Mentally Ill

I TOLD YOU that Trump would jinx the Knicks.  And he WAS loudly booed by the fans both inside the arena and at the watch parties around the city.  He needs to stick to MMA shit with knuckleheads and Dana White who has ridden their backs to fabulous wealth.  Those boys love 'em some cowboys and Trump.  I like cowboys, too.  We need cowboys of all kinds.  What we don't need is Trump. 

But trying to come up with a good dem alternative has become a party game.  We all know Harris will drown the party if she is nominated.  I've never heard anyone say, "Yes, Harris is the one for me."  But that is where the game begins.  Who?  People are digging deep into their political knowledge now to come up with someone.  

"Who?"

"That guy from Ohio."

We're fucked.  

But what do I know (other than about the jinx)?  I stayed up and watched the game until the end even though I said I would not, then I didn't sleep for darn all night long and I feel like I've caught something this morning.  I won't stay up to watch another game.  I'll watch the highlights in the morning.  

I think I'm coming to a realization that you all have probably come to already.  I think I might have a mental illness.  Bipolar?  Schizophrenia?  Only recently, though.  In the last few months.  It is scaring me a bit.  More than a bit, really.  I am in a life situation with only one out.  It keeps me from sleeping now. 

That and the pain in my right knee.  And apnea.  And sometimes the pain in my hip or in my back.  

I tried to make some Black Cat Liberator pictures yesterday, but not very hard.  I made a mistake and thought my house cleaners were coming, but they come on Tuesday, not Monday, and I had been waiting until mid-afternoon.  When I realized my mistake, it came like a blow.  My mind is slipping.  This is not like me.  

By the time I realized, though, the afternoon was passing and the sun was hot, and rather than lugging around that monstrous camera, I went to get a French soda instead.  Around three, I headed off to the photo lab to drop off the film I had already shot.  I needed to take one more picture, though, before I took the film holders in, so I took the camera out in the parking lot behind the lab and made a picture of the T.G. Lee Dairy building across the street.  As I was preparing the camera, a tattooed man came walking across the parking lot.  

"Whoa!"

I knew he was admiring the camera.  I said hello, focussed, pulled the dark slide, and hit the shutter button.  Then I let him see the camera.  As most people are, especially photographers, he was fascinated.  We talked for awhile, and I told him about Minnicks, the madman who made the camera.  He put the camera on top of his car and took some phone snaps, then when he handed the camera back to me, he asked if I would mind if he took a picture of me holding it.  What could I say?  I gave him my phone number so he could send the photo to me.  

I put the camera up and went inside with the film, six color and two black and white 4x5 sheets of what might be mystery film.  A woman at the counter before me had a big bag of 35mm film rolls.  She was explaining that the film was twenty years old.  Her mother had cancer and spent the last three months of her life driving around the country taking photographs.  The film hadn't been developed.  

"Is it still any good?"

The counter boy hemmed and hawed and said there may not be anything on the rolls.  It would cost her $580 to have all the film processed.  The woman said she would start with three rolls.  

"I hope those turn out," I said.  "They will be spectacular, I'm sure."

"Was your mother a photographer?" asked the counter man.  

"My father was a cinematographer," she said.  

I wanted to ask her if I could see the results, but I didn't.  What I did suggest, though, was that she might want to try developing some of the black and white rolls, too, as they had a better chance of turning out.  

"Our black and white is down right now," said the counter man.  I guess that is why he took the color rolls first.  

He gave me a form to fill out for my film, and when he rang it up, I owed $68.  That was over $8/sheet.  I usually process my own, but I'm trying to get through all the mystery film first.  After this, though, yea. . . I'll be processing the film on my own.  

If I keep the camera.  As curious as people are about it, it is hard to use and heavy and the chances of making a good picture can be really slim.  And yet. . . when you do. . . . 

Back in the car, I decided to look at the photo the fellow had taken of me.  I think that is when the mental illness really kicked in.  Is that what I look like to other people?  Holy shit.  Holy shit.  I wanted to cry. 

"Help!  Fire!  Help!!!!"

It is everything I have feared.  I don't really look all that bad, but I don't look like I think I do, either.  The photo sent me into a downward spiral.  

My mountain buddy had called earlier while I thought I was waiting for the maids.  

"Do you think I'm a good father?" he half-joked.  He ran through some scenarios concerning one of his sons.  Maybe I would handle things differently, but I don't have to.  He asked how I was doing.  I went through my list of woes.  His mother is the same age as mine and is having a parallel experience right now.  But he is 3,000 miles away, and he has two brothers and a sister to help his father who is 95 and still taking care of his wife.  My buddy has his own family as do his siblings, so there is much shared responsibility.  And. . .  there is beaucoup money.  More than they need.  There is no way I can convey what I am going through alone.  Nobody gets it.  They can't.  You don't know what if feels like to drown until you are drowning.  Nor would you want to.  You just know the word and that it is bad and that you don't want to do it.  

I'm drowning. 

Yes. . . I think I have become mentally ill.  There is no good future in my sight.  There is only one exit.  

Still, if I don't look a the photos people take of me, I can almost pretend.  And if I think of photo projects, I can still pretend, too.  I want to make this swimming pool series.  The one at the top is just an iPhone snap I made at a wedding.  

I don't know why, really, but a swimming pool represents something to me, part aspirational, The American Dream.  This abandoned pool says something, too.  

I doubt that I will ever seriously pursue it, though, or anything else.  When I lie down at night, it all begins running through my head.  

I went through some of my photos in a file the other day.  I have some good ones.  Are they?  They seem really good.  Don't they?  Then I see other images, the famous ones, and I think, "Fool."  

Maybe I've had a mental illness longer than I've known.  

But seriously--this album cover photo sucks.  It is horrible.  Hokey.  It doesn't pay tribute to the music.  I swear I could have made something so much better.  I do know that.  

But you may find the music a bit hokey, too.  I am ever and always a fool for a samba.  It reminds me of swimming pools.