The Photo

Correction: My accident was eight, not ten years ago.  I wasn't thinking straight.  I probably haven't been for quite awhile.  Presently, though, I will blame it on the pain.  I've really fucked myself up this time.  

And yet. . . one carries on.  

There was no way I could stand going to the gym yesterday.  I've started to lose feeling in my left hand fingertips.  It isn't fun.  But I could still walk, so I did.  I took the two mile stroll around the neighborhood in the opposite direction of the golf course that I haven't walked for a good while.  I decided to take a camera with me, my Mamiya 6 medium format film rangefinder.  Why?  Because I have been working on the surf series, and one day, and only one, I used it instead of the Holga, and the photos were intriguing.  I was planning to shoot Halloween decorations around the 'hood, but I had forgotten something living with my mother these past going on three years--the people who live in mansions don't really do that sort of thing.  In my mother's neck of the woods, elaborate decorations are de rigueur. 

Thusly, I was carrying the brick around without making any pictures.  

As I walked the long shoreline on the brick cypress lined road around the lake, I waved and smiled at one of the landscapers working there as is my proletariat habit.  He smiled back and pointed to the camera.  He didn't speak English so very much or well, but he made it clear that he wanted me to take his picture.  Holy mackerel--it was like living in mid-century America before people were so paranoid.  I paired him with a female coworker in good light, stepped back, focused, bent at the knees, and hit the shutter button.  

I told him I could send him the photo when it was ready, and he handed me his phone.  I put in my number and said, "Make sure you call me so I'll know where to send it."

He hadn't asked me to send it.  I just offered.  And as I walked away, waving and smiling, I wondered why I didn't take two pictures.  Nervous, I guessed.  Then I thought some more.  I didn't even know what kind of film was in the camera.  It had been in there a long time.  How long?  I hadn't used this camera forever.  Shit.  What if the film was bad?  What if the meter battery was low?  What if I didn't get a photo at all?  

I was suddenly wishing I hadn't told him I'd send him a copy.  

When I got back to my house, I decided I would take the film in for same day development.  I was both excited by one prospect and paranoid of the other.  

I showered and dressed and thought I would get out of the house before the cleaning crew arrived, but just as I started to back the car out of the driveway, their Mercedes Sprinter van pulled in the other end.  I stopped the car and got out to greet them.  

Big confession--the woman in charge and I get along like thieves, but. . . I don't know her name.  I must have at one point, but I can't ask her now.  It has been years.  I know, I know.  I'm a self-absorbed asshole.  Still, we are buds, and she got out of the van with a big smile and a bottle of rum.  She gave me a hug and exclaimed, "I'm not saying you drink, but I brought this back for you."  She'd been on a cruise that went to her home country, Jamaica.  Appleton Rum.  

"I went to the Appleton factory on my trip to Jamaica in 1973," I said. 

"The year I was born."

We chatted for a bit while the cleaners got everything out of the van.  Then another hug and I was gone.  

I dropped the film off at the little hipster lab.  I'd never seen the pretty girl working the counter before, so I wasn't greeted with the hero's welcome I enjoy.   She was nice enough, though, and when I asked if they could develop and scan the film that day,  she checked with the lab and said yes.

"O.K.  I'm nervous.  I hope the film is good.  There is one picture on there that I am interested in."

Cha-ching.  I paid her a lot of money just to find out right away if I had a good photo of my Mexican friend.  

I drove across the street to the Punks in the Waiting Room brewery.  A turkey pesto sandwich and, of course, the beer.  The day had grown warmer than forecast.  I checked my phone while I waited for my sandwich.  My Mexican friend hadn't called.  Hmm.  I had no messages.  The tables around me were filled with boring tattooed people.  Nothing to do but sit and wait.  I took a phone pic of my beer.  The music playing over the outdoor speakers was loud and bad.  It was two.  The sandwich came.  I ate half and felt full, but I ate the second half, too.  I knew I wouldn't be hungry come dinnertime.  

On my way home, I stopped at the Cafe for a cafe con leche.  

"Hello, Fred," the counter woman said when I walked in.  A tall girl with a chiasma between her front teeth smiled big and said hi as if we were familiars.  I recognized her as someone who worked there many years ago.  Many.  She was certainly glad to see me, I thought.  

"C'mon," said the tall girl to the counter girl.  "I need you."

What she needed her for was to make some photo booth pictures.  Odd, I thought, but later I would understand that the tall girl was just visiting from out of state and wanted some memorabilia from her trip.  I sat with my coffee and journal and wrote a tale.  It was after three when I left.  

"See you, Fred," the nice counter lady called as I was leaving.  I didn't correct her.  It could be good to use a pseudonym.  You never know.  

Back home, I remembered that I wanted to see if ChatGPT could bring back to life my old photos that were not photos, really, but small images, 35mm from corner to corner, on deteriorating proof sheets that I had scanned.  

Indeed, it could if the image was not too grungy, but on some that were really f'ed up, it had a hard time.  

There was another thing, though.  These girls were standing in bikinis on a metal platform waving people in from the highway, but A.I. is so censored, it wouldn't give me flesh.  I tried, but "the gatekeepers" wouldn't allow it.  I have many images that A.I. will never clean up for me.  It drives me nuts.  Puritan Jihadists ruin everything.  

It was time to get back to mom.  I saw I had a missed call from the tenant.  As I drove away, I called her back.  

"What's up?  I missed your call."

"Where are you?"

"I'm driving back to my mother's."

"Oh. I was wondering if you could give me a ride home."

She was at an ophthalmology appointment.  She'd been waiting for a couple hours but had yet to see the doctor.  She was in the opposite direction from my mom's house.  I felt bad when I told her no, but everyone knows my schedule.  

Or so it seems to me, but my mother's neighbors don't seem to understand that I live with my mother now. 

"Are you going to be here tomorrow night?" the across the street neighbor asked me.  I can only shake my head.  

"I'm sorry, I can't," I told the tenant.  "I have to make my mother dinner."

Wait until I need something next time, right?  Yea.  But here's the thing.  She had a friend take her, but he couldn't stay.  

"Uber," I said.  

It wasn't much of a dinner.  Soup.  Neither of us was hungry.  I cleaned up, poured a scotch, and sat on the couch.  My mother is feeling poorly, and I can tell she is worried.  Her legs have swollen, so I am taking her to the cardiologist today.  I had to cancel a meeting with my broker to do so.  

"I may end up in the hospital again," she said.  

"Why?"

"My back."

She's in a lot of pain and thinks perhaps another of her vertebra has collapsed.  She didn't care what was on t.v., so I relaxed and let YouTube play some music for me.  It did a fine job.  

I checked my phone again.  The lab had sent the scans.  I went to the computer to download the images.  And holy moly--there they were!  The film, the camera, everything was good.  

But my Mexican friend never called.  I guess he just wanted me to take his picture.  

Here's some lo-fi music that YouTube played for me.  I like it.  This is what Sheryl Crow would sound like if her records weren't so overproduced.  But that is what people like.  Slick commercial sounds.  They've been conditioned.  Not us, though.  Uh-uh.  We're so cool.  

Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

I went to see the doctor yesterday, but the hangman wasn't hanging yet.  

"Come back in three weeks."  

But the news was bad enough.  My blood pressure was sky high.  Danger zone.  

"There are at least two possible reasons for that," I told the doc.  "First--I'm here.  Second--I'm in a lot of pain."

"What pain?"

I told her about my neck and the radiating pain into my scapula and shoulder and on down my arm into my hand.  

"Are you taking anything for it?"

I told her I took Aleve and Tylenol.  "Aleve is dangerous," she said.  Then she wrote a prescription for some narcotics.

Then she handed me a bottle.  "Let's try this for your blood pressures.  It seemed to work for another patient I gave it to."

So now I am taking four blood pressure meds.  I am rather worried.  It may be "the apnea," of course, but age and heredity, too.  I have a feeling I should go on a big fast, but I'm not inclined to at present.  

I gave them lots of my blood for testing.  In three weeks, I'll know the verdict.  

I have been to three doctors this week, and now I need a fourth.  I wasn't able to sleep at all last night for the sharp pains in my neck and shoulder.  I could find no position in bed that wasn't excruciating.  Tonight, I'll try the narcotics. 

"You've really fucked up this time, ain't ya boy?"

I think it was getting run over that did it.  Not run over.  I reportedly went flying through the air.  I just realized that happened ten years ago come Thursday.  I had just returned from a fabulous trip to Palm Springs and L.A.  It was Saturday, and the weather was lovely.  Saturday night was not so good.  

I was looking up something just yesterday and came across an article that reported the alarming number of people who die after breaking ribs.  Well, now. . . I was well past that mark--seven broken ribs, flail chest, and a punctured lung just for starters.  The doctors didn't give me very good chances for survival.  Besides the ribs, shit was broken everywhere.  

So, ten years on--I guess I've beaten the odds for awhile.  Now, however, it seems, things are catching up to me.  And, of course, I can't even run.  

I'm going to need to see a bone doc.  They usually have specialties--hips or knees or shoulders or hands--so I'm not sure who will handle all of this.  The guy who cut me open to plate the ribs was a cardiac surgeon, so I am a little baffled now about who to see.  

"What brings you in today?"

"The left side."

"What?"

"Neck, ribs, clavicle, shoulder, scapula. . . ." 

"I'll call a priest."

It's always hit or miss with doctors.  You never know.  

When I was released from the hospital after the accident, I told myself I would be O.K. with not being a hero anymore, that I would simply relish sitting in cafes and restaurants with my girl and having sweet, low conversations.  And it went that way for a minute.  Then it didn't.  Then came retirement, Covid, and my mother, Trump, Biden and Trump.  I have just lived through the worst six and a half years of my life.  I don't remember it, really.  There is nothing worth remembering.  

But, you know. . . I'm sure things will get better.  

 

Pricey

Here you go.  I can get you your very own copy of "A Few Days One Summer" for just. . . probably $900 with tax and shipping.  Not a penny of it goes into my coffers.  And you'll get almost every photograph I made at the beach in 2009 in a 12"x12" book, each and every photograph reproduced ten inches square.

That seemed a little pricey, though, so I went through the photographs, cut their number, and let some pages of the book carry more than one photograph. 

Here's that same 12" book abridged for aroune $200.  I can get you the 8.5"x8.5" edition for just over $100, but I think some of the photos may be a bit small.  Still. . . the price.  

New edition.  I think it is done. 

That is pretty much what I did on a cloudy/rainy Sunday afternoon.  I didn't realize that when I was finished, the prices would be out of reach.  I'll have to buy one of the "A Few Days One Summer," though, just to see.  

I would print the images in 5"x5" on delicate paper and put them into 10" frames for a show, but framing is very expensive.  Twenty frames and mats would set me back a bit.  I have two of them in my house, and they look very nice.  I would have a darn hard time, though, trying to whittle 20 photos out of the group. 

I have a doctor's appointment in an hour.  The closer this thing has gotten, the higher my blood pressure is.  I should be worried, too.  I'm not the healthy boy I was last time after doing a six weeks Dry January.  I did one this year, too, and should have had a February check-up, but I've put it off as long as I can.  Now we'll see what sort of damage this past year and a half of caretaking has done to me.  

I guess I'm resigned.  

I don't know if I'll bother putting together a book of street photos knowing how pricey that book would be.  But. . . something occurred to me yesterday that seemed a capital idea.  If you've been a team member here for a good long while, you're aware that my mother threw away all the negatives from my 1975 Kerouac Tour of the country by bus and thumb.  All that is left are some degenerating proof sheets and a few small work prints. I've scanned them all and worked hard in Photoshop to reproduce them in the digital world, but they are pretty bad.  But!  What if I took those digital prints into ChatGPT and had them "fixed" and made into good, rich prints?  I can do that, I think.  I will start on that in the next few days just to see. 

O.K.  I'm off to see the hangman.  Here's hoping.  

Saturdays

I spent a lot of yesterday trying to organize images from my surfer series to make a book.  I got. . . nowhere.  I wrote an introduction that I later trashed, and I made the cover.  I am putting the book together with Mixbook which is, by almost all accounts, the best of its type  It is the same company that I used to make the "Lonesomeville" copy that still needs revision.  For that book, I printed out every image I would use, laid them out on the living room floor, and arranged them.  Maybe I'll need to do that with the surfer pictures, too, because I've been trying to do it on the computer screen and it doesn't seem to be working.  

I am an organizational mess.  I really need someone to do this with me.  Or for me.  

I've decided to make this book, though, and to re-edit "Lonesomeville" and then put together a second "Lonesomeville" made from the digital camera photos.  Then I want to make a street photo book and maybe some travel photo books, too.  

Ambitious for a man who lacks real decision-making skills about anything concerning himself.   

Once I've made them, I'll let you know.  I might sell you one.  Not for profit, just to cover the cost.  Mixbook ain't doing this for free.  

I tried to get out and maybe make some more pictures yesterday, but things went south.  I thought to go to the great Farmer's Market in a distant town, but when I left my mother's house, the day had already grown muggy.  I decided to drive back to my own home and see what I felt like doing.  

I decided to go to the Saatva store on the Boulevard.

I am finally accepting after all this time the hard truth that my mother will live forever and I will be staying in her house until I die, so. . . I need a decent bed.  I've been sleeping on an air mattress here for years, now.  I didn't realize they could "go bad," but an article I read told me that they do--and quickly.  How, I wondered?  It's just air.  How does air become lumpy?  But I know something happens because I've been trying to sleep "uphill" on this thing for a long time.  

Saatva mattresses are always among the most highly rated, especially the one they call "The Classic."  At the store, I was invited to try it.  

It seemed too soft.  When I was in China, every bed I slept on was very, very firm, and I slept the sleep of the dead.  I like a firm mattress.  I don't want to sink into it.  So I tried a few more.  The one I liked was the firmest and, also, the most expensive.  

I may get an adjustable bed frame, too.  I don't know.  I told the nice lady thanks, etc.  

I decided to walk the Boulevard.  I am afraid to tell you what I saw, but there were hundreds of them, all brand new.  

I don't want to be old anymore. 

I went to the bookstore.  Apparently people still love buying books.  Or at least looking at them.  The place was shoulder to shoulder with bibliophiles.  I couldn't get close to the new book display.  I split. 

Back on the street, I walked slowly toward the car.  They come to the Brandy Melville store on the weekends, the older ones in groups of three or four, the younger ones with a parent who doesn't mind them dressing in that manner.  The groups of older ones are delirious, the younger ones with a parent self-conscious and worried.  

I crossed the street to walk parkside.  Across the paddock was the Saturday market.  My hometown, once a quiet village, has become a weekend "destination."  Women's clothing, bars, and restaurants.  Five jewelry stores.  Three expensive sunglass shops.  A flower shop has replaced the art gallery at the end of the Boulevard.  The gallery selling sparkly, shiny mall art, paintings of dolphins and the like, stays busy.  The national chain brands have begun to move back.  Country Club College is building a large art museum on the back side of the Boulevard.  They are investing in some other projects around town as well.  It is still a pretty little town, but the money keeps pouring in, and we all know the consequences of that. 

When I got back to the car, I was very hungry, which is unusual.  I go most days without eating much before dinner, but right then, food seemed imperative.  I decided to drive across town to get a sandwich at the brewery that sells Punks lager.  Camera at the ready.  

I made two passes through the small parking lot.  Not a chance.  Even the disabled parking spaces were filled.  That sandwich was not in the cards.  

I drove to a Chick-fil-A near my house and took home a chicken sandwich.  Much cheaper, of course.  

The rest of the day was spent wrestling with the surf project.  The rains came.  

The afternoon waned.  I tried calling my mother to see what she wanted for dinner, but her phone was still not accepting calls.  It was later than usual, so I drove straight back to her house. She was fine. 

"What have you done to your phone?"

"I didn't do anything."

Somehow, she had turned on "Airplane Mode."

"WTF?"

"I didn't do it."

It was late.  I hadn't been to the grocery store, so I made a quick meal of spaghetti noodles, tuna, peas, and garlic.  We usually like this light meal, but somehow last night I fucked it up.  It was not very good at all. 

"I think I've lost my ability to cook," I said.  

"Yes."

"Maybe you need someone else to prepare your meals."

"What?"

She hadn't heard anything I'd said.  She just bobs her head and says yes when people talk now.  

After dinner, we tried two new series on Netflix or Amazon Prime.  I don't remember.  We watched about twenty minutes of the first one and ten of the second.  Neither of them interested us, so I gave her back her commercial t.v. and went off to read.  

Saturday night.  Somewhere out there, people get together, tell stories, laugh, lie.  I guess.  I work the morning, late afternoon, and night shifts.  I haven't been out for a very long time.  But I was never much for going out, really.  The best Saturday nights were spent in my studio working on pictures, editing or printing or just sitting and thinking.  Sometimes, the artist in the studio behind me would be working, too, and we'd stop and have a drink together on the loading dock.  Good restaurants and bars were all around, and we could feel the energy and sometimes hear people laughing.  The Boulevard was a short ten minute walk away.  It might be early.  It might be late.  Maybe we'd say goodnight and head our separate ways or maybe one or both of us would go back to work.  It was not lonely.  There was everything everywhere around us.  Sometimes, if the weather was nice and I had the doors open, music playing, people would poke their heads in to see what the place was about.  They'd see the pictures on the wall, and sometimes I'd invite them in and photograph them.  

Sometimes it might be a friend.  

It was a time of creativity and enchantment.

I'll try working on the surf project again this afternoon, or maybe I will re-edit "Lonesomeville."  That is simply a matter of replacing a few of the images that I somehow duplicated.  There are people who want a copy of that, I know.  And then I will go to the grocery store before returning to my mother's where I will make a delicious beef stew.  I have to prove that I can still cook.  

I'm not sure.  I may have given you this song before.  It's o.k., though.  It goes well with a Sunday morning.  I think I'll make French toast.  

Disability

I just wrote for an hour.  It was horrible writing.  Now it is gone, and I am on my fourth attempt at writing a retraction.  Can't manage it.  I'll have to let writing go for today and hope this is not a permanent disability.  I promise, it is a terrifying thing.  Without words, good ones, what are we?  Half human, half beast, subject to primal gruntings and wailings.    

See?  Strained, stupid stuff.  

Bad juju.  And so, until the words return. . . . 

Who Wants to Read about a Very Good Man?

I don't think I've ever had a pumpkin spice latte or other drink of any type.  Man alive, though, I am enjoying little pieces of pumpkin croissants I've been getting at the grocery store bakery.  I know, I know, but just little bites with my coffee.  It is a simple pleasure.  

And now on to the news. 

"Fool me once, that's o.k.  Fool me twice, MAGA likes it that way."

I read the Times, WaPo, and CNN in the morning, so I get a certain political slant.  They have all been suggesting that democrats can or will have a very good November election.  I'm sorry, but I hear echoes of Hillary for Prez running all through those stories.  I don't trust them at all.  When push comes to shove and people have to choose between a lying, cheating, sycophantic republican candidate and an identity politics/social change democratic candidate, privately putting check marks in the boxes. . . .

But can you imagine the noise around the country and around the globe the day Trump leaves office?  And all bets are on him leaving before the end of his term.  

I'll not cheer a Vance presidency, though, that's for sure.  

Random stuff.  Remember how we thought the internet was so wonderful, then cable t.v.?  And then what happened?  Yea.  You know the same thing is going to happen to A.I.  It already is.  There is gold in them hills, and somebody is going to have to dig it our for the massas.  It won't be long before only the very rich or the very corrupt can access "real" A.I.  The rest of us will be running on A.I. Lite.  Just wait. You'll see.  

But not everything is awful.  In a bit, we'll be able to watch a man killed by a firing squad right in our own homes.  And I'm wondering--will sports bars carry it live?  Not the ones that show soccer for liberals.  The other ones with all the big tvs showing MMA, NASCAR, and the NFL.  Those are republican bars, by and large.  MAGA country.  Same crowd that is on TRT.  Hegseth's boys.  

I must confess, I have the NYT open on another page, and I'm just scrolling for my next idea. 

There's a lot on the Cornell story.  I'm not touching this.  I know what you think based on which sports bar you go to.  Same goes for the French riots and what is going on in Spain.  

Cultures collide!

There was another big article on the Cormac McCarthy bio today.  Oh, my. . . he seems to have been a very bad man.  I may have to subscribe to Vincenti Barney's Substack page to see what he has uncovered.  I mean, really, who wants to read about a very good man?  

A few posts ago, I told you about the t.v. series, "East of Eden."  I said it was better than most things on tv right now.  Well, people have gotten crazy for it.  I read something about the series or the book every day.  As I've often said, Steinbeck was a crisp observer and reporter.  He could tell a good story.  But, I think, there is no "Steinbeck" style.  He's easier to read than is McCarthy.  Steinbeck's novel is a real page turner.  If you dig deep enough into his bio, you will find it reported that he was a "sadistic womanizer" and a volatile man.  

So there's that.  

But let's end on a high note.  Last night, randomly, I chose to watch "Small Prophets."  Holy mackerel!  I am scared to recommend this six part series after having watched only two episodes, for I fear it is going to go south on me, but. . . it is really very, very good.  I'll let you know more after I watch another episode.  But yea. . . it speaks my melancholic language.  

And sings my melancholy mood.  

Intangible Grey

One step further, another picture.  A street ballet, of sorts, with a suburban soundtrack.  A poetry of space and light in an everyday world.  

Or simply another mundane snapshot of nothing.  

Whatever.  I like it.  

I just made a long diatribe against the adult mania for Halloween.  It's been going on for months, it seems, twenty foot skeletons and little robotic monsters in neighborhoods around town.  Obviously some pathology in our social psyche. . . but I did you a favor.  

Delete.  

Without much else to say.  Can't think of a thing.  The drizzling rain continues, a softness of intangible grey.  Rods rather than cones.  You know what I mean.  

Maybe I'll buy a rain jacket today--if one is on sale.  I don't have a rain jacket.  Long ago I did when I was constantly in nature, hiking, climbing, but the GoreTex peeled away for some reason and I have never replaced it.  I am not cheap really, but a rain jacket is something I can most times do without.  There are more exciting things on which to spend my money, less practical things.  Yea. . . I probably won't buy one.  I have a poncho somewhere that cost a couple bucks.  I don't think I've ever used it, but it should be fine.  

I really have nothing to write today which means nothing really bad is happening or on my mind, and that's o.k.  

Oh, my--I just remember what I had planned on writing today.  NYC and women.  Yes.  I'll have to save that until tomorrow or later.  I have not pulled together the photos yet.  Just a few.  But I've been sitting here writing and deleting for an hour, and now it is time to prepare breakfast for my mother.  

It's all good.  

Such Sweet Thunder

I wanted to find a warm, cozy picture of home to post today, but, as you know, I am not at home and all my images are, and I figured I needed color today but not bright colors, and so. . . this is all I had.  It does not really go with what I wanted to write about, though.  Now I'll see if what I write is influenced by the photo at the top or if I can. . . whatever.  

It is rainy here in the Sunny South, cloudy with a drizzle, not the tropical downpours we often have.  It is autumn rain, I'd guess.  After the gym, where I had the longest aerobic--oops--cardio--workout that I have had in months, I went home and put on the university jazz station and poured Epsom Salts into a hot tub.  And there I lay for a very long time.  Followed by a hot shower, after which, I was noodle limp.  The music was perfect, real rainy day jazz, and played on and on and on without a single mistake.  The slow, low light from the overcast sky barely shown through the windows, the house lit by many small lamps making pools of warm light.  A small lunch of crushed sardines with crackers and Sriracha sauce.  Then the big chair in the t.v. room, me facing the bookshelves and the passage to the kitchen, the the panels of the glass kitchen door and the big windows above the sink.  I sat for a very long time pretending I lived in my own home again, just sitting and looking and thinking, remembering, planning.  It was the closest I've come to bliss in a very long time.  

Oh, Christ, how I miss my home.  

The phone rang.  It was my mother.  She had gone to breakfast with the neighborhood gang which had released me from making breakfast and had wonderfully elongated my day.  But, she said, I had not left her pills.  Bliss shattered.  Reality intrusion. 

"O.K.  I'm sorry.  I'll be back in a bit."

It was difficult leaving the house, the light, the music. . . the buzz. . . but outside the day was still mellow with a misty rain and the university radio was still playing beautifully.  I drove slowly through my part of town with it's oak lined streets and the richer landscaping, the winding streets. . . .  The phone rang.  

"You need to stop and get me some whiskey!"

As I've said, she isn't drinking beer any longer.  In truth, I don't know what holds her up.  Narcotics and whiskey and whatever other pain relievers she gobbles during the day.  But as the doctor said, he can't really treat her, so let's just try to manage the pain.  I guess that is what we do.

Going from my house to my mother's house is like moving from a beautiful old private club to the lobby of a Holiday Inn.  I had the evening groceries and the whiskey.  I gave my mother the pills she should have had three hours before.  She was in obvious pain.  She downed the pills with a whiskey and coke as I got the rice cooker going.  I washed and cut the broccoli and cut the cod into bite sized pieces and put them in a bowl with a cracked egg and let them soak.  I washed my hands and made the cocktail I thought all afternoon to eschew.  Like my mother, we can't cure my predicament, so we try to manage the pain.  I took the drink to the garage/porch to watch the dying of the day.  

Sitting in the garage, I remembered that I had once wanted to live in a big metal hanger in the desert.  Twenty foot arched ceiling, open at both ends, sitting at the end of the day with a cold beer watching the sunset.  The garage is a bit like that, I thought.  As close as I would get to that old dream that I had picked up somewhere long ago from an unremembered movie.  I was still, I guess, wrapped in the aura of the day.  

At dinner, I asked my mother if she had fun at breakfast.  "No," she said.  She couldn't hear what anybody was saying.  It was just noise.  Her hearing aids weren't worth a damn.  She had two pieces of worthless toast and "scrambled eggs that weren't worth a shit."  Twelve dollars, she said.  I agreed that eating out anywhere had gotten expensive but that eating at Perkins was never going to be worth the money you spend.  I was looking ahead to Friday hoping to get away for another quick sushi dinner on my own.  

Today's weather will be like yesterday's.  I hope to feel some blissful peace again, but you know how that goes.  Same river twice.  

Driving from my home back to my mother's, this song came on the radio.  It is an old Duke Ellington tune done well.  I love Ellington, but this version has just a bit more kick to it.  If you click on it, give it a minute.  The intro doesn't really sell the song so very well, but thirty seconds in, if you have an old soul, the damn thing will get you.  

The Load

I've been wearing a heavy hat that has weighed me down for awhile now.  You don't know me, but I will confess to you now that I am a terrible coward.  I am also a man with an immense ability for imaginative thinking.  This last part is surely largely due to my being an only child.  I grew up quiet in rural Ohio and then in my own home state.  As an only child, you must entertain yourself much of the time.  You have to make up things to do without playmates.  Often, I would take things I'd seen and make up games.  Take Tarzan and King Kong, for instance.  The movies.  Daring and adventure.  I'd play Tarzan on a rope tied to the branch of a tree.  I'd imagine I was on Kong Island.  How'd that work out?  As an adult, I slept in the jungles of the Amazon alone with natives in their jungle camp.  WTF?  I watched Sea Hunt and floated around in the clear coastal waters off the beaches of south Florida where seahorses and fish with tattered brown skin that mimicked the Sargassum weed thrilled me.  The result?  Later, I would get lost in underwater caves at 150 feet, and flub decompression charts on deeper dives where I almost made a mistake that could have paralyzed me.  Again, double WTF?  

There are a million more examples.  Later I would realize that I enjoyed the pretending most.  

So. . . when a spot popped up on my arm a couple weeks ago that was small and red and crusty, my mind went into overdrive.  It itched and burned at times.  It was on the skin above my elbow, the one I can't straighten fully after busting it up in a kick boxing gym, the one that has bad arthritis in it, the one that was hurting from straining it too much in the gym.  The pain was shooting, and so I imagined for certain that the spot was melanoma and it had metastasized and spread into the bone.  

Stop it.  I'm confessing here.  

I called the dermatologist's office, but I couldn't get in for five days.  I was sure this was a fatal delay.  The spot seemed to be growing, the bones hurting now down my forearm and into my hand.  I was sick with it.  What if I had to go to the hospital?  What would happen to my mother?  What if I had days to live?  I had a student once who died within days of being admitted to the hospital with melanoma.  Only a couple. He was a big, blonde, handsome boy, a real charmer.  When the other students learned of this, they were devastated.  There was no time for planning.  I've never planned anything.  What would happen to my house, my money, my stuff?  There were things I thought of destroying before I died.  Did I want to leave all those journals, the pictures. . . the evidence of what had been my life without me there to defend it?  

I was having trouble moving from room to room the dread was so deep.  I was using the last of my Xanax to cope.  

Yes, yes. . . I am telling this for your amusement.  

I even bought some Willie's Remedy.  I asked A.I. if it was different than other THC drinks that I don't like because they make my heart race and me paranoid.  A.I. told me Willie's wouldn't do that because they use more cannabinoids so you don't get the THC dump.  

Uh, just an aside--it is true.  Willie's is rather gentle, but know that it sneaks up on you.  It begins in about fifteen minutes, but it keeps growing for about an hour.  Just one shot over ice.  It didn't make me paranoid, only stupid.  It's ok for sleeping.  

Yesterday, I had my appointment with the doc.  

"How are you?"

"We'll see."

I showed him the spot.  

"You're lucky," he said.  "It is a pre-cancer.  I'm just going to freeze it off."

He sprayed it with liquid nitrogen.  

"Leave it alone.  You can put some petroleum jelly on it if you like.  Don't scratch it.  It will heal in about ten days."

I stripped and he checked the rest of me.  No other problems.  Just old skin. 

The weight was lifted and I was fairly filled with helium as I floated across the parking lot to my car.  I called my mother to tell her.  She had been worried. . . about her.  She had called my cousin on the coast to tell her so that she would come take care of her if I went to the hospital.  

I was happy for mom.  

I drove back to my house, sat in the car for a minute, then decided to celebrate.  I went to the Cafe for a strawberry French soda.  

When I got back to my mother's later in the day, she said, "Prayer works."

"Not always," I said.  "When I was a boy, we all prayed the school would burn down, but it was fireproof."

The entire incident, the fear, then the despair, the wishing and hoping and, yes, the praying, reminded me of the old joke about the desperate man betting his last dollars on a horse.  The horse is doing well around the first turn, and is running second down the far stretch.  "Oh, God, please, please, please let him win," the man pleads.  As they come around the last turn, the man's horse begins to take the lead.  "Oh, God, oh God. . . please, please, please. . . ."  Coming down the home stretch, the horse takes a commanding lead and the man's mood begins to lighten, and without thinking he shouts, "O.K., God,  I'll take it from here."  

Yea.  I felt like indulging in some guilty pleasures.  

"You look a lot happier," my mother said as I made a cocktail.  

But just the one.  After dinner, I would have a Willie's.  

And so. . . the photo.  This girl was experiencing joy close to rapture.  She had just gotten a Haagen Das ice cream and was skipping and grinning with childhood pleasure.  She made me laugh.  That is how I felt leaving the doctor's office, so the picture seemed apropos today.  

After dinner and after cleaning up, I sat down to keep my mother company for the evening.  We watch t.v.  After the news, I usually watch some crazy shit on YouTube for awhile before I put on a program we can share.  For the past few days, we've been watching "East of Eden" on Netflix.  I wouldn't give it a high recommendation, but it was better than many things on t.v.  It is Steinbeck's take of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel, and the postlapsarian world set in early 20th century Salinas.  

But before that, I watch brief things about photography or sailing or a lot of strange Japanese food things. I have become a Japanophile.  Here is what I watched last night.  I've watched several of these.  They are strangely calming and seductive to me, a sort of quiet existential moral ceremony to succor the soul in a spiritually chaotic world. 

Try it.  You might like it, too.  

"Gonads!"

In a 1971 Town Hall meeting to discuss Norman Mailer's "Prisoner of Sex," Cynthia Ozick rose from the audience with a question about Mailer's statement he'd written in "Advertisement for Myself": “a good novelist can do without everything but the remnant of his balls.”  To his credit, I think, Mailer was demure, almost pixie-like and disarming when he said he had written some pretty stupid things and that was surely one of them (link).  He ceded the point to Ozick.  

The photographer Robert Capa famously said, "If your photographs aren't good enough, you are not close enough."  

About this photograph, I would say, "Balls!"

I forced myself to make a little outing yesterday with camera in hand.  You can't make photographs if your not taking photographs.  So I've been told. 

Read some biographies of writers and artists and what do you discover?  Right? 

I read a review of the new, first biography written about Cormac McCarthy (link).  Uh-oh.  Sounds like the man might have had some flaws.  Huh.  

I got an email from my buddy Vincenzo Barney.  Just kidding.  We are not buddies.  We've just corresponded a couple times.  I'm sure he remembers.  

"I am very pleased to announce the sale of Augusta: an American Muse to Claiborne Hancock and Jessica Case at Pegasus Books."

 I had to Google that.  

"Pegasus Publishers (also known as Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie) is a hybrid/vanity press rather than a standard traditional publisher, meaning authors often have to pay fees for publication services."

So much for that.  What Barney wants is for me to subscribe to his Substack page so I can read all about the things he's learned from materials not available to others, especially those stodgy academics.  I told him they wouldn't like him, that they would come after tooth and nail.  But I didn't think that in the end he would have to publish on a vanity press.  

 Dirt.  

I've almost finished the Salter bio.  Yea.  These two are among my favorite contemporary writers.  Each is a stylist.  Each was a bit of a dandy.  They had similar passions that will problematize their legacies.  I have to separate the writing from the writer in both cases.  I met Salter.  No bueno.  I wish I would have met McCarthy, too.  

Why are creative people so problematic?  

I guess you have to tip your hat to someone like Edward Hopper, though I have never read a lengthy biography about him, but he stayed married to his wife and used her as the female model for almost all his paintings.  He didn't talk much, I understand.  God knows what was going on in that noggin of his.  

I guess there are great painters of still lifes.  But, so it seems to me, a writer has to be interested in the very darkest of human psyches.  Students used to ask me why all the stories were so troubling.  I would tell them a story about a little boy who did everything he was supposed to do.  I'd throw in some temptations to which he never succumbed.  At the end, I'd see the disappointment in their faces.  

"How's that?  What did you learn from that tale?"

Then I'd give them some Bible tales.  You know the ones.  The darkest of dark.  

"Y'all are destined to be pillars of salt. I can tell that already."

But I always ended with a caveat.  

"Maybe you'd like to write, but how many of you would like to live the life of a writer?"

And there's the rub.  Art without suffering?  Uh-huh.  Maybe you should think about being a scholar or a critic instead.  

C.C. is in NYC taking pictures of funky places and characters.  I'm wandering around farmers markets trying to find something of note among the t-shirt, shorts, and athletic shoe crowd.  If you look close enough, though, you can find the danger there.  They are all terrorists in their own way.  There is always danger in a crowd.  

I asked one of the booth owners yesterday how much she was paying to rent her space.  Forty dollars, she said.  What?!  Only forty-dollars?  Oh, my.  Why haven't I set up my photo booth already.  I need to get on that, I think.  My pulse fairly quickens. 

You Can't Win with a Losing Hand

Have you talked with anyone about the Cornell fiasco? Want some advice? Don't. It won't turn out well.

I'm not.  But here is my takeaway.  Don't have sex with another person.  Almost everything that can happen is bad.  I know the attraction.  I know the allure.  But let's look at the possible outcomes.  

If you are lucky, it will be fun.  If you are not, it will be unsatisfactory or even embarrassing.  Bad sex is awkward at best.  But let's say it was great.  

You might pick up an STD.  There are many.  You won't know for awhile.  If you are lucky, you will get one that can be cleared up with an antibiotic.  If you are not, it might take years before the disease raises it's ugly head.  AIDS.  Cervical cancer.  Throat cancer.  

There is always the danger of the jealous boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife.  There is likely some disgruntled person in your lovers history, and if you are lucky, you'll only get your car keyed or a beer bottle thrown through the living room window.  

Of course, there is always the chance of a pregnancy.  Oh, shit.  Now what?  You have two options, keep the baby or abort.  If you keep the baby, do you marry or just be a baby daddy/momma?  Either way, you will be tied to that person for life.  

Now there are economic considerations.  

But if you decide to marry, you will most likely get divorced.  Then a court will decide who gets what, and the kid will be shuttled back and forth between homes.  Bad for everyone.  And, in the course of things, you will gain a husband or wife-in-law, and your child will be partially raised by someone you don't really know. It becomes a four-parent parlay.  

If you are lucky, you will stay married.  Sometimes, that is not so lucky.  There are plenty of marriages that have been maintained long after the love has faded.  And that is why we are always so amazed to see a couple still together and in love after thirty or forty years.  It happens, but it is rare.  

And, of course, there is the crapshoot of how the kid will turn out.  Too much there to go into.  

In the end, what are the chances of something good happening?  I don't have Vegas odds on it, but I'd say they are low.  Boys, better keep your pecker in your pants, by and large.  

The other issue that the Cornell situation raises is where you get into the crazy conversation, and I am loathe to bring it up. . . but. . . how many times have you had sex when you were drinking or getting high?  How often do you have sober sex?  I tried calculating my own sex history.  It is much smaller than yours in number of partners, I'm sure, but I think I'm often in my cups.  I'd say this has become a dangerous feature.  Sex and alcohol or other drugs are now a legal matter.  Drinking and driving might have lesser consequences than drinking and fucking.  

Just saying.  

Somewhere down the road, somebody might claim they weren't able to make rational decisions.  

"How drunk were you on a scale of one to ten?"

Whatever you do, don't supply the substances.  One of the things I hear clearly is "they gave me."

Sex, my friends, should put the fear in you.  When it goes bad, there is no going back.  

Now I know many of you are going to scoff or criticize this post.  You're going to say you've had lots of good sex with no bad consequences.  I know it's true.  But one day you might just hear a distant voice crying out, "He did sex to me!"  

And so, I think it is understandable that Gen Z has eschewed alcohol and is having far less sex than former generations.  As the song goes, "those were different times."  We live in the new era of "looksmaxing" and ultimate fighting.  This generation is the most physically beautiful and athletically talented ever to strut the planet.  Maybe there are lessons to be learned.

But all this is an easy pill for me to swallow.  I've always been more sensual than sexual anyway.  I love the way things look and smell and taste.  It thrills me.  

And I've always been a cuddler. 

But you do you.  I'm not telling--I'm just saying:

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

Dylan wrote it all in his own Nobel Prize prophetic way.   

A Pain in the Neck

 This post will be a hodgepodge of unrelated things.  My mind is unwell.  I'm trying to deal with a whole lot of pain that is keeping me from sleeping.  I may have told you before that I was run over on my Vespa. Yea.  Well, in my efforts to overcome the disabilities and disfunction on the left side of my body, I have overdone it, and now my shoulder, scapula, and ribs are causing me terrible pain, and I've "pinched" a nerve in my neck that sends shock waves every time I try lifting or turning my head.  I'm still attempting to be Mighty Mouse at this late date, I guess.  I am going to need to stay out of the gym for awhile now until this things mends itself. 

If it will. 

And what causes me to try to be Mighty Mouse?  When I get up in the night and walk naked to the bathroom, there are mirrors and I see my body from every angle.  Woe is me.  It shocks me each and every time.  I look like Arnold Schwarzenegger now.  Not the good one but the current version.  Have you seen him.  Oh, my.  Nature abhors. .  . something.  

I could go into more detail, but I know you've already checked out on this, so. . . .

It is the weekend, and there are lots of sports for me to ignore.  As I say often, I can't stand the commercialism.  But the NY Times ran an article about the unifying power of rooting for a team.  Brings people of differing ideologies together.  Apparently, it is good for the community.  I say it would be better if there was not so much money involved.  But that's just me.  

Probably.  

The Times also had an article about Elder Care.  Oh, boy, I was very interested, and it started off well enough.  Apparently people love putting their parents into care homes.  Then I got to this:

Care managers don’t come cheap. Ms. Wagner said association members’ hourly rates range from $150 to $350, with big geographic variations. In Texas, Mir’s standard rate is $185 an hour, billed in 15-minute increments. In Washington, Ms. Murphy’s practice charges $210 an hour.

I should have been a rock star so I could afford this. 

Speaking of rock stars, who in the fuck made Michael McDonald a "rock legend," and why are they making such a fuss about his offspring?  

We don't need them anymore anyway.  Let's see if I can gift you another Times article. I have no idea if you were able to open the last one. 

www.nytimes.com

If not, selavy.  It is an article pitting professional musicians against A.I. to create a song.  It took A.I. about ten seconds to make what I consider to be a much better song than the musicians made after a week in the studio. And the A.I. "musicians" didn't spawn any "illegitimate" babies to be put up for adoption.  

Just saying. 

Which I shouldn't.   People have become dangerously judgey.  I say things in a casual manner that people want to argue about and debate.  WTF?  I thought I was talking to friends.  You know. . . you say things to friends that you wouldn't say professionally.  You let your guard down.  Friends know you are kidding or just thinking out loud.  I talk like that here, but I get letters of complaint about my ideology.  Fuck me.  It doesn't pay to let anyone know what is on your mind unless you are certain everyone will agree (The Simpsons).  

Were I better at writing fiction. . . . 

I wish I had more power of conviction, but I don't.  I can always easily change sides in an argument or run my own out to its most absurd logic.  It's called revision, I think.  What I've always thought was great about being human is that you can always change your mind.  No idealogue, I.  

Like many men of the Rocky Marciano era,  father couldn't stand Mohamed Ali--until he could.  

As are most of my friends these days, C.C. is out of town.  He's living in Brooklyn for awhile.  He wrote that he was making some shoot from the hip photos with his iPhone, trying it out.  He sent this to me.  Sure.  Fuck me.  Were I in NYC. . . .

Old C.C is one of the last people who doesn't judge me for all the stupid shit I find hilarious.  Oh, sure, he'll correct me, but that is different.  It is fun. It's different from taking a stand against the thing.  The one is like a punch in the arm.  The other is like getting sucker punched when you are relaxed.  

God, I hate that.  

Right now, I'm hating the pain in my shoulder and neck while I'm keyboarding.  

Here is a thing.  If you have IG, you'll be able to view it.  If not, too bad for you. I tried to find it on YouTube but couldn't.  I sent this to some people I know.  I want to live this life, of course.  Maybe you'll come, too.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbF4V5rsusr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&stkn=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Should We Talk about the Weather?

I'm getting to this late today.  People have lots to say about the Cornell thing.  I won't say who. . . but it is a real ongoing concern.  I'll give you part of the takeaway--I have never liked fraternities.  They are like cults.  You'd best think what the group thinks and be very, very loyal.  

That's my generalization for the day.  I get one, right?  

It's now Camille Paglia vs. the Mullahs.  How do we keep women "safe"?  

Men are dangerous, there is little question about that.  And when they are rebuffed they become Vladimir Putin.  The little man is now threatening the west with nuclear war if he doesn't get his way.  What to do?  Do we just lift our kimonas, or do we fight?  

As I've said so often this year, someone will drop "the big one" soon.  There are too many nukes in the world for all for all of them to lay dormant.  I've thought it would be that rapist Trump, but maybe it will be that evil little fellow in Russia who does it first.  Will Western Europe just roll over, lie there, and take the assault?  

Sure they will.  What choice do the weak have?  

Oh, sure, one can put up the heroic but useless fight.  

We live in dangerous times, and now, for all the moaning, faced with the possibility of permanent destruction, people begin to see how much they love their meager existences, their comfortable habits and homes.  Their cars and tvs and take-out dinners. 

Who wants to challenge the aggressor?  

It's a hell of a time to be young.  But you know, they are the ones least tied to the way things are.  They want change.  They want a different world. 

If you believe the "fake news."  

Wow.  Now there is a ramble.  

"What in the hell are you saying?"

I'm trying hard not to say much.  I'll let you all discuss this among yourselves.  I have many troubles so much closer to home to take care of.  

Let's change the subject.  How about the weather?  

No, no, that's no good. 

Sports?  

Here's something.  I just got a text from a film professor who is shooting a scene today.

I am filming a scene from the film Closer today.  The scene features a Photograph.  We don’t have a photograph.  The photograph is supposed to be of strangers photographed beautiful.   Any chance you want to bring a photograph or three up to Fullsail and have your work featured in the scene?

Indeed, not.  I have some NYC street scenes that are printed 32"x24" that would work, but I can't get them to him today.  I have to take my mother to a cardiology appointment in the middle of the day.  No time to go to my house, retrieve them, then drive them out to him.  

Bummer.  There goes my moment in cinema.  

Such is my life.  

Friday.  The weather is dull. Rain is in the offing, so they say.  It will last through the weekend.  Don't know what to do, really.  Perhaps I'll get a pizza for me and ma tonight.  There's something.  A real celebration.  

I'll not bitch.  It beats living in a nuclear wasteland, doesn't it?  

All the Difference

Quandary.  I have two things about which I can write today, but they have nothing to do with one another.  There is no way to bring them together, so I must decide with which I should begin and see where that leads.  Sometimes, during the course of creation, an idea will occur to me and I find some, even if meager, kind of union.  

I doubt that can happen today.  

I will start with this.  

This is a photograph by Deana Lawson.  It may be Lawson, but I'm not sure.  She is being hailed as "one of photography's greatest portraitists" (link).  I've come to find that some of you heathens do not subscribe to the Times and cannot open many of my links, so I've tried to "gift" the article to you today.  I don't know if that will work, but. . . .  

Included in the article about the great portraitist is this image, which can, I assume, be considered a portrait by what is absent.  The caption for this photograph proclaims that it was taken "during a sun shower in southern Alabama’s Black Belt region."  

"Typically, Lawson’s shoots, which she has orchestrated around the world, can take days or even years, if you include the time between when she meets someone on the subway or the street and when she persuades them to pose as she wants them to: nude, or nursing, or in nature or wearing a gold spray-painted mouthpiece."

I stumbled upon the site of another photographer, Patricio Reig, yesterday (link), whose work I was instantly drawn to, and after perusing his work for a bit, I ordered one of his books (link).  

Lawson's new work, the article explains, is a divergence from how she has been working.  In her new series, she walks into shops that have surveillance pictures of people wanted for varying crimes like shoplifting.  "The Wall of Shame."  She enters with a medium format camera and a powerful flash and snaps photos of the images without asking permission then leaves.  She then prints the images in manipulated form, pictures of pictures.

"Here, she was capturing women in a moment of defiance — allegeddefiance — but also subjugation: They were the accused, the shamed, the unwitting targets of a hidden camera. In the arrangement on her wall, the photos evoked a series of mug shots. None of the women pictured had given permission. The finished work is being shown in Lawson’s debut exhibition at Gagosian, one of the world’s most elite galleries, where it opened in September and closes late this month."

 I think maybe I have found a way to connect the two disparate things I wanted to tell you today. 

I was sitting in the Cafe Strange on Tuesday while the cleaning crew was at my house.  I sat at a long table next to a girl reading a book, a chair separating the distance between us.  She had long, curly dark hair falling in ringlets just below her shoulders, a pair of glasses resting on her rather large nose which was not unattractive.  She was small, petite, and wore an oversized plaid shirt over her yoga top.  She was, I guessed, of Indian extraction. 

Down the table in the opposite direction sat a boy also reading a book.  He looked a little like a downstream yuppie, t-shirt, good hair.  In a bit, he got up and came to sit across from the girl.  He asked her about the book she was reading.  I thought that the two of the were in high school.  Their conversation was rather, like, cool, you know.  In a bit, I realized they had not met until now. 

"What do you do?"

"I am at the university."

What?!  She was a graphic arts major graduating in a semester.  He had graduated with a degree in business.  They talked about books and movies, none of them of any matter, in adult tones and adolescent vocabularies.  He was all confidence.  She was demure, soft spoken, kind.  After awhile, he asked her for her phone number.  Holy smokes, I thought. . . but she declined.  

"Oh. . . o.k. . . . that's cool."

He got up and went back to his end of the table.  I could feel myself blushing.  Then they were each on their phones typing furiously, she with a grin, he not.  

After awhile, they both got back to their books, and I was thinking that was exactly the reason I never have asked a girl out.  If I were that boy, I'd have wanted to hang myself.  I won't chance rejection. 

In a bit, though, the girl got up, packed her things, and walked shyly over to the boy.  I could not hear the words she spoke, but I could hear the shy lilt in her voice.  Then she showed him her phone, and he copied her number into his own.  Well, now. . . a smooth operator.  

I watched the girl leave through the big plate glass windows, and saw her get into a car with a woman I assumed was her mother.  When I got up to leave, the boy was still sitting, typing on his phone.  All I could do is wonder how that would all work out.  

And now, the hook.  If I had been Lawson, I might have given them my card, told them I had overheard their conversation, and would like to photograph them together after they hook up.  

That's what I should have done.  

But I didn't.  And I am not in galleries or museums.  

And that makes all the difference.  

Defining

What is life and what is consciousness are questions too big for the blog.  Right?  Still, we ponder.  Viruses, for instance, are not considered "living" creatures, but they are truly clever, "figuring out" how to steal human genes into their own DNA in order to infect us in various ways.  Is that intelligence?  And though Artificial Intelligence is not a sentient being, I am beginning to wonder, does it have an id?  An ego?  A superego?  Well, I'd rule out the last of these so far.  But that it can lie, cheat, and steal tells me something.  

Every definition comes into question.  What is desire?  

The whole idea of "definition" comes into play, too.  English definitions often do not share concepts in the way other languages might which is part and parcel of much cultural combat.  At bottom, language is problematic.  And now I'm wondering--A.I. is a language model, so. . . are they programmed in different ways in different languages?  

I just looked that up.  Indeed, American and Chinese models are programmed differently based on language.  The differences are astonishing.  But being LLMs, they disregard grammar and use mathematical models sharing a unified conceptual geometry.  

Right? 

I'm glad I've asked the question. World views are by and large linguistic, and there are gaps and chiasmas where language categories don't work so well from culture to culture.  All of you who are multilingual, understand the difficulties of translation.  Categories like "me" and "not me" for instance.  

This is the linguistic space that Derrida exploited.  It is the very thing that Trump has mastered, too.  He's changed our understanding of what things mean.  He has absorbed the chaos.  

He is a savant. 

So these are things that keep me up at night.  

Kidding.  I have more personal problems to terrify me.  

Some of you may remember the psychiatrist R.D. Laing.  His challenging of traditional concepts of mental illness made me strange when I was younger.  It was then that I realized that nothing may be what we say it is.  You only have to change the definition.  

But now I do fear A.I. teaming up with viruses to gain physical presence if not what we now consider "life."  That is, at least, or should be the basis of some science fiction novels.  Science fiction is not "my thing," but it always seems to come true.  

These are consideratons for a human species that not so very long ago didn't even imagine of the existence of microorganisms.  I don't think we've imagined everything yet.  

But these are not the concerns of the average mind.  They are filled with game shows and superheroes and the joys and tribulations of pop stars young and old. 

Well--it IS interesting how much music and art can transcend human languages.  Not totally, of course, for we can only articulate what we feel in language.  Even simple things like how we experience color are shaped by it.  Our lives are truly narratives and narratives are shaped by. . . blah blah blah blah blah.  

Here's something I stumbled across the other night.  Rushdie is fluent in both English and Hindustani.  I think of Joseph Conrad whose native tongue was Polish.  His second language was French.  He only began to learn English when he took to ships and worked at sea.  He published his first novel when he was thirty-seven.  

"The average American operates at roughly an 8th to 9th-grade vocabulary and reading level for everyday communication, though general literacy studies place broad functional comprehension around the 6th to 8th-grade level."

Pals

I saw my new favorite friend at the gym yesterday.  I don't know what else to call her.  We are not really friends.  Gym pals, I guess.  The tall ex-college athlete one.  Forty-nine.  Two children who are both college athletes, and the husband who is her physical equal, tall, lean. . . but not nearly as friendly.  They have money, and I am absolutely certain our ideologies lie at opposite poles.  I was talking to The Judge when she walked in and grabbed the bench between us.  

"Hey, how are you doing?"

"Better now.  This is the best part of my day so far.  I'm glad you are here.  You're fun."

I said this last part in reference to our previous conversation concerning my mother and her dying father.  Not fun.  But, you know, we kind of bonded a tiny little bit then in a small way.  

"Well," exclaimed The Judge, "it's not everyday you get a greeting like that!"

The Judge has an appreciation of feminine beauty.  

So we kibitzed and worked out, and in a minute, one of the real Gym Characters came over.  It is T's fault.  Before he left town, he sicked her on me, told her all sorts of lies, and now she assumes we are tight.  More than.  She wears the most hideously revealing clothes.  She is close to my age, and her skin has been left to dry and wrinkle in the sun.  She is a very dark brown, with bleach blonde hair, and xtra large breasts.  She wears brief, wide legged shorts that shows everything up to her hoo-hoo, hobbles with a bad knee, and just wants me to hug her.  Maybe not just.  She told me she wants to move into my apartment, said she would pay double what I am charging now.  I told her I didn't like to hug a few days ago, said I was a germaphobe, but that hasn't stopped her.  

"I don't have any germs," she said.  

Her outsanding feature is a bottom tooth that grows up about 3/4" above the rest.  It is there my eyes always light when she speaks.  Otherwise she is a mess of makeup, blue eyeshadow, etc.  She is, in every way, New York to Miami in the 1980s.  

Very.  

Having said all that, she is absolutely the nicest woman you would want to meet, sweet and really caring, so I am always sweet as apple butter back.  What can you do?  That is really all you can ask from someone, right?  Just be nice.  

I was sitting on the bench when she came up and hugged my head into her big ole bosom.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the tall woman smiling, her head straight ahead but her eyes cutting toward the scene.  Oh, it was a great and not too subtle smile.  She was really enjoying the show.  

The lady with the tooth kept on talking for quite awhile before she waddled away.  Sweet woman, as I say.  God love her.  

Then I turned to my New Pal.  

"What?"

"I think she wants a date," she giggled.  

"You think?"

"I can make that happen for you," she laughed.  

"Thanks, pal.  She likes to hug.  I told her I wasn't a hugger, that I was a germaphobe."

"Really?  I'll keep that in mind."

O.K.  At this point I was trying hard not to think what I was thinking, but it only barely worked.  

She ran with the whole scene for awhile.  Maybe she was enjoying this too much.  Maybe I wanted to prove something. . . so I told her the story about the pretty twenty-six year old who asked me out followed by the story about the McDonald's girl thinking my mother was my wife.  

Yea. . . I know.  

"Well," she said when I was finished, "your mother is closer to your age." 

Again that evil grin.  

So I told her more.  I'm shy, I said.  I can't take rejection. 

"Really?  We'll have to work on that."

Hmm.  

I didn't want her to get the wrong impression, though, so I explained that I had never asked a woman out.

"They always ask you out?" she queried.  

"Yea. . . but don't think it happens much.  There are years and years. . . ."  

Alain came up while we were talking and joined in the conversation.  

"She's saying she can get me a date with The Tooth."

No, I don't call her that other than here.  I used her name.  

I told him. . . oh hell. . . I'll make one up-- that Lucy said she wanted to rent my apartment. 

"Your tenant's moving?"

"No."

Something came up and I made a jab at my New Pal.

"Oh heck no. She's as old as you."

Alain was taken aback, eyes wide, lips pursed.  

"Oh, it's o.k.  She's one of us."

I took the chance.  

When I said I had to hurry now, that I had a 12:30 lunch date, they said in unison, "How old is she?"  Alain was impressed.  

"She got that out quicker than I did."

"He's my age," I said. 

And with that, I tore myself away.  I like having a new female friend.  I much prefer them to men.  

I showered and made it to the restaurant right on time.  C.C. had yet to arrive.  The place was fairly empty.  I told the barmaid that I had a friend coming and ordered a beer.  In few minutes, C.C. walked in.  We ordered the prix fixe luncheon special as usual.  C.C. had brought me a present from Ohio. 

"Is it groundhog?  Possum?  Is it a toy?"

It was a 1926 edition of "Tarzan of the Apes," the first in the long series of Tarzan novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  C.C. explained how he came upon it, and said, "When I saw it, I thought you would like it.  I read the novel online at Google Books or something.  The writing is crude but pretty good." 

I told him I had read the series when I was a kid.  I've told him (and you) before that the Johnny Weissmuller film is an absolutely brilliant classic, an existential study of man and nature.  It is hardly what you would expect.  

We ate and drank, the only two at the usually crowded bar.  Only two tables were occupied.  The place, once a hotspot, didn't seem to be doing so well now.  The lunch was subpar.  

"Things are going to hell here, it seems," I said. 

"It's the economy, stupid." 

By two, we had paid up.  C.C. needed to get home.  There were things to do before he left for NYC in the morning.  He would be out of town, mostly, for the rest of the year and much of the spring, too.  I probably wouldn't see him again for another year.  Maybe more.  Who could tell?  

We walked to the parking lot and said our goodbyes.  I sat inside my car.  The air was warm and I was sleepy.  I wanted to get home and lie down.  

When I wije up, it was almost time to go back to my mother's.  I had a call.  It was the tenant. 

"I just wanted to see how you were doing.  How's your mom?"

Same old conversation I have everywhere.  

"If you ever need anythin with your mother, I'll be glad to help."

"How about October."

"What?"

"Can you do October?"

"The whole month?"

"Yes.  October would be helpful."

I despair of ever going out of town again.  You can have no idea.  It would be impossible to even try to imagine.  And so I focus on small things: having lunch; making a new friend.  

And so this is my life, like the photos, just an empty sign in a threatening sky, a blankness full of nothing, "with no expression, nothing to express." 

But I am doing the best I can turning nothing into something.  I have to lie a little and perform some slight of hand, but all writing is lying anyway, by and large, if it is to have any flavor.  

And sometimes, though not as much as once upon a time. . . there is music.