Can you imagine? I tried it but nobody came. They don't know how to fix my call button. Isn't that something?"
I understood her concern, but my mother was getting very negative and mean about everything.
I noticed the fellow had a full sleeve that was very colorful, so I asked him when he got it.
"When I was married, I was always faithful to my wife. She was the love of my life, and as long as I stayed in those boundaries, I could do anything I wanted. So when I retired. . . " and here he got very confused. He said he retired in 2022 and then seven years later. . . it wasn't making sense.
"I had always been interested in tattoos, but I worked for IBM and they wouldn't have allowed that. When I retired from there, I decided to get a job with a prosthetic company, and almost everyone there had tats, so I decided to get this. I always thought I had it made when my wife was alive. I thought I was King of the World, but she died and now this. . . and I know that I am not."
Yup. I looked at him and wondered something I didn't ask, then he mentioned his age. He was barely older than I.
My mother didn't really say anything during the dinner conversation. She has never been a good conversationalist. She complains that other people don't let her talk, but when she does, she says maybe two sentences at most. The lady and the gentleman were talking about how well their children treated them. Thye came to see them several times a week. I waited. My mother said nothing. I could only seethe a little.
When dinner was done, I excused myself to go home.
"Ya'll have made me hungry," I lied. And so I kissed my mother and said goodbye.
I had planned on getting fish tacos for dinner, but when I got home, I hadn't the energy. I'd scrape together something from what I had lying around. I made a Negroni. Not quite. I forgot to add the gin. Good, I thought. I need to quit drinking these anyway. I put together a salad with bread lettuce, avocado, Campari tomatoes, and garbanzo beans, poured a big glass of wine, sat down and turned on the t.v.
I put on the film, "The Wolf at the Door." I hadn't seen it since 1986 when I took my young friend to the theater. I was whisked right back to the time and place. I could feel it and taste it and smell it. The movie ethos was a great reflection of my dead ex-friend Brando's. Or vice-versa. Such characters can't exist any longer. But they did. Men as rogues, adventurers, in love with women and food and drink and drugs. Sex was close to being religion. I winced once again remembering taking the girl to see the film. It is told partly through the narrative voice of the 14 year old daughter of Gaugin's Paris landlord. She is fascinated. She undresses for him. She wants him to paint her. Gaugin tells her of his wife in Tahiti.
"How old was she?"
He pauses. "She was thirteen."
When this scene came on, I grabbed my phone to record it. Sorry for the shitty quality, but it doesn't matter. Here is the philosophy, Brando's philosophy in life. He, too, was a rogue who abandoned his children.
It was still early when the film was over, but I decided to go to bed. I felt sleepy and took nothing, but I woke at two in a panic. I jumped out of bed. What to do? I walked around trying to calm myself, and went back to bed. At three-thirty, the same thing. I was crying out and thrashing violently. My heart was racing. I decided to take a Xanax and try again. But it was of no use, and early this morning I rose for good.
I have a billion and a half things to do today. I hope I can manage one.
Yesterday was fine and beautiful. . . and I felt awful. That seems to be typical for me. When the weather changes, on that very first day of beauty, I always feel down. Sick in body and soul. It might be an actual metabolic reaction to the changing weather. I don't know. It could be psychological. I never have felt I could live up to the beauty of a gorgeous day. Not the first one, at least.
I think, however, that it might have been that Bahn mi sandwich I had at the Asian market. My gut was bad. The spaghetti carbonara didn't help, either. So I stayed inside on the most beautiful day of the summer so far this year.
Until I ran out of matte printing paper. I think I've already told you that I have been printing the A.I. images of my work on little 4x6 fine art papers. They are beautiful. In part, it is due to the colors that are more painterly than photographic. The outlines are softer. I am surprised each time one pops out of the printer. Again, it takes a lot of "work" to get what I want. The work is in the prompts and the challenge is getting around the strictures ChatGPT wants to place on your image. And sometimes you get a third hand or a bent foot or a terribly twisted face.
But this one. . . oh. . . yes. You might recognize her.
It was four o'clock and I was feeling punky, but I hadn't yet gone to see my mother, so I took a quick shower, dressed, and headed out the door. I was greeted by air you couldn't feel and soft light the quality of what you imagine it might be like in heaven.
Everyone was everywhere. People were outside. It was one of those days and it made me sad to have missed it. You could smell enjoyment like a subtle perfume. People seemed for the moment happy.
I got the usual friendly greeting at the photo store. I grabbed a box of paper and was out the door in minutes. There is a new photo processing place in town that I haven't been to yet that processes 4x5 film, and that is where I headed.
When I walked in, a young man was at the counter ahead of me. He was talking excitedly about something to the lady behind the counter, and when he finished, he turned to me and looked at my camera.
"Oh, wow. . . what kind of camera is that?"
I had my little Leica CL film camera. He wanted to know all about it, how long I'd had it, and then he wanted me to help him pick out a new color film. I walked back to the glass door case with him. I wasn't sure what films the store was carrying. I looked at the usual lot of film, made some suggestions, and answered his barrage of questions. I saw that the woman behind the counter was free, so I excused myself to ask her what the turn around time was on processing 4x5 film. Three days, she guessed. It was four-thirty. I had to run.
Maybe it was the sickness, I don't know, but I couldn't figure out a good way to get back across town to see my mother. I took wrong turn after wrong turn and must have driven twenty miles out of my way in some serpentine fashion. I got to the rehab center just before five.
My mother was in her room watching tv. It was loud.
"I'm guessing you are not wearing your hearing aids."
Like everyone with hearing aids, she doesn't want to wear them. I told her the day was beautiful and that we should sit outside. She got up and grabbed her walker. As much as I say she has made a tremendous comeback from the grave, she does not move well. She is very, very slow.
As we passed through the dining hall, the staff was setting up for dinner.
"What time is dinner?" my mother asked.
"Five."
It was just before five now. We walked through the door onto the second floor deck and sat on the faux wooden bench. It was pleasant, but my mother was concerned about dinner.
"They usually serve at six," my mother said.
"It is Saturday. Maybe the staff is anxious to get home."
My mother got up to look inside. She was quite concerned about dinner.
"I'm going in," she said.
Weird, I thought. She was just leaving me outside thinking she would eat and return I guessed, but I got up and opened the door for her and followed her into the dining hall. She sat at a table with a Korean woman who has been there as long as my mother. There was only one other person in the dining room sitting at a table alone. I watched as the servers carried covered dinner trays to the rooms of those not coming out. My mother opened up her fruit cup and began to eat. One of the staff brought her some soup. My mother couldn't hear what the Korean woman was saying and was shouting out non-sequiturs in response. My energy level was tanking and I was fading, so I told my mother I wasn't feeling well and was going home. She smiled that deaf and dumb smile and asked me if I was going to sit on the porch. I told her no, that I was going home. I probably hadn't been there fifteen minutes, and walking to the elevator, I felt tremendous guilt. But, I wondered, what would happen if my mother goes home and I became ill and had to go to a hospital? That was something that had to be figured into the whole equation. In my present state, I often feel I am on the verge of a complete collapse. I don't want to deal with anything any longer. And at that very moment, I just wanted to be home.
I felt like shit, and knew it wasn't a good idea, but maybe I've become an alcoholic. I wanted a Negroni, and so I made one and took it to the deck. A slight breeze came and went blowing like an oscillating fan around me. I looked at my phone. Nothing all day. I felt like a man transported into some "Twilight Zone" episode where strangers seek out my company but I can't find anyone I know. I was waiting on something that was never coming. And all about town, the celebration continued.
My stomach was still ill, so I made only a small Greek-ish salad for dinner. I ate it with a torn piece of a crusty baguette and a very cold glass of Sav Blanc. It was good. It was very, very good.
As I ate, I scrolled through the suggestions of what Amazon's Fire TV thought I might like to watch. There was a film about Klimt that I put in my saved to watch later box. And from there I found more. One was a film I have not been able to find ever, one I watched so very, very long ago, a film about Gaugin called "Wolf at the Door." I took a very young and beautiful girl to see it. I'm afraid it might have been the wrong film to take her to as it seemed too suggestive. But nothing ended and she and I kept in touch after she went away to college. She would write me letters often. She is married now to the son of the brother of a fellow I knew from the old steroid gym days, a fellow from a family who owned the biggest transportation company in town. The uncle is dead now, so she told me when I last saw her at the Fresh Market a few months ago. There is still a spark of something between us every time I see her that thrills me. By god I wish I had taken photos of her back then. She was always simply fascinating, a homecoming queen who played soccer on the boys team and had a passion for fishing. Seeing the film title brought that all back. Yea, I thought, this is what I'll watch tonight.
But I didn't. I turned off the tv after dinner and never turned it back on. I futzed around making prompts and pictures still feeling lousy, and early on I decided to go to an early bed.
Today will be lovely, too, and I will try to go out into it, but the weight of things I need to do hangs about me like a man trying to swim with too much chain. It just pulls me under. Maybe I'm dying. I seem to have as many bad days as average days now. It happens. People die. Not my mother and her ilk, of course, but people like me who cannot stand to live a nothing life. I've been thinking recently that I will just give in, that that might be the best thing. I will watch sports on television like everyone else and not think about anything at all. There is always some sport on t.v. now. And if there isn't some game or match, I'll watch the sports talk shows where pundits opine about upcoming matches and games and wonder what if in adamant tones. Vehemently. Maybe I'll learn how to play fantasy football, whatever that is. It seems to be popular. I'll drink beer and eat fried chicken, but I won't take up golf. Maybe, however, I'll watch it.
It's what people do.
I'm tired of thinking and feeling all the rest of it.
But, o.k. . . just one more song. . . like something beating the shit out of you. . . in the key of Sam Shepard.
Before I write in the mornings, I peruse the news websites. This morning I came across this about the new photographers exhibit at MoMA (link). I didn't see myself anywhere in there. Selavy. But I'll admit, I haven't given up completely on the idea of my pictures pleasing someone. And therein probably lies my most fatal flaw. Selah.
I did go out with my camera again yesterday. I wanted to get lunch in a big Asian market near the photo store. I took my smallest Leica film camera and parked in the camera store parking lot because there is only a small lot behind the market and never a space. Just as I pulled in, though, I saw one of the two brothers who owns the camera store pull in, so of course I walked with him into his shop.
"What are you up to today?" he asked.
"I'm just coming in to get some 4x5 film."
"What? We don't have any 4x5 film."
"Sure you do," I said.
"We haven't carried that for years."
"Sure you have."
"I don't think they even make 4x5 film anymore."
"Sure they do."
It turned out they had one box of black and white 4x5 film. The brother went to the computer as the sales guy was ringing me up.
"Look at this. We sold four boxes this year. Five last."
He went down the line, each year's total in single digits.
"I guess you sold them all to me," I laughed.
A bag of 4x5 film I wasn't sure I would ever use in hand, I walked back to my car to stow the package. Then I walked back through the lot and crossed over to the sidewalk that led next door, camera in hand. I set the aperture wide open and lowered the shutter speed so I could shoot from the hip without notice knowing that none of the pictures would come out. There was no way I could hit focus in the dim interior with the lens wide open. I decided to get a bánh mì pho French dip sandwich with pho jus. The market was busy and I had a long wait, so I took a few photos of the place halfheartedly. I was sitting in front of three of the markets. Women took the orders and women made the food, all Asian and all looking very photographable. I wondered how to make that happen. Certainly it would be impossible, but I could see the portraits in my mind's eye, just where they would stay, I was sure. A woman in her early to mid thirties walked around in a slim black dress. She was obviously one of the "boss ladies." When I smiled at her, she gave me that look someone of high station gives a peasant just so they understand the distance. That made me giggle. In this part of town, there are a hundred Asian restaurants, some with gambling rooms, and, I've been told, brothels that no white men are allowed in. The city has adopted the idea of labelling different parts of town with identifiable monikers like NYC and other big cities do. This area is officially "Mills 50," but everyone calls it "Little Vietnam." Once a much smaller area, I think it was dominated by Vietnamese, but now. . . wtf do I know. . . I think it has a much broader Asian population.
When the sandwich finally came, it was bigger than I expected, the size of a foot long sub cut in half. I thought I would be taking half home with me.
Uh-uh.
Christ, that sandwich was good and the pho jus was delicious. I could have eaten two of them. I would have to come back again, I knew, thinking about asking the working women for portraits. Goddamn, I need to build that website.
From there, I went to a nearby art supply shop and bought a couple things. It was mid-afternoon. I decided to hop up to see my mother. It took forever to get there, though, for I had to pass innumerable school zones. Traffic was backed up everywhere.
Visits with my mother are becoming more tedious. We've taken to sitting in silence but for the occasional comment, or watching t.v. in the great room. There is nothing to do there but sit and stare or watch t.v. The people are all disabled to a great degree, so activities are out. Everyone is in a wheelchair. Half of them are suffering mental disabilities. What are they going to do, play hide the potato? So we sit and stare. This is pretty much what my mother will do at home, too, but she will be with her stuff, and that will make a difference.
For me, too.
When I came back home, it was too early for a cocktail, so I worked on some things around the house and read. But the afternoon was nice, and at five-thirty, I was with a Negroni on the deck, creature of comfort and habit that I am. After the Asian market, I wasn't in the mood for sushi, so I called the Italian place and got a takeout spaghetti carbonara. I opened a bottle of wine. After eating a sandwich in the afternoon, I realized that creamy pasta was not a good idea for dinner, but whatever. Friday night. Huh.
I woke this morning to a cooler house and wondered. I walked outside and felt the cooler air. It is our usual faux-fall weather that comes to fool us into thinking the tropical heat is gone. Nope. It comes back and we won't see weather like this again until November. But this week. . . oo-la-la.
I'll use a camera today. I don't know which one. Nor do I know what I will photograph. A Belarusian photographer once told me, "When you can't take pictures, don't try to take pictures." I thought that was a good idea, but now I know it isn't. Like every slump, you just have to soldier on until it passes.
Who knows? Maybe something interesting will come my way.
But I'm not wagering on it.
Hey. . . remember CDs? Remember when collections like this would come out? You'd buy it and like maybe one or two of the songs a lot and a couple other kind of and you'd put it on in the car and keep skipping over the ones you didn't like at all. No need for that anymore. Still, I liked the cover art.
