Remember I told you that I was looking forward to being disappointed when I got my two rolls of film back? I wasn't disappointed. Or I was. This is a tough language riddle to untangle. Let's try this another way. Remember I told you that I hoped to have one good photo? Yea. This is the best of the twenty-four photos. Am I still in love with the Hasselblad? I think so. Am I still in love with film?
I'll give it more time. But it is expensive. I don't mind black and white so much because I always develop and scan it myself, so the investment is largely time. I've been taking the color film to the lab, though, and to have it developed and scanned by them is expensive. I've developed my own color film at home, but it is more difficult. If I am going to continue shooting color film, I'm going to developing it on my own. But I have to say, this lab does a really good job. I have no complaints except for the amount of money I spend.
I'm not saying that this is a good photograph. I'm just saying it was the best of the lot, and I kind of like it.
"I'd give it an 80. I like the beat and it's easy to dance to."
That's for all you hepcats who remember Bandstand and Rate a Record. Wouldn't it be fun to have an art show like that? Maybe I can start a YouTube channel. Just put a bunch of college kids in a room and let them grade the images.
"What do you like about it?"
"I think the colors are nice and the way the light falls off at the bottom. I think it is very moody."
I'll consider it. It would get me back interacting with kids again. I'll call it The Last Picture Show.
YouTube is very restrictive, though. There are a ton of rules you can't break or you get banned. No nudity, no violence. Yea. . . this would never fly. If this were truly a free country. . . .
What else do I have? I went to lunch with T yesterday after the gym. He was in town one last time and called in the morning to see if I wanted to go. We went straight from the gym in gym clothes and didn't feel we should sit inside, so we took a sidewalk table at the sushi place on the Boulevard. Our waitress was especially attentive and very nice. We ordered green tea. When I get green tea out, it is always better than the green tea I make at home, and I can't figure out why. I think I make it too strong. Miso soups and sushi rolls. And suddenly we were among the bees. Three of them, anyway. Bees on the Boulevard? Yea, when did that happen? T kept swatting them away.
"You're just riling them up," I said. I left them alone, though I planned on killing them if they landed on me. But bees don't bother you if you leave them alone. I've even found that true with hornets which are among the most offensive of bees. I think they are bees. Maybe they are wasps. I could look it up, but I'm not going to bother.
O.K. I couldn't resist. They are wasps. So are the "meat bees" or yellow jackets that have plagued so many of my meals in Yosemite.
But these were bees and not aggressive at all. I watched one of them try the wasabi. It didn't care for that at all. They liked the soy sauce, though and stayed with us throughout the meal.
The sushi place is on the Country Club College end of the Boulevard, so there was a pretty steady stream of coeds in hoochie shorts strolling by. Believe me or don't, but Country Club College girls are not like coeds anywhere else, by and large because of their backgrounds. This is not an Ivy League school, but it is a fine college and is just about as expensive, so it attracts a fun crowd. The girls are a product of their environments, daddies with tons of money and beautiful mothers who were like pollen to the bee. It is that combination that gives them their "air." Their hair, their skin, their teeth are all from the pages of Vogue. They are used to servants and have always had time for sports of one kind or another. They walk and run through my neighborhood every day.
Old guys, though, make a mistake because their dress code is so revealing. These are not sexual beings, or so I have read, and the dress code is certainly to make you look, but not for the reasons that old guys think. Those short short shorts are not an invitation. They are bait. Wherein lies the pleasure?
"What the fuck are you looking at?"I've seen old guys get schooled this way.
I explained this to T as they walked by. You could see their mouths tighten and their eyes cut sneakily toward the table as they walked by waiting for an opportunity. I've observed it my entire life. I used to get a state grant every summer to do a video project with high school kids for six weeks. They came from different schools from all over the county, so the boys and girls did not know one another, but within a few days, things were heating up, and I'd watch the boys show off for the girls early on, and the girls would look on as if fascinated, and the boys would feel emboldened and alive. Then, on a dime, the girls would look at one another and laugh derisively, and the boys were suddenly falling, falling through some trap door below their feet.
In a few weeks, though, the flirtations took hold. It was always fun to watch.
Brad Pitt, I think, has a way in some of his movie rolls of not looking at women before he looks, and when he does, you can't nail what the look means. That is a skill, anyway, that I have tried to cultivate. With Pitt, it comes off as a confident uncertainty. I have no idea how it comes off with me, but it seems to have kept me out of trouble.
"Don't be creepy. Don't lean in. Don't reach. Don't touch. Keep your hands to yourself."
I observed old guys say things like, "You look like you need a back rub," when I was still a youth. They would stare hard with laser eyes.
"Uncle Bruce is a real creep."
O.K. Jesus, this went off the rails. Plenty to disagree with and criticize here. I should have stayed with the bee thing. Or photography.
When we had finished eating and the waitress came to clear the table, she asked us if we would like more tea.
"I put an extra tea bag in for you," she said when she brought the pot back. And we were able to relax, for the bees left when the food was gone. T was driving back to his beach house. Tomorrow he and his wife go back to Tennessee. They'd be back in November for a month, he said.
I've eaten out more in the last week than I have in the past months. It was fun, but it has gotten to be very expensive. I have gotten a little electric shock with every bill. The Asian marketplace with all the different kiosks isn't as bad, though, as long as you don't mind a little Asia belly. Maybe it is something you get over if you eat there enough. Cooking at home all the time as I do, my stomach is only used to the germs in my own kitchen, and believe me, there are plenty. I've asked friends from Africa and South America and Mexico who now live here if they get sick when they go home. The answer is overwhelmingly yes.
I have an American belly. Ha! I made myself laugh. I surely do. It has gotten big.
I have to get ready to take my mother to the dentist now. A cardiologist appointment lay ahead. I need to make my own appointment for my annual physical. I have put it off as long as I can. I don't want to hear any bad news. But there is only one direction in life, isn't there. We live with the curse.
I find some people are appreciating the video links I've been leaving, so here's another. London, 1965. Single girls sharing a flat. They seem pretty hip for 1965, I think. Surprisingly so. The early Beatles era. The BBC commentator would be flogged today, but it is a nice reminder of the time. And so. . . .
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