Just One More Adult Thing To Piss You Off

O.K., look. . . just one more.  It fits.  I watched "Anora" last night.  Not familiar?  It's about a pole dancer, O.K.?  This woman is a REAL LIFE pole dancer, so what's a fellow to do?  I have to use it.  I just have to.  

I got a notice from Amazon in the afternoon that "Anora" was available along with the Dylan biopic.  I think the Demi Moore film is available, too or maybe it is the Nicole Kidman one, or maybe both.  When I looked them up, though, the Dylan thing was like $25 to rent.  Fuck that.  "Anora" was $5.99.  Easy choice.  Everyone is crazy for the Chalamet thing, but I can wait.  I've seen lots of Dylan stuff before.  So I hit "rent" and had 48 hours to watch "Anora."

I am tired, tired, tired, and all I want to do is live my simple little life again.  I know, I know. . . I said I wouldn't write about me any longer.  I won't.  I swear.  But I have to set this up.  I'm tired and I'm tired of listening to my mother's shows that I can't get away from even on the other side of the house, so I have decided that the t.v. can be mine sometimes without asking permission.  Yea.  It's getting to be like that.  And my mother loves to watch the things I put on.  She falls asleep in five minutes or less.  It breaks me up because she can watch the old westerns day and night and not go to bed until eleven, but the minute I put on a show that doesn't have loud Mickey Mousing music and a lot of commercials, she drops right out.  

So fuck it.  After dinner, I had a glass of whiskey which I have sworn off of again but what the hell it was Saturday night, right, and everyone here is out on a pitch perfect evening enjoying any one of ten or twelve wonderful things going on around town right now because this is the place to be this time of year, this month, and the entire country seems to have come for one thing or another in order to get away from whatever hell they are enduring and may never leave is what I hear because everything is so bright and fresh and green and lovely, so yea, I poured a glass of whiskey to douse my bitter pain and loneliness while missing yet another little league wrestling match on the outskirts of the other side of town.  

It seemed to help right away, the immediate anger and pain subsiding with the onrush of alcohol infused goodness, the tension beginning to leave my body that had unknowingly, unwillingly stiffened my back and neck and shoulders and fingers, my body relaxing into the cushions of the couch, the world outside mattering a bit less though still on my mind as my phone had apparently not been working all day or otherwise seeming that the world out there had entirely forgotten me.  

Which it had and has.  Selavy.  

So I hit "play" and immediately we were hit by tits and ass, not for a brief moment, but for a very long time if you are watching with your mother.  Tits and ass, tits and ass, tits and ass.  

"O.K.," I said, "you're not going to like this," I opined after five or six minutes, and I gave the t.v. back to her.  

All I can say is thank god for the whiskey.  I went into the living rom and sat down with my laptop and watched some videos on how to edit. . . videos.  I accidentally opened Final Cut Pro when I was making the little music video the other day and wanted to know how to do a few things in it as it seems to be an easier editing app than Adobe Premiere and a better quality than iMovie.  And who knows?  I may begin making little digital cinema things again like I once did so many years ago.  

After I had watched a couple, my mother shuffled through.  

"How's that western," I asked.  

"You can have the t.v. if you want," she said.  "I'm not interested in it."

I didn't bite, though.  What else did she have to do?  But when she went back into the t.v. room, the television remained off.  After awhile I walked in to find her scrolling Facebook on her phone.  So. . . I put the movie back on.  

In a few minutes, she said she was going to bed.  It was only 9:30, but that is what happens if I watch her t.v.  

So, lights off, I settled in.  And my goodness and holy fuck. . . what a film.  It was in the realm of "Requiem for a Dream."  It was that good.  "Good," isn't the right word, though.  It is like that and like "Midnight Cowboy."  You don't feel good, you feel what the Greeks must have felt, that vomiting of emotions that purge you somehow.  It is like "The Florida Project," and other gritty things.  What it is NOT like is "Barbie" and "Wicked," I think, though I haven't seen "Wicked" and am only guessing.  But the Nicole Kidman and the Demi Moore movies are gritty, too, I've been told.  What is happening?  Whatever it is, it won't last, I'm guessing, so I will enjoy a bit of adult entertainment while I can.  The Morality Police are sure to be out on their big white horses bringing us all down again.  I read an article today that the streaming networks are racing to put out series based upon the tales of the Bible.  

Oh, boy.  Can't wait.  Unless they are going to focus on Sodom and Gomorrah and the story of Lot and his daughters.  Those would be good.  

So yea. . . tomorrow I'll quit drinking and quit writing about myself.  I have one more night.  We must cross the street for an early dinner with my mother's neighbors, and there is sure to be drinking involved.  And then, back to my mother's home where it will either be "Gunsmoke" or, if there is no other choice, the Oscars.  I don't give two shits about the Oscars, but WTF?  I mean, it would be better than "Gunsmoke" again, right?

But how in the hell did films with naked people slip in?  I don't get it.  Both the ideological left and right must be having conniptions.  The road to hell, my friends, is paved with naked people, and Mammon and Beelzebub are right there in the ruby red light urging you on with three pronged pitchforks and the smell of sulfur.  There is little in life that needs to be guarded more than someone's naked body.  Such things are only for the eyes of god.  

In my YouTube searches, somehow, I came across this rendition of Henry Mancini's "Lujon."  It's kind of kitsch but kind of fun, too, a whole orchestra playing in what appears to be tropical Miami.  It is a little "Miami Vice" era, but that was fun, too.  But yea. . . Dan Fontaine and His Orchestra makes me cringe and giggle.  What can you do?

As my friend C.C. likes to say, co-opting the Robert Owen quote, "All the world is mad but me and thee, and I'm not so certain about thee."

It reminded me of the opening to "Magic City."  I like that, too.  

To Hide My Dirty Little Secrets

I feel like poop this morning.  I think I might be getting "it," whatever "it" is going around.  I just want to go home and rest, but that is going to be impossible.  There is another little league wrestling event tonight that I won't be able to attend.  My mother's wrist is getting better, but the rest of her is in decline.  She is not functioning well physically or cognitively.  She is beginning to see things that aren't there, she told me last night.  She is getting very, very confused and can't do much on her own.  

My own life is in the shitter, whatever life that has become.  

"How's your mom?" someone will ask.  That is really all they ask now.  

"One of us is going to get rat poison," I say.  "I just haven't decided which one of us yet."  

I don't blame people.  I won't say "of course."  I just don't.  There must be some reason for people to want to be around you.  People are under no obligation.  My life is no longer attractive, or, I should say, has lost its attraction.  My life, indeed, has been great.  Now. . . . 

Not so much.  

And my only pleasures seem to rub people the wrong way.  Such are the times, I guess.  I think about ending the whining mew of this blog, but I know I can't stop writing, so I think to write about anything but my life and interests.  I need to pull a topic out of a hat and begin my essay.  

But how can I compete?  This is not my job.  I don't make my livelihood this way.  I don't have a week to come write an article.  The daily post is not very often completely thought out.  And so. 

I'm probably not going to be making any photos for awhile, either.  We are not living in a permissive age.  Anything but, really.  It is the Age of Outrage.  Pick a side.  

FUCK TRUMP!

I think that is going to be the more popular side by summer.  It may not matter, though.  It seems he will be able to do whatever he wants.  He will likely pull it off.  He is getting away with everything.  It is all just coming too quickly.  There is so much of it, no one can remember what happened yesterday.  It is impossible to keep up.  

We will all pay the price.  

In the meanwhile, I have too many personal decisions to make, grave decisions of terrible consequence.  

And so, I think, I will spare you the journey down whatever path I am going to need to take.  How I will do that is still a mystery to me.  But I needn't add to the burdens of either of my readers, neither Google Admin nor the other one.

My life must become my own dirty little secret.  I'll not give it all away anymore.  I will not allow myself to be judged.

Perhaps I will learn to write as my mother speaks.  

"The trees are losing their leaves.  I think that squirrel wants me to feed him.  The lizards are becoming active.  We'll see those black snakes soon.  People are starting to walk in the neighborhood again.  It's staying light longer.  That's good."

I will try.  It's going to take practice.  

Oh. . . Whatever

Oh, whatever.  I'm a sensitive boy.  Things keep piling up.  Yesterday, the roofer came to give me an estimate.  He discovered that the old brick chimney on the two story garage apartment is falling away from the house.  Isn't that fun?  Then Mr. Tree came by to pick up his check.  I haven't checked on the car door yet, nor have I done my taxes.  So WTF--a little sleaze--SerpenTease.  This is from my embarrassingly failed photo trip.  She was a good sport, though.  

I DID get out after dark last night, though.  Went to dinner with Tennessee.  We sat at the bar in the good Italian place.  Dinner was fine, but the bill was jacked.  Later on in the night, I was told that the restaurant had been shut down for a few days.  What?!?!  But it's o.k.  I don't feel like I have been poisoned this morning.  

Not by the food, anyway.  I was ready to go after dinner, but I got a text from the waitress at the Irish bar.  

"Are you guys coming in?"

"Just one," T said.  "I'll drive."

That was the big mistake.  When we got there, and I think he already knew this, a bunch of his Billionaire Boys Club friends were there.  I like them fine, but I knew I wouldn't get out after "just one."

It was amateur hour.  "Tommy brought his guitar.  Let's stay and hear him play."  I'd had beer and a few glasses of wine at dinner.  People began buying me scotch.  No.  Plural.  

My mother was still up when I got home at 11:30, so I poured a drink.  

This morning I had a text from the waitress in response to something I don't remember sending last night.  

Oops.  

I'm too old for this shit, of course, but in the dimly lighted bar with the music blaring, sometimes a woman from a distance across the room can get confused.  I get embarrassed and try not to encourage it.  

But I like it for the moment.  I mean. . . who doesn't?  

Apparently, though, I did a lot of yell talking in the bar because I am hoarse and a little gritty in the throat.  All those tubes from the operations after the accident have messed up my vocal cords, though, and my voice breaks and sometimes just quits when I am talking in a bar.  

"Look what your science has made of me!"

😱

So. . . fuck it.  The house, the trees, the car, the government. . . there is so little pleasure left me in this world. . . I'll take what I get.  A good dinner.  Beer.  Wine. Whiskey.  And, dare I say it?  Women.  I mean. . . maybe, until the lights come up?  Possibly?  

"You're impossible."  

"No, no. . . I'm all too possible."

I've been thinking about not writing about myself here and trying to tell other stories. . . but right now, I am all I know.  The troubles of my time, etc.  

Maybe I'll interview the therapist at my mother's session this afternoon.  I'm sure she'll tell me everything I want to know.  

"It's Friday night," I'll tell her.  "Do you want to get dinner?"

Ha!  

"Um, no.  This room is too brightly lit."  

So it will be me and ma.  Maybe I'll take her out to eat.  I won't let her choose, though.  We'd end up at the Golden Coral or some other Trademarked place.  

Maybe I'll get another pizza.  That would be fine.  And then. . . you know. . . a little Gunsmoke and a Xanax.  

Cue the music.  

"Ain't got none.  Haven't heard any in a good long while."  

"Surely you remember something?"

O.K.  Sorry.  I had to make the YouTube thing.  There just wasn't one.  It is taking a long time.  But man, I'd never heard this version before.  Knock me out.  It still has 25 minutes to upload on YouTube, so I will publish this and come back later to update it. . . if you want to hear the song and if YouTube doesn't block it.  

No Photo, No Shit

 I should have taken photos at the dentist's office.  Me.  My mouth.  Him with both hands and maybe the assistant's, too, working like a couple of deckhands getting ready for a storm.  I can barely move my jaw this morning.  

I go back in a week to have my gold tooth put on.  I'm going to ask him to rub one out for me, first.  I mean. . . I'm paying that kind of money.  

The only fun part was when the cute little (petite) assistant turned, looked at me and maybe smiled beneath her mask, "You look like a surfer."

Fun.  But I only talk with my mother now, and she is deaf, so I've lost my gift of gab.  I struggled but found nothing better to say than, "I'm just an old guy with long blond hair."  

What?!  That was bad.  What has happened to me?  It wasn't just one thing, but I'd say in the main, my "friends" have been more than willing to give me a hand down the ladder so they can stand on my fingers.  It's been a long time since anyone was nice.  

Still, she looked at me and said, "Well. . . it's working."  

I am not sure what she meant.  I'm too paranoid to take it as a compliment.  The best I get now is the old double entendre.  

Once in awhile, a stranger smiles.  Still, one never knows.  

The boys went out for Happy Hour last night.  I, of course, was cooking for mother.  

"Isn't she tired of frozen dinners yet," one of the nitwits wrote.  

Anything but.  She has never eaten so well in her life.  Healthy, good, nutritious.  It has been over seven weeks now, and she has gotten worse about doing things rather than better.  She just wants to sit on a vibrating heating pad ten hours a day and then shuffle from room to room moaning.  Being old is painful.  But she makes messes readily, then leaves them for me to clean up.  Dishes, towels, tissues.  

Last night my cousin called from the coast.  My mother and she were talking about the Ohio cousin coming down.  

"She says she is leaving this weekend."

"Well, my son will be happy to get a break.  He's been a real help."

"Is she coming to your house?" my cousin asked in surprise.  And then I knew.  My cousin may be coming for a couple of days, but she isn't planning on staying with my crippled mother if it means taking care of her.  I'm fucked.  

Something is going to need to happen.  My mother has given up taking care of herself.  I think she has convinced herself that I am happy doing this.  What's the difference, she imagines.  I'm just living in a different place, that is all.  I'm sure she feels she is doing me a favor.  

I've had a lot of people contact me lately wondering if I want to sell my home.  I told my mother.  

"You should sell it," she said.  

"And then what?"

"You could move in with me."

She was dead serious.  

I think one night I'll just take the pills and let her deal with the rest of it.  

Today I meet the roofing contractor.  I missed a call from Mr. Tree yesterday.  I guess he wants his money.  The car door opens part way now when I am driving on a rough road or am making a right hand turn.  Should I spend the money getting it fixed, or should I get a new car?

Does any of it matter?  The grocery store had no avocados yesterday.  "None came in on the delivery truck," I was informed.  Tariffs?  The egg shelf was bare.  What next?  No vaccines?  People dying at home and in the streets?  

Beats me.  But people are getting meaner every day, I think.  Even my friends feel free to criticize.  

That is why there is no photo for today's post.  Will that bring more readers or will I get fewer viewers?  I'm sure to depress my one sure reader, Google Admin.  They so look forward to checking me out.  

Just Not That

Today should be fun.  I have a two hour reservation for a seat in the dentist's office where I will get a gold crown.  Probably not today.  I will get a temporary crown, I assume, while the gold crown is manufactured.  I don't know.  This dentist doesn't tell me much except the price.  I don't know why I still go to him.  I am certain that he hates me.  

Selavy.  It is just one of the myriad fun things in my life right now.  I am certain that the voodoo curses supposedly cast upon me are working.  What can you do?  One day, science will uncover the mysteries.  But don't hold your breath.  

Yesterday's non-posts, the ones I deleted, got me thinking.  Before photography, what pictures did people look at, want, produce?  Well, the first were "selfies," I guess, those handprints on cave walls that are evidence that "Bob was here."  Then stick figures of humans and nature, little stories of what went on outside the cave.  Later, with brushes and paints, there were landscapes, still life, scenes of daily life, and portraits.  There were a lot of portraits.  

I take very few "landscapes."  When I do, I am usually with one of my large format cameras.  On walkabouts, I do take "cityscapes" and pictures of mundane suburbia.  I rarely make a still life mainly due to the fact that I am bad at creating them.  As you know, I have many scenes of daily life, mostly "street photography," a thing that is coming more and more under scrutiny.  And, of course, I make portraits.  I like making them.  People like looking at them.  

By and large.  Not mine, necessarily, but in general.  I had to look it up.  

There are about 93 million selfies taken each day.  

When I look beyond selfies, there are some elaborate things like Vanity Fair pieces by Annie Leibovitz.  You can look her up on YouTube and see that one of her shoots is like a Hollywood production.  Beyond that, though, things get simpler.  

Much.  

There is a girl.  There is a girl in a dress.  A girl without a dress.  She walks, sits, ponders.  There is light.  How shall I use it?  She is obvious.  She is an enigma.  I'll shoot at 1/8 of a second and she is a blur.  I'll use a strobe and make her pop.  What camera should I use.  Should I photograph her with a huge piece of film or should I make the image on glass?  I could use X-Ray film, or maybe Polaroid.  I know how to do things.  I could use a toy camera or maybe a plastic lens.  How should I treat the picture.  Should I colorize it?  Hand paint it?  What should I do in post?  I can print on Arches cold pressed paper, cover it in bees wax or some matte gel.  I can laser print it and transfer it with caustic chemicals.  Soft or sharp.  Should the print be huge or the size of a playing card?

There are many options.  

Do we see the face or simply some part or parts of the body?  

Black and white or color?

Taking a photo is like writing a story in some ways.  What must an author consider?  Sure, the who what where when why of it all.  But where to start, and who tells the story?  Is the narrator trustworthy?  A liar or maybe just naive.  Or maybe God.  What is the color of the clothing, the length of the hair.  

Yes, making photos is a lot like that.  

Writers often repeat themselves.  So do painters.  Modigliani.  Matisse.  Bonnard.  Go back and look at Caravaggio.  

The hardest thing to paint, they say, is the human face and the human figure.  People know them too well.  

"You know I'm not a fan of your girlie nudies."  

"You prefer Social Realism and agitprop.  Your lens is ideological.  I don't really make pictures for you."

DaVinci.  

"Yes, the old Patriarchy."

I guess so.  I don't care.  I wish I could make that into a photograph.  

Something like that. And so it goes.  

I don't take criticism well, so I rarely give it.  But some people are very free with it as if it is a favor.  

"You should respect the honesty."

"Honestly, I don't really tell you what I think.  It is just too dangerous."

I could make you cry.  

"Are you ready?  Do you want the needle or the gas?"

Oh. . . I forgot the other stuff, the rodeos and wrestling matches and the roller derby and the surf series and the hog hunts and the protest marches and parades.  The Social Realism stuff.  

"Yea. . . I like those.  You know I like your photography, just not. . . that."

"I see."

Today should be fun.  I mean, I'm spending $2,000.  And I'm getting a gold tooth.  That's right up there with an expensive tat.  I'll be all gangsta and shit.  

A Stain Upon the Silence

I've been with you quite awhile now as you were sleeping.  This is my third attempt at today's post.  I wrote long and hard on each of the others, but they turned into jejune complaints about trouble in my life and time.  Then a defense.  When you begin to defend, you know you are losing.  And though a narrative by someone losing can be excellent, mine were not.  And so. . . I'll make this post short and sweet.  

What do I have?  Oh. . . I could describe the actions of my day, a recounting of the dull events and mundane chores that are wearing out the fabric of my soul.  

"You're soul?"

Yea. . . I'm not going there.  Not today, anyway.  

I could opine about the failing of the democratic way.  

"What the fuck is 'the democratic way?'  Do you even know what you are talking about?"

No.  I'd just be opining.  It's not really my specialty.  Let's eschew aesthetics, too.  That was the first attempt at today's post.  

So. . . I'm pretty much at a loss.  I felt that great shock of love when I met my mother's new occupational therapist yesterday, but she is not going to love me back, so. . . that bums me out.  

I had a text from a cafe last evening that filled me with longing, but that, too, is useless.  

My life is cooking and cleaning and caring.  There is no break in the routine, no time for a glass of wine and fun conversation.  I've been out after dark one time in seven weeks now.  All I have to look forward to right now is my mother's next therapy session.  

Oy!

"Do you want to watch one of your shows?"

Oh, fuck. . . here I go again.  I should delete this post, too, but I haven't time to write another.  I need to make breakfast and get my mother started on her therapy exercises that are to be done three times daily.  Though she has nothing else to do, my mother will have a difficult time getting all three done.  

Jesus. . . I just can't seem to stop.  Let me think of some positive note on which to end.  Uh. . . the weather sucks.  Trump is president.  Russia is our only friend.  Egg prices, bird flu, a new corona virus. . . . Nope.  Can't find anything, though I like to think of sitting in a cafe as sunset with a glass of wine and a new thrifted faux-animal print purse, "alone. . . pondering."  That old comfortable melancholy.  

"Being alone always has potential.  No restrictions.  No reservations."

"Evenings of longing and adventure," I said.  

But I have chores and duties and responsibilities, so adventure and romance are put on a shelf until. . . . 

I'll just have to end with another line from Beckett who so hideously nailed the thing itself.

"I can't take it anymore."

"That's what you think."  

I just looked Googled him.  I guess he knew of which he spoke.

Cause of death:

Beckett had been suffering from respiratory problems for some time. 

His health had been deteriorating, and he had psychosomatic illnesses like coughs, boils, and hallucinations. 

His emphysema was made worse by years of smoking cigarettes in Paris cafes and bars. 

Other details:

Beckett was moved to a nursing home after falling in his apartment. 

He spent his last year in a small, poorly furnished room. 

A nurse found him unconscious in the nursing home on December 6, 1989. 

He was taken to the hospital, where he slipped into a coma and died on December 22.

(link)

  

"I can't go on.  I'll go on."

I really wish I had just written about how much I like the portrait.  I think it is lovely.  I've wasted it on this post.

Oh, Christ. . . I forgot.  I had a whole narrative built around an "Arrested Development" scene in mind yesterday.  I don't have time to go back and write it now.  But damn. . . that was the weirdest, funniest show ever to hit television.  Huh.  

So. . . let's end on a fun note.  

Walking Backwards

I took this pic with my iPhone outside the Perkins restaurant.  I'm going to tell you kids, those things sure do work.  I should try to do an entire fashion shoot with it.  The image is built around a lot of AI algorithms, of course, but who cares?  It's not like photo-sensitive silver or dyes is reality, either.  The image is what matters.  All the rest is bullshit.  

And so is Perkins.  I had White Trash Belly, sometime referred to as Hillbilly or Redneck Belly, all the live long day.  I literally felt like shit.  

"You'd better not go to Mexico, Kimosabe.  Your system has become too delicate."

When Old Uncle Joe the manager ambled over to see how the breakfast was, I just said, "fine."  What would have been the point?  The place was full of happy diners.  I assume that is how they feel all the time.  

"Never get sick," they say with a cough and a fart.  Those big old bellies are used to it.  They know nothing else.  Back home, everybody just dips their filthy hands into the open M&M jar sitting out on the coffee table.  

Yea. . . I've become a baby.  But I ain't going back.  

I say I don't know if anyone comes to read the blog anymore, but I do.  I do have one adamant reader--the Google Corporate Office in India.  They read almost every day.  

Thank you faithful reader!

I assume, though, that there are not a lot of options left.  This must be one of the ten independent/non-commercial blogs left in America.  Maybe they are looking to give me an award for "longest running."  

A little positive recognition would be nice.  

Yesterday the tenant came over while I was home.  She wanted me to come look at something in the apartment.  I'm afraid I reacted poorly.  It's just that I can't take one more thing.  

She showed me one more thing.  It may be more than one.  I'm going to have to get a new roof.  My buddy Siggy and I put that one on twenty years ago after Charlie had brought the four big oaks down on top of the old one.  Twenty years is a long life for a roof.  But I'm not sure we did everything according to code.  I might be in for a little sticker shock once they get into it.  

The door on my Xterra won't close all the way now.  The door hinges are loose.  Replacing them will be $1,000 I am sure.  

I get my $2,000 gold tooth this week.  

I need to pay Mr. Tree $3,000.  

I will need to write a big check to the IRS, too.  

And so. . . I got a little down.  Worse.  Taking a soak in the tub, I couldn't think straight.  Everything seemed hopeless, really.  Shit just keeps raining down on me.  It doesn't seem to be hitting anyone else, just me, Old Sad Sack.  

It was mid-afternoon.  The tenant and her friend were going to bring dinner over to my mother's house, so I was freed from cooking for a night.  I decided to head to the cafe for a mimosa.  I would write my cares away.  

At the cafe, however, Sunday girl was not working.  Rather, some skinny, tatted up head banger with big gauge earholes was running the counter.  O.K.  Big smile.  

"How would you feel about making me a big mimosa," I queried.  

Oh, no.  The bartender would be in in a bit, he said.  I nodded and asked if he had a Chardonnay.  He did.  And when he handed it to me, he said, "It's on me for not making you the mimosa."

Well, now!  I wanted to take that as a sign.  Could my luck be changing?

But I woke up to rain this morning that will stick around for at least two days.  Trump is still in office, and the left keeps getting meaner and weirder every day.  

Just put me in an asylum.  

My free time today has been cut in half.  I have to take my mother to her first physical therapy session.  We'll need to leave the house around 2:30.  After that, I guess, I will take her grocery shopping and then come back to her house to cook dinner.  

The girl from the Irish pub is nice, though.  She sent me photos of her and her new boyfriend.  She's very excited.  Yea.  I feel like the cab driver from "Daddio."  

She asked me to come have a drink with her on Tuesday.  That would be fun. . . if it happened around mid-afternoon.  Otherwise, I have a standing engagement.  

It is refreshing, however, to have a new young friend.  I get to re-learn what it means not to give a shit about politics, the past, or the future.  I mean, I'm sure they do, but not the way my battered friends do, all jaded and victimized by time and circumstance.  

Like me.  

Dinner last night was Potato Hot Pot.  Do you know what that is?  I didn't.  Reportedly, it is the National Dish of Minnesota or something.  People go nuts for it up there, I am told.  

Looks like 'tater tots.  I ate most of them.  

This morning, though. . . . 

I have no music for you.  I've kinda lost the music in my soul.  I don't hear music much lately, just the college radio station for a bit here and there.  

The day is grey and wet.  What more can I tell you? 

I just read that walking is good for you, but walking backwards is even better.  That's probably what I need to do.  

Until then. . . . 

All the Wrong Things

I hate my friends tonight.  I don't have any.  I am sitting in the 1960s living room of my mother's house listening to the soundtrack of either "Gunsmoke" or "The Rifleman," or rather, the commercials that equal the actual shows in airtime.  I will lose more of my mind this evening.  

Fuck you all. 

I say that knowing that nobody comes to read the blog anymore.  I've been outcast from almost everywhere.  I am a lost vessel floating in the vacuumed ether of the cosmos where there is no light or sound.  In the silent blackness of existence, I continue to dribble my pathetic mew.  The rest of humanity does whatever they do.  

I was miserable with guilt, alcohol, and THC when I woke this morning.  Yesterday morning, depending on when I post.  I had no milk for my strong coffee, so I drove to the only thing open nearby to get some.  

Coffee helped.  

My mother was up.  I asked her if she wanted to go to CostCo.  Sure.  So, after I made some dry toast for her, that is what we did.  

She got lost in CostCo.  I just let her wander and find her way.  There was no danger as far as I could discern.  

When we checked out, I asked her if she would like to go to the local "health food" store.  She was game. 

When we had done that, I asked her if she wanted to do anything else.  

"We could get something to eat."

I wasn't hungry at all, but sure.  

"What would you like to get?"

That began a long discussion.  I didn't know where to eat on this side of town.  She said, "Perkins."

O.K.  I'd never eaten at one before.  I don't do that.  I've never eaten at any of them--Zaxby's, Culvers, etc. But I was game to make her happy.  

Now. . . I will be an asshole.  Judge me.  It's O.K.  I'll try to be a colorful asshole, at least.  

Perkins is the filthiest place I've ever eaten.  There is grease on the plastic menus.  The translucent headboards between booths have never been washed.  Our host "cleaned" the table with an old, dirty dishrag.  Our server was a cockeyed redneck who called me "sweetheart."  The lintel that held the window had a dust and grease layer half an inch thick.  

Oh, goody.  

My mother ordered pancakes.  I didn't look at the menu.  I try to know what I want.  

"I'd like three eggs over medium, bacon, hash browns, and rye toast," I told the waitress.  "You figure it out."

"That's our Builder's menu with an extra egg," she smiled.  

I asked her for her number.  As my conservative friend texted, you never know when you'll need a plumber. 

As we waited, I looked around the restaurant.  It was the same crowd we had seen at CostCo.  They wore old Kirkland clothing. . . oversized t-shirts and faded Kirkland jeans.  A full denim "Fonzi" walked past our table.  He had on some off-brand high-top Converse Chucks and a pair of cheap aviator sunglasses.  As he passed, he gave me the stink eye.  He was a "regular," I suspected.  He probably knew all the waitresses by name.  The crowd was heavy.  XL.  

Our food came.  Then the check.  I had ordered without looking at the menu, and I had forgotten about egg prices.  My mother, looking at the check, went into shock.  

The waitress explained to her that a six layered box of eggs that the restaurant ordered cost $70 last week.  This week it cost $210!  

My mother said her pancakes were bad.  

"They must have not used eggs.  It was all water and flour," she said.

As we left, we passed Punchy and Slappy walking in.  This was MAGA country for sure.  I didn't care to wait for Pork Chop and T-Bone.  

"The probably think you are undercover for the N.Y. Times," said my conservative friend.  

At least, though, my mother and I had bonded again.  It relieved some of the guilt.  

"Everybody hits their limit at some point," one of my girlfriends wrote.  "You are human. The remorse is human too,"  It was a pretty good statement.  Sometimes I underestimate people.  

My new friend wrote me twice from Miami.  

"You lift my spirits," I wrote back.  

O.K.  So I don't hate all my friends.  

But pretty much.  

Maybe, I sometimes think, I don't really have any friends.  Maybe nobody does.  

The pills remain in the bedside stand.  

In the afternoon, I left my mother's to go to my house.  I have much to do.  But I don't do it.  The power cable for the movie light arrived.  I went to the garage to get the light and a stand, and in the bedroom, I hooked it all up.  I got my bib GFX and took a pic.  

"This has some potential."  

And so I dreamt.  I went to the computer and looked up LED photo lights.  Yes. . . I could spend more money.  Who, however, do I think I will photograph?  Where?  

I have a very active imagination that often does not serve me well.  Indeed, it has cot me much.  

Oh, shit.  I have to explain.  That photo at top is from the Sunday disaster shoot.  Nothing worked, and so I took out my little--quit it-- Fuji X100VI with flash, and shot a couple pics.  I was kinda psyched.  The images looked like those fashion photos by Terry Richardson before he got in trouble for showing his dick (link).  I think the photo looks much like that.  I may try it again.  

My mother watches t.v.  Maybe I'll try to watch "The Long Goodbye" by Robert Altman again.  I'm feeling a little like Elliot Gould's Marlowe tonight,  

"It's O.K. with me, lady."  

I watch the film one or two times each year.  

There was a lot going on that I missed today.  "It's O.K. with me," I think.  

Top of the list was the Porchfest in Grit City.  My "date" from last year sent me a picture of the two of us with our friends at last year's fest.  Well, shit, I thought.  That was a lot of fun.  

There are "arts" things going on all around town, too.  What the public imagination deems "art" anyway.  I don't mind missing that, either, though in both cases I miss the chance of photographing.  But I have something else in mind.  

I made a fried halibut, jasmine rice, and broccoli and Brussels sprout dinner tonight.  It was no more than "fine."  I tend to fry things on too high a heat, though.  It's O.K.  I ate the burned parts.  

Now I'm a bit into my cups.  I wait for the text message that isn't coming.  That's o.k., too.  I am a rock.  I am an island.  

I will go watch television with my mother now.  Selavy.  Life is not a cabaret most times.  It is a mundane something else.  

Still. . . I hate my friends. . . who I do not have.  

* * *

I did that last night instead of texting people.  That is a good thing.  "Keep your hands off the keyboard when you're drinking."  Can you imagine?

I didn't watch "The Long Goodbye."  I watched "Daddio" instead (link).  Fuck me.  I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but. . . .  Dakota Johnson, daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson, is terribly watchable.  Sean Penn. . . what happened?  

Sunday.  I have no plans.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Bagel.  

Another cup of coffee and maybe a chocolate croissant.  

Even The Greats Can Be Assholes

One good day is not followed by another. There is bound to be a letdown. Yesterday, however, the magnitude of change was brutal. What can you do? As I've said before. . . you just take it and soldier on.

Though you may not want to.  That's why they put up the 988 signs on railroad tracks.  I can't agree with them, however.  Sometimes, I think, checking out isn't the worst thing.  

I'll cut to the chase.  My mother fell again last night.  No broken bones, but a big goose egg on her shin and a bruised hip.  We had to have the conversation.  I can't go on like this spending 19 hours a day taking care of her.  Yes. . . I'm making it about me.  I've cracked.  Maybe you could do more than I, could take more.  Maybe you are a better person than I.  I'll have to live with that, or at least take it under consideration.  Or. . . . 

She is recalcitrant.  "I'm staying in my house," she said.  "You go home and live your life."

I am afraid to tell you my response.  I am not proud.  Worse, I am ashamed and guilt ridden.  Once you yell, you can't take it back.  You have to live with the consequences.  

Or. . . . 

She thinks I'm still a kid and can do everything.  I'm an old cripple, and I have my own problems.  

And so my head swirls and topples with confusion and fear.  It would be good to have someone else working on the problem with me, someone with connection.  But I don't.  This is a row I have to hoe alone.  

So that was the chase.  The day before the fall, from rising until then, had not been so sterling, either.  I didn't look good.  My elegance from the day before had abandoned me.  I went through the day by rote.  I was down and a bit paranoid, I think.  The luster had gone off things.  There was no twinkle or shine.  

Could I be more vague?  There are some things I just can't confess.  I've already tarnished myself enough in the public eye.  

One text did bring me relief yesterday, then later, last night another gave me a lift.  And that, my friends, is all I got.  

I woke this morning and started the coffee maker and then realized I was out of milk.  That is today's omen.  My mother is up and I need to try to make amends.  

I told you. . . I'm not a good son, I'm an asshole.  You'd be much better at this.  I know you would.  

A Good Day to Dream

The old morning routine just ain't what it used to be.  I get up, start the most important meal of the day, coffee, do my morning ablutions, pour the brew, and sit down with the laptop.  I check the weather app, then texts and emails.  I open news.  But I can't stand to look at it any longer.  Until the nation turns against Trump and his allies completely, I can't.  Trump dominates the news.  It's not the news networks fault.  I mean. . . what are you going to do?

A friend who works for an internet company texted me yesterday to tell me he has been instructed to talk about certain projects in code language.  The company, he was told, is afraid that the Trump administration could look at their history of posts and use it against them.  

This is other world shit.  

Paranoia runs deep.  

So. . . I have too many problems closer to home to manage.  The HVAC repairman came to my mother's house in the morning.  He said the trouble with the unit was a coolant leak.  The pressure in the lines was about a third of what it should be.  He could fix it for only. . . $1,900.  My mother might want to consider just buying a new system.  

She chose the repair.  

I couldn't stick around, though.  I had a luncheon date with my old pal, C.C.  I haven't seen him for months.  Hardly heard from him.  People's lives. . . you know.  We met at a "fancy" place and, as is our wont, sat at the bar.  We were lucky to get seats.  The entire restaurant was packed.  The economy is bad, they say. . . but not at the top, apparently.  We two hillbillies sat with the business class and ordered like we had the money to pay.  We got the prix fixe of the day.  Fancy name for the salad and potato cake.  Soup, too, but it was an olive oil creamy eggplant concoction.  Chicken something sandwich.  O.K. I wasn't paying attention to the names.  I got a big glass of Chardonnay.  I was just anxious to start spilling my miseries.  

"Oh, man. . . poor me. . . . "

You've already heard that one before.  

And so we chatted with one another, the couple sitting next to me, and the barman while we ate.  It felt good to be out, and after awhile, I was feeling almost "normal."  Living in the wild.  

"You know, I've only been out for two hours after dark in six weeks," I told C.C.  I had thought it was seven, but sitting with my mother in the morning, I checked the calendar.  Fuck. . . it seems like months. 

Lunch came with a tangerine/vanilla soft serve.  

Lunch was good and the weather was wonderful, but too quickly, C.C. had to go. He's going to his native land, he said, and wouldn't be back for at least a month.  

Selavy.  

Mid-afternoon.  The sun was shining bright as it fell from its zenith, the highway fairly open and free.  I decided to drive to the photo store.  I needed to check on some things.  

When I walked in, the big guy who'd asked about my cameras at the Cafe Strange called out, "Hey man, you're following me."  The counter help all said hello, and I told them he was there to buy a brand new GFX camera.  

"Don't let him see anything else.  That's the one he wants."

The nice Mexican woman came over to help me.  I told her I needed a strobe flash control.  She took me down the aisle to show me.  I could tell she was uncertain and a little confused.  They weren't selling too many of these, I was sure.  So we muddled our way through things, me opening packages to look and see, and we finally came to the conclusion that what I really required was something they didn't have.  We asked the other fellow working there, and then we all agreed.  Now, at least, I knew what I needed and was going to do.  

"Arrivederci," I cried out with a big Marcello Mastroianni wave (try spelling that without looking it up), and stepped out into the sunlight, spurred on by the memory of life and of living.  Fuck yea.  I walked past a couple of cute girls on the sidewalk who grinned and gave me the eye.  

The afternoon was passing, but I thought I had time to go for a cup of tea.  The day was still pretty and the traffic still light.  I headed for the cafe.  

When I walked in, the young girlband punk rocker was working the counter.  The place was relatively quiet.  She smiled and said hello, and I ordered a jasmine green tea.  Another girl who works there was sitting at the adjacent counter with the cook.  She was futzing with a little point and shoot camera that she had just gotten.  She looked at me and said, "You know about cameras, right?"  

"Some things, yea."

"Can you see if I put the film in right.  It doesn't advance."

She handed me the camera.  

"You can open the back."

I did.  The film seemed to be loaded ok, so I closed it and took a photo, but the film still didn't advance, so I opened the back again.  I pulled out the film canister but the film was loaded in tight, so I twirled the film sprocket to tighten the lead and then stretched it out so that I could put the canister back in.  The three of them looked on with serious expressions.  Would the baby live?  

When I closed the back, I put the camera to my eye and snapped a photo of the girl in the band.  

Click, whirrr. . . .  The film advanced.  There was laughter and sighs of relief.  Look at me, I thought.  Look at me. 

"I still want to make pictures of you and your girlfriend in some alleyway," I said to the counter girl with a newfound confidence.  She smiled and popped her eyes and said yes.  

I took my tea to a table.  A tiny but striking girl sat with what I assumed was her boyfriend.  She kept looking at me and then away.  Like most of the people in this cafe. . . I mean, the place is oddly amazing, full of characters weird and stunning.  I thought for the hundred thousandth time that I wanted to be a cafe photographer.  Hey, now. . . that might be a good monicker for the website I will build and for the cards I will have made.  

Cafe Photography.  

Why hadn't I thought of that before?

Of course, Carnivale Photo wouldn't be bad, either.  

It was getting late when I left the cafe.  I needed to go back to my house as I'd left my stuff there and had things in the washer that needed to go to the dryer.  As I was packing up to go, an attractive, middle aged woman in all black walked into the room uncertainly.  She looked at me and grinned, then sheepishly pointed her phone camera at something hanging from the ceiling.  She softly said, "I just wanted to. . . " and she took another photo.  

"Everybody does it," I said.  She looked at me again and grinned.  She twirled around looking at the room, then turned back to me and said goodbye.  With a twinkle in her eye, I thought.  

"She likes me, of course.  Today I am beautiful."  

When I pulled into the driveway, I remembered that it was the usual hour for a cocktail and a cheroot on the deck.  But that was a long time ago.  Now I had to hustle, so I got my things together, switched the laundry, and pointed the car east toward my mother's.  She said that I needn't cook for her that evening, that she was going to eat leftovers from the night before.  I would just make some eggs and soup, I thought.  It is a good and simple meal.  I needn't stop at the store.  But. . . just in case. . . . 

The liquor store was on the way.  

When I got to my mom's, the house was warm.  The HVAC was repaired.  I asked her if she was feeling a little lighter.  She gave me the deaf and dumb grin.  She had no idea what I'd said.  

But the day had been good and dinner was good and the wine was good and there was whiskey.  But. . . the old problems still remained.  And some new ones as well.  The driver's side door on the old Xterra has loosened from the hinges and will barely close.  To fix it, the front fender has to be removed and he hinges replace.  I'm sure that would cost a thousand dollars.  Do I keep pouring money into the beast?  I have a million dollars worth of old wooden house repairs to get done.  And then there is the failing vessel that is me to be taken care of.  Next week, a two thousand dollar gold tooth.  After that. . . it's a crap shoot.

And so to bed and early to rise.  The temperature dropped overnight into the thirties.  Each day is a new challenge.  But man. . . sometimes you can escape for a minute or two and dream a little dream.  

Ha!!!!!

 

Drunk and Futile

I'm tired to death.  I'm making mistakes.  At night, once again, the horror show begins.  I'm in the 7th week of living with my mother and watching the slow decline.  My patience has worn thin. There is now just the low moaning howl of slothful agony.  

Hers and mine.

I was shopping for the dinner menu at the grocers last night when a woman stopped and said hello.  It took me a minute to recognize her.  I hadn't seen her in years.  She took one of my lit courses many, many years ago.  Her family owned the best, most pleasant deli in town.  It had been there since I was in high school when I was a lost, forlorn, solitary teen living for some future dream.  I had a car and had discovered what would become my own hometown.  The Boulevard was for the affluent locals, an oak lined street with great little shops and courtyards.  There was a movie theater, an ice cream shop, a family owned men's store, a bank, a locally owned five and dime and another general store, women's dress and shoe shops, and just off the Boulevard, a Morrison's Cafeteria and a small but wonderful grocery store.  

Coming from where I did. . . 

The deli's name was Brandywine.  They made the best sandwiches I'd ever eaten.  I'd was reading Tolkien in those high school years.  The name. . . everything seemed enchanted.  

Years later, the woman's family bought the place, and for awhile, she helped to manage it.  And later, when I was in the band, she married the bass player from another local group.  He was a tall fellow, and I used to play basketball with him.  A couple years later, they opened a record store on the Boulevard.  And then, later, they sold it and her husband became a professional photographer doing catalog work for hotels and colleges.  

I saw less and less of them over the years.  

Yesterday, she was as nice and friendly as ever.  We chatted a bit catching up, and then her husband wandered over from another aisle.  He stood tall as ever, grinning.  

"Are you still doing photography," I asked him?

He kept grinning.

"No," she said.  "He had to quit.  He's disabled now and unable to do it.  He is losing his memory.  He has a kind of aphasia.  He can't remember words anymore."

I looked up into his grinning eyes.  

"Oh."  I didn't know what else to say.  And so we made our goodbyes.  He reached out and shook my hand, grinning all the while.  

"It was nice to see you," she said.  

I rolled my groceries to the checkout where the unhappy person of indefinable gender transitioning rang me up with a scowl.  

When I got back to my mother's house, "Gunsmoke" was blaring at top volume.  I said hello and began chopping chicken and broccoli and started the brown jasmine rice.  I was only going to drink a light beer, but when it was done, I opened an IPA.  Dinner ready, I poured a big glass of wine.  Dinner done, I had a scotch.  After we had watched the first fifteen minutes of the network national news, I cleaned the pans and dishes.  My mother was back to "Gunsmoke."  I poured another scotch.  

The girl had been texting ideas for another shoot.  She was excited, she said.  She had posted some of the pictures on her social media account and, she said, people loved them.  

"No shit."

The news had pissed me off, and I guess I was a little drunk.  Life seemed a real shit show to me now.  My conservative friend had sent me a bunch of Goebel's style propaganda, what Zelensky's accurately called "disinformation."  I'd had enough.  I wrote back an acerbic response.  

"Fuck EVERYBODY who thinks Trump and Musk are just "funny."  Ukraine attacked Russia?  Fuck all of you!  There will be blood in the streets by summer, I predict.  If Trump/Musk cut 100% of the government workforce, it would be, at best 1% of the budget.  Give me your address.  Put out a Trump/Musk sign.  By August, your house will be burnt down.  

DEATH TO THE FASCIST MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!"

I guessed he wouldn't like me much after that.   

Then I sent the girl some example photos of other things I have shot--a hog hunt with cowboys, big city street scenes, part of the surf series.  She is a media major and works on websites.  I asked her if she could help me put one together. 

People always wants to know, "Do you have a website," and I have to say, "No."  But it is becoming obvious to me that I probably maybe need one.

My mother had left the heat on high all day, and it had become uncomfortably warm in the house, so I got up and put on the a.c.  It did nothing.  I went out to see if the compressor was working.  It wasn't.  I told my mother who didn't seem to grasp the concept.  She went to bed.  I stayed up waiting for a response.  The only one I got was from my conservative buddy.

"Is that an opinion?"

Nothing else.  I brushed my teeth.  It was hot, so I stripped to my skin, turned on the overhead fan, and went to bed.

Maybe it was the whiskey.    

In the middle of the night I woke up cold.  I got up, put on a t-shirt, and tried the heater.  Nothing.  I went back to bed dreading the morning, but the night wasn't any better.  

This morning, the house was cold.  I tried the heater again.  Nope.  I made coffee and checked my email.  I'd forgotten, once again, my old rule of never writing anyone when I was into my cups.  I had no response from the girl.  Well. . . fuck it.  I don't like anyone anymore anyway.  

And so it goes.   

The HVAC repair guy will be out today, but my mother set the thermostat on "EM Heat" and the house has warmed.  

"You can either use the compressor for heat or use the unit inside."

I'd been curt with her about the thermostat.  

"I'll pay for the repair," I offered.  Fuck me.  I'm a mess.  My nerves are shot.  

This morning as I thought about my old disabled acquaintance, I realized that I am lucky.  It is difficult to feel lucky when you are crippled, but yea. . . there is a lot of worse shit.  Many I know are going through it.  My age, not my mother's.  

I need to quit drinking again.  I need to find some equilibrium.  I tell myself, "If I had a studio. . . I'd be happy."  

If it were only that easy, eh?  Well. . . maybe it would help.  

"So just shut the fuck up and rent a space for Christ's sake."

Yea, yea, yea.  The money river's running dry.  Trump is going to turn it into a desert.  Not just Trump.  All the assholes who voted for him.  The ones who have money still don't care, but the farmers are already feeling the pain.  So will small business owners who thought they were mini-Musks.  People who work for a living and pay rent will turn against Trump, too, I think.  By summer, when the ice storm turn into tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes.  There will be marching in the streets.  

One can only hope.  But maybe stupid people will just believe in his lies.  

Yea. . . I need to get back to hippie ways.  I'm already cooking good food, but I need to meditate and drink teas instead of whiskeys.  And I have to give in to reality and give up on hope.  Hope is futile.  

I could see it in those grinning eyes.  

The End of the World Cafe

 

Born in 1864, died in 1943—forgotten by the world, left to languish in a mental hospital.

What was her story?

She came to Paris to study art at a time when the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts was open only to men. Undeterred, she joined studios that welcomed women. There, she met and became the lover of the celebrated sculptor Auguste Rodin. Their relationship was one of fiery passion and shared artistry—they created side by side, their collaborative genius preserved in works housed today in the Rodin Museum and Musée d’Orsay.

But Rodin, already entangled in a long-standing relationship with another woman, eventually left Camille. As his reputation soared, hers plummeted. She was scorned, shunned, and dismissed—not just as a lover but as an artist. Alone, distrusting, and out of favor, she struggled to sell her works.

Adding to her isolation, her brother, the renowned poet and diplomat Paul Claudel, played a pivotal role in her downfall. Camille, seen as "too modern" and a source of familial shame, was forcibly institutionalized by her family. For 30 years, she fought to explain the injustice of her confinement, writing anguished letters to friends and family, pleading for release. Her clarity and heartbreak resonate in these preserved writings.

On October 19, 1943, Camille Claudel died of malnutrition in a French hospital. No family members attended her funeral, and her body was buried in a common grave.

Decades later, the world has finally recognized her brilliance. Her legacy has been restored: her sculptures now stand proudly beside Rodin’s, and a museum near Paris is dedicated entirely to her work.

Camille Claudel is no longer forgotten. She is honored as the visionary she always was.

I don't know.  I read this the other day and it just stuck with me.  Life can be pretty fucking shitty.  People can.  

Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken
And certainly misused

I got a text from my band's old drummer (or my old band's drummer) who lives in San Francisco last night.  No, he didn't just live there last night.  He's lived there for many, many years.  He sent the text to me and my old college roommate (or the other way 'round) who was in the band, too.  

"How are you guys doing? I’ve been trying to check in with folks, because the struggle, fear and angst."

WTF, man?  I wanted to tell him. . . well. . . this is how I DID  respond:

"I have none of that. It is just more of the same here at the End of the World Cafe. We're just waiting for The Big One. End Times, man. No Ideologies Allowed."

I was only being slightly sarcastic.  I've never been a typical liberal, the "strong letter to the editor" type.  I've always preferred the Woody Allen response in I don't remember what movie--"What we need to do is get a group together and go up there with baseball bats." 

Oh, but I'm alright, I'm alright
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant

But it does get tiring, all this Hitleresque bullshit.  All you can do is join the resistance like those who joined in France in WWII.  Lots of "intellectuals," as they are apt to be called in some sorts of journalism, took up arms and did very brave things.   

The Right is doing the River Dance on the heads of liberals right now.  It sexes them to laugh about Crackhead Harris and Tampon Tim.  And what has been the typical response?  Oh. . . yesterday I heard on NPR that dancers from The Kennedy Center did a silent protest on the sidewalk outside the building.  They were brave.  It must have been terribly cold.  Yup--they marched in simple, synchronized moves.  Holy shit!!!  I'll bet that scared the living shit out 'em!  The fascists won't be able to stand that kind of thing for very long.  

But it's alright, it's alright
For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
Road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what has gone wrong

But I should have told my friend is SF the truth.  I'm not doing as well as I used to.  I'm living in fragments.  The world is wicked and people are strange.  All the gods seem to have abandoned us but the ones of rabid fury.  I'll fight 'til the end with my hands and feet, but fuck. . . I don't even know who's on my side anymore.  The lines seem to have gone dead.  Where did everyone go?

I'm sure that is what Camille Claudel kept wondering.  "How in the fuck did this happen?  I just want to make some art!"  

In dark times when everything seems to turn against you, it can be difficult to find a friend

Oh, and it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
You can't be forever blessed
I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest

Last night as I prepared dinner for my mother and I, a really good rendition of pork chops, Brussels sprouts, and little red potatoes, I danced to the music on the college jazz station.  My movements would only stay in time for a little bit before my knee would go or I would jiggle my way out of rhythm.  But it made me feel good and made my mother laugh.  I used to do my silly dance while cooking all the time.  It gave my girl sweet belly giggles.  I'm no dancer, but that will never stop me.  I'm not going to quit now.  And I'll sing my silly songs.  I'll still be here performing at the End of the World Cafe.  

My Life. . . In Ruins

It's seems so long since I left my life and home.  Oh, I go to my house every day, but only for a minute.  After my mother's cast came off, I felt I could leave her for a bit longer, so I tore my living room apart to make a "studio."  Yesterday, I spent the day tearing down the studio and making back the house. I had to.  The cleaning crew comes today.  I was a week off on my calendar.  It took hours to put things right.  Many trips back and forth from the house to the garage

I miss my life and home.  

My drinking life began again with a happy hour trip with the boys.  I drank lightly.  It accelerated on my birthday, or probably the day before.  By Valentine's Day, I was back at it.  

I am either depressed or have gone insane.  O.K.  I understand that they are not mutually exclusive.  

"I would have thought you already knew about crazy," one witty interlocutor said yesterday.

"Sure.  Now I know the difference between crazy and insane."  

My head is a bucket of writhing snakes that, once started, can't be stopped.  They will settle down on their own from time to time, but I can't control when they become active again.  

"Coffee is the most important meal of the day," I say.  It is true.  It is when the horror of the night before settles down and I regain a smidge of control.  That doesn't mean I'm happy.  Not by a long shot.  But for the moment, I am released from the python's grip.

Later, when I see people I know, I don't want to speak.  Conversation is just too difficult.  As the old poem goes, I cannot unfrown myself.  

And then there was the disastrous weekend.  I enjoyed the attention of a young woman, but eventually you run into the wall.  

Yesterday, I was able to get into the dentist in the afternoon.  I just wanted him to reattach my crown.  

Nope.  

"I don't think the ceramic will hold.  I'd rather put a gold crown on it." 

This came as a shock since once he replaced a gold crown with a ceramic one.  The fucker hates me, I know.  

I made an appointment at the reception desk.  That little bit of news cost me $100.  The gold crown trip will be $2,000.  I think I need to get out of the expensive part of town, drive to the southern regions of the county in Area 13, and find a dentist who will just put the old crown back on.  

I'll be broke before Trump leaves office.  If I even make it that far.  

Last night, I'd had it with "The Rifleman" and "Gunsmoke."  I was sure I was going to do something regretful.  My mother said she wasn't hungry, that shed eaten a bunch of cottage cheese and fruit before I got back, so I made myself the same meal I'd had the night before, scrambled eggs, chicken soup, and sliced tomatoes.  I threw in some potato chips for fun.  And wine.  I liked the wine.  A lot.  I liked a lot of wine.  

And when dinner was done, I poured a big scotch and sat with my mother to watch the news.  Another accident with an airplane.  For half an hour, CNN kept showing the same video footage and having different commentators say the same thing over and over and over with the promise of an upcoming update.  

"We need to know the condition of the infant," one expert opined.  

"Why?" I yelled.  "Why do we need to know?  I don't need to know.  You may want to know, but you have no need you fat fucking. . . . "

Where did that come from?  Fortunately, my mother can't hear me most of the time.  I got up to clean the kitchen of my dinner mess and the rest of the plates and pots and dishes my mother had left for me to clean from her day at home alone.  That is when the t.v. channel changed to cowboys.  So, after the dishes were done and the counters and table wiped clean and after I'd taken out the garbage and closed up the garage for the night. . . I poured another drink.  

I sat in the living room and checked my email.  I checked my texts.  I needn't have.  I sat alone in my mother's living room and looked at the framed pictures on various coffee tables. . . the lamps, the carpet, a million degrees different from the mood of my own home.  No bookshelves.  No artifacts.  No frangipani burning in stone oil lamps.  

I picked up Cormac McCarthy's "The Passenger," and began.  In a little while my mother came shuffling through the room.  

"I'm going to bed.  You can have the t.v. if you want." 

"Thanks.  Goodnight."

I read a little more.  I woke up at 11:30.  I'd fallen asleep in the recliner.  Did I?  Or had I just passed out?  

"I need a mind eraser before I sleep," I thought.  "What do I have that would work?"

I woke at five.  I got up, went to the restroom, and went back to bed.  I lay there, but I only thought things I couldn't control, despairing things.  How do people do it, I wondered?  How does my mother?  I look at people and can't believe they go on.  They exist, and that seems to be enough.  I've never wanted to merely exist.  

I don't feel I'm truly living at the moment, and I'm failing when I try to.  

I think my life has just been too fucking good.  I've had too much fortune, too much excitement, too many rich experiences, too great a journey.  I was born in a shack without an indoor bathroom on the banks of a river in Southern Ohio .  If it had not been for river overflowing the banks and flooding our house, I would have lived with the hillbillies and overdosed on heroin like the rest of them.  Rather, my life has been a bildungsroman.  

People tell me that this is life, that I'm a good son.  I'm not.  I'm an asshole.  

"Forgive me father, for I have sinned."  

I cry into the night's sky and ask what this means.  And all I get back in answer is, "the cold twinkling of a distant star."

Yesterday, after the dentist, I took a little time to myself to work up some of the pictures I've taken.  Oh, fuck. . . it was fun.  And there was the music.  A song that I love came on, a version I had never heard before.  I sent it to my new friend who says she likes jazz.  

I'm foolish that way.  And you know what they say.  

I Don't Want to Be a Photographer Anymore

I don't want to be a photographer anymore.  It sucks.  It used to be easy.  It used to be fun.  Now. . . I don't know.  It's probably just me.  

I left my mother and drove to my house to get my lighting equipment ready and packed in the car for the trip to the coast.  I broke down the lights and tripods and cables and packed them up, but I couldn't find the trigger for the one I would use to trigger the others.  I searched, looked in boxes, went from room to room.  Think.  I knew which camera it had been on and knew when I took it off.  I got on my hands and knees and looked under furniture.  It wasn't to be found.  I texted my new friend and asked her to see if she might not have accidentally packed it with her things when she left.  It is small.  It would be easy.  

It was almost time to leave for the coast.  I would have to rely on another flash trigger that was taped up and suspect.  It was all I could do.  

When I got on the interstate, I pondered why there was so much traffic on a cloudy, rainy, windy Sunday afternoon.  Oh, shit.  It occurred to me.  Today was the Trump 500.  I hadn't been paying attention.  Why hadn't I paid attention?  

Still, the traffic flowed fairly well, and I got to the beach town on time.  I had eaten only a yogurt in the morning, and it was now one.  Maybe I needed a little food in my stomach before the shoot?  I came to a McDonalds just a mile from the studio.  Why not?  

On the second bite, there was a crunch.  It was a crown.  WTF?  Fortunately, I didn't swallow it.  

My tongue spent the rest of the day bothering that stump of a tooth.  

When I got to the studio, the fire-eater was putting on makeup.  She had just given a private pole dancing lesson.  She showed me around her studio.  It was huge.  One room was lined with mirrors on three walls.  There were eight poles.  The room was dimly lit in purple light--just as you might suspect.  In the second room, aerial silks hung from the ceiling, those and some circus hoops.  It was quite a thing.  This could be fun.  

While she got ready, I began unpacking the car.  I brought in lights and cables and stands and bags full of cameras.  The silks studio had a nice wall, I thought, so I sat up in there first.  But there would be no fire-eating.  Then I found out there would be no silk or pole performance.  The fire took too much prep and the poles took too much warm up.  So what the fuck was I to do?

It didn't matter.  When I set up the lights, the trigger I brought wouldn't work.  I was sweating bullets.  I jacked around with it and got it to work about one out of eight times.  I had to think.  What to do?  She was a nice person and waited patiently.  She had a couch in the waiting room, and there were windows.  Maybe we could shoot there.  But it was stupid.  The whole thing was a disaster, and after not so very long, she said she had to get ready to go--get this--do a fire-eating shoot.  

Sick in stomach and heart, humiliated, I packed up the equipment and said goodbye.  

The fun wasn't over yet, though. When I hit the interstate, it was moving at a snail's pace, stop and go.  And then the skies opened up and the torrential rain began.  Brake, gas, brake. . . brake. . . stop, sit. . . . 

When I got back to my house, I unpacked the gear thinking absolutely I would never do this again.  I went to the liquor cabinet and poured a drink.  I'd have to call the dentist first thing, but it was probably not going to be as simple as just cementing the crown back on.  Surely not.  

I called my mother to see if she had eaten.  Of course not.  She told me to stop and get something to bring home.  I told her about my crown and suggested scrambled eggs and chicken soup.  

I wasn't going to drink anymore and had no liquor.  I stopped at the liquor store and got a bottle of scotch.  

All I wanted to do was sit on the couch and watch tv.  

What the fuck was I thinking?  

DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY — The crowd cheered, the cars roared, and President Donald Trump again basked in the pomp and pageantry of one of America’s premier sporting events.

NASCAR is Trump country, White House officials have said, and Daytona’s famous race is at the heart of it. Volusia County, where the speedway is, voted for Trump over Kamala Harris by a 22-point margin in November. 

A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll in 2023 found that 42 percent of Republicans said they were fans of auto racing, compared with 25 percent of Democrats — the most significant margin among the nine sports included in the poll. 

My night was full of bad dreams.  Thoughts more than dreams.  What do you do at night to slow a speeding brain?  

I am tired this morning.  I'll be spending most of my day packing up the stupid home studio I set up and putting everything back in place.  It will take hours.  I'll call the dentist first.  I have to stop and make appointments for my mother at the physical therapy place.  But all I want to do is lie on my couch and try not to think.  

I'm overtaxed.  I'm out of steam.  

I don't want to be a photographer anymore.  

We Did It

Jacques Oliver

Well. . . we did it. I'm not sure how it will turn out. I had to leave right after the shoot to get to my mother's house. But we had fun. She is excited and wants to do more. Or wants me to do more. I am worn out with it. After all the work, I was not happy with the "home studio." I learned something, though. I don't think I'd do it again. There were things I wanted to do but didn't. I forgot to do them. But she was game. 

After she was gone, I left the house in a hurry. When I got to my mother's, I realized I'd forgotten to bring back my laptop. After I ate dinner, I told my mother I thought I would drive back and get it.



"Do you want to ride along?"

"Sure."

She hadn't been out in a few days, so this would be her Saturday night thrill. As we passed the Boulevard, I said, "Look. People go out at night. Isn't it crazy? This is going on while you watch Gunsmoke. Do you want to go bar hopping?"

"Sure. Take your mom out. Ha!"

When I got back to my house and pulled into the driveway, I saw that the kitchen door was open.  Wide.  My heart skipped a beat or two.  WTF?  I cautiously approached the house wondering if someone was inside.  I had left all my camera gear lying about.  What would be gone?

But when I walked in, everything was quiet and just as I had left it.  My head was whirring.  I went from room to room.  Everything was the same.  I looked around for strange animals, armadillos or possums or raccoons.  Nothing.  

Had I done this?  I couldn't believe that it was true.  Surely I didn't just drive off with the kitchen door open.  There are old girlfriends who have keys.  No. . . that makes no sense.  

I'm questioning myself.  Is it stress?  Dementia?  

I'm anxious to get back to my house this morning to see if everything is safe.  Maybe I should change the locks on the doors.  

When I get home this morning, I have to pack up lights and stands and cameras to take to the coast for the fire-eater shoot.  Only. . . she says the fire-eating schtick takes a lot of prep, so we probably aren't going to do that.  I told her last night I had no idea what I was coming over to shoot, but if we have fun, I'd be happy.  I was just being nice, though.  I really don't want to go.  It's a long drive and I won't get home until dark.  

But I will buck up.  There is a wind advisory today, though, and it will most likely be raining on my drive home.  I couldn't ask for more.  

I bitch if I don't make pictures, I bitch if I do.  But life with mom will continue for awhile longer.  There is nothing I can do about it.  

I think all I'm really interested in, though, comes through the lens of a camera.  

We'll see.