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.  

Gallery Walk

I knew I was supposed to go take photos this weekend.  I didn't want to.  

"Supposed to?"

Internal insistence.  Something.  But I couldn't bring myself to do it on Saturday, and Sunday morning I still wasn't feeling the vibe, and not wanting to waste another brilliant day, I decided to do some yard work at my mother's.  First, though, I would take a walk, another three miler, down a park pathway in my mother's neighborhood.  The morning was pretty.  The trail was busy with bike riders, joggers, and people like me just out for a morning stroll. I did O.K. I thought, not hurting the way I had on Saturday.  

When I got back to my mother's, I decided to get to work.  I picked up the big clippers with the extendable handles from the tool hanger and began trimming the branches of her big Crepe Myrtles.  I had trimmed them at the beginning of the summer, I think, but they had grown bushy at the bottom and had sent new branches skyward.  What a mess.  

Using with those big clippers was real work for an old boy, and bending and clipping the growth at the bottom was hard on my back, my neck, my shoulders. . . hell, it was just hard for every joint and bone.  It wasn't muscular, though.  Oh, no--I'm a real cowboy.  Just too many broken bones.  

I worked away for what seemed days, but was, in fact, just more than an hour.  The day had grown warmer and I was soaked through and through.  I sat inside with my mother and drank a Pedialyte. 

"Boy, you sure were doing some cutting out there."

It was past noon, and I felt good about the day.  If I did nothing else, I'd done something.  It was psychologically lifting.  There were still many projects that needed doing, but I was sure I would.  

Pretty sure.  

Rather.  

By the time I'd gotten back to my house and showered, it was mid-afternoon.  I sat down at the computer to order some supplements on Amazon, and of a sudden, I felt weak.  Shaky.  I grabbed a bottle out of the 'fridge and drank more Pedialyte.  I would have eaten something, but, of course, there is no food in my own home.  

Three o'clock.  I didn't want to do anything, but I needed to do something.  I grabbed the Leica and the keys to the Xterra.  I'd just go to the pop-up vintage market and see.  

There were crowds of people milling about the street around the brewery where the market was taking place.  With no possible place to park for miles, and knowing it was closed, I drove back to my buddy's camera repair shop and pulled into his parking spot not far from the mob.  Getting out of the car, though, I was still feeling shaky.  I walked slowly toward the market sure that I didn't want to go.  But what's a man to do?  

I was the only one with a camera.  

That photo at the top of the page was the first one I took.  It turned out to be the best one of the day.  I don't know where that light flare came from, but it works.  It looks like a light leak on a film camera. It's a snotty picture, I think, or would be hanging in a gallery.  It is a WTF picture that would be, by hanging in a gallery, validated in some way you just didn't get, but you'd try, and then move onto the next.  

This was one of the last photos I took, another snotty photo.  I only wandered around the marketplace for a bit.  It began at noon, and now, moving on to four, I guessed the fashion crowd had come and gone for the most part.  I mean, you'd want to get there early before the best weird clothing or concert t-shirt had been bought up, wouldn't you?  I wandered through the stalls wishing I had stayed home.  I was lacking something more than motivation.  Confidence, maybe.  Or, I may just be slowing down with age.  Maybe the morning had simply worn me out.  I'd hate to admit that, of course, on the one hand, but on the other, yea. . . I'd like to hire people to do that shit, too. 

So I took a knee, so to speak, left the market, and sat on the steps of a not open on Sunday business to scroll through the photos I had taken.  And that is where I photographed the elusive manhole cover and the broken street. 

And so the gallery goer moves on. 

And again--WTF?  

"Why is this out of focus?  Is this supposed to be good?"

Sure.  I mean the photographer is protecting the identities of the people on the street.  They aren't people anymore but figures, you know?  It's not "blurry," it's time lapsed. It really is in focus.  

Move on. 

"Now we're talking.  I guess the photographer was protecting the identity of this shopper, too."

Au contraire, my friend.  I was shooting from the hip with a 35mm lens where I should have been using a 28 in such close quarters.  This is shameful, really, a mere accident.  Still, you know, it captures something of the essence of the vintage clothing crowd.  

I didn't end up with very many photos on the day, but I had gotten out among the throng and into the gentle afternoon air, so it had been a pretty good day.  

I guess. 

I had only spoken to my mother and a random guy walking his dog while I was sitting on the stairs, and he for only a brief moment.  Even out, I'm still living in isolation.  

Isolato.  A mere reflection in a shop window, fading into disembodied incorporeity. 

It was time to get back to mother's.  I had beans to make, a bean soup with chicken and cut carrots, onions, and celery.  

In the pressure cooker.  

I made a cocktail.  

"It takes hours to cook dry beans."

"No, they will be ready in an hour." 

"Really?  No."

"Mom, how many times have I made beans for you?  An hour."

"Well, we'll see."

In an hour, I dished the soup into big bowls. It was the best meal of the week, and the best part of the day.  There is nothing like a good, hearty soup to put a man back on his horse.  

Today I will have lunch with C.C. who I haven't seen since the beginning of the year.  I'm hoping I still know how to keep up my end of the conversation, but since I have nothing to tell, I hope I will be a good listener.  

I've been pretty good at listening to this.  

The Middle

Oh what the hell--Harvest Moon through the front window of my mother's car.  Since I started the car series, the Leica is always sitting on the passenger side seat when I drive. I saw this leaving a parking lot of a strip mall and stopped to make a picture.  Not romantic. Sans lakes and oaks and cyprus, but this is my life right now. It's not a great or good picture, but it is the moon.   

"They"promised fall-like weather, and as with most promises lately, it was false.  The temperature did dip, but the sun was still sharp and the air humid.  It was relief from extreme heat, but it wasn't fall-like.  Still, as my mother and her hillbilly clan like to say, "better than nothing."

That was the theme of my early life and now, once again, at this late stage.  It is not the life I aspired to and for quite a long while was able to eschew.  Once I had a car, my friend Tommy (who lived in a trailer in a rundown trailer park with his mother, stepfather, brother and sister) and I determined it would be all or nothing, not better than nothing, and as much as I could, I began living above my means.  I spent my money living as I wished or I swilled the dregs.  I did not want to live in the middle ground.  I chose the expensive and the exotic, alternating between rooms at The Breakers and eight dollar a night rooms on Duval.  I ate in the best restaurants in Key West but mostly at El Cacique with the best cheap dinners I've ever had.  I'd skip meals so I could eat with friends in high places.  

I was Hillbilly Chic.  

Now, I'm back to the middle which is deemed to be "better than nothing."  

It is definitely something. 

But there are breakfasts and dinners and there is air conditioning and premium t.v. and whiskey.  

Mom has had a few hallucinations lately.  She got out of early bed and came to the tv room wanting to know if everybody went home.  

"Who?"

"Dorothy."

Dorothy is dead.  

Then in the morning, she was adamant that she got up in the night and there were giant cockroaches all over the kitchen floor and she was killing them.  My mother cannot move any faster than a three-toes sloth and I am certain she would lose that race, but she insisted she was killing them.  

"Where'd you put them?"

"I put them in paper towels."

"Where did you put the paper towels?"

"In the garbage."

I showed her the garbage.  No paper towels. No roaches.  

"You just dreamed it," I said.  

Nope.  Absolutely not.  We are going to need to call an exterminator.  I can't convince her.  

She's having a hard time remembering the neighbors' names.  

Whenever I see people now, it is always the same conversation.  

"How's your mom doing?"

Then people try to commiserate by telling me the terrible things their parents or grandparents went through.  This is really, I have come to realize, the entirety of my human interaction now.  I've taken to saying "good talk" when the conversation is through.  

Yea.  Fun.  

I took a long walk yesterday, long for me now.  Three and a half miserable miles.  My knees were killing me, then my hips.  I caught glimpses of myself in the shop windows as I came back by way of the Boulevard.  

Hideous. 

I do not like my hair cut short.  It just isn't me.  But from what I saw in the shop windows, the rest isn't either.  Who is that stranger I see?  

I used to be able to escape in sleep, but now my nights are terrible.  I've lost the last refuge.  

I'm reading a James Salter biography by Jeffrey Meyers.  Have I told you?  I can't remember.  I've written about it, but I don't know if it is here or elsewhere.  We met in my academic heyday.  Had dinner.  I told him I liked his Hemingway biography then asked him why he hadn't included some things.  

"How do you know that?"

Meyers says he knew Salter during the last ten years of his life.  The biography is confirming some of my feelings about Salter, and I think Meyers feels much the same.  There are admirable things about Salter, and then there is a lot of the other.  I will write to Meyers when I finish the book to tell him what was missing from the bio.  I knew people who knew Salter, too. 

Meyers says of Salter's writing style that it is a merging of Fitzgerald's elegance and Hemingway's brevity.  This has been denied by others many times, but I think that is absolutely true.  Salter is a stylistic writer who was caught between eras.  He was publishing in the high-modernist style just as postmodernism was becoming the critical and academic rage.  He was the apotheosis of that style, and it cost him.   

It took thirty years and the end of postmodernism for his writing to be critically recognized on a large scale.

Style is a difficult thing to articulate.  Here is the best I can do right now, three ways of saying the same thingl 

"Her hands were white. . . ."
"Her white hands. . . ."
"The whiteness of her hands. . . ."

The last being the more poetic phrasing.  Qualities become tangible.  Salter's writing is object laden.  He favors gerunds, infinitives, and fragments.  But his style is not simply linguistic.  That can be easily imitated.  The artistic vision comes from what is seen and how it is seen, and that quality is much more difficult skill to acquire. 

But there is so much more.  That was just a bit of reminiscing.  

I hope I have not told you this before.  It is true that I no longer remember what I have written here and what I've written elsewhere, and it is beginning to scare me.  

I have many chores I have put off that I need to begin, but I have no desire to do them.  I must force myself or pay others.  Others want more money than they used to.  

Reading Salter, I think of you, any of you whose successes are greater. . . but mine has been the adventure.  

Not So Wild Night

It's time for that ol' Harvest Moon again, and this year, much of the country won't be seeing it due to stormy weather.  It makes me sad, but most things do these days.  I got sad last night when I ran up to the drugstore just at sunset.  It was a beautiful Friday night with a light breeze and dipping temperatures.  I'd been sitting out watching the tattered flag in the patriotic across the street neighbor's yard flutter in the light breeze and the slight motion of the trees just before dark. Driving to the store, I had to pass by the football stadium of the local high school and could see the families in the stands, the lights shining against a cobalt sky, kids standing around in groups just outside the stadium, others just arriving, the girls walking with studied lanquidity and dressed in such things I won't describe, the teenage boys all quick with hormonal excitement, sudden ticks and jerks punctuating the air, and I felt a sad lonesomeness at not really being out knowing what the Boulevard would be like on such an evening, the sidewalk tables filled with village elite, handsome men and expensive women, and were it another time. . . I'd be joining someone for a drink.  

I parked the car and followed an attractive woman into the liquor store where I picked up a bottle of scotch and was checked out by a young girl with sniffles and a cough who looked miserable working until closing on a Friday night.  Walking back to the car, I glanced up to see the moon 45 degrees above the horizon shining big in the cloudless sky.  Night had fallen and the stadium lights lit the way as I drove back to my mother's thinking that the stands were filled with parents and younger siblings of the boys on the field, together joined to an American past and to each other by the same ritual occuring all across the country ten thousand times over.  In ten years, at high school reunions, those boys will still be talking about "the big game."  And those girls. . . . 

More American Graffiti.  It seemed rather hideous.  

And so, back at my mother's house, dinner cooked, pots and pans and dishes washed and counters cleaned. . . I sat down on the couch to watch t.v.  

I thought I might run out to that farmer's market in a distant town this morning.  Looking back at photos, I found it has been a year this month since I last went.  Jesus. . . my life is drifting by without event or notice.  

But I woke up this morning with something like a head cold, and I think about the girl who packaged my whiskey at the liquor store.  I always wait until October to get a flu shot, but there is no knowing what to do any longer with a gutted CDC and a defunded NOAA.  We have regressed to some medieval condition of medical mysticism and looking to animals for weather predictions.

The morning is wearing on, and my mother has gone back to bed, so I will not be getting an early start.  I may not get started at all.  I think I need to make a pot of chicken soup with a whole lotta garlic.  And crusty sourdough bread.  

Yea, I don't think I'll get out of town.   

Normally, I post a Harvest Moon song on this day with some cryptic message about love and romance, but I am beyond hope this year.  I thought about posting Tiny Tim's parody of "Shine on Harvest Moon," as a snotty gesture, but that seemed too much.  

For all of you who did enjoy the night. . . . 

Tangential History

This won't be a long post.  I have to drive my mother to a very early doctor's appointment in a bit.  

I took my mother's car to the car wash yesterday.  There is a woman there who always remembers me even though I rarely see her.  Don't know if I have seen her all year.  When she walked up to the car, she lit up, and when I got out to go pay, she lovingly called me an "old fart."  WTF?  

It's almost like having friends. 

One of my judge pals tells that he was asked to be partners with John Morgan early on.  He declined thinking the whole advertising thing was a bad idea.  On Saturdays, I played basketball with one of Morgan's partners when it was a three name firm.  Morgan went his own way later when his partners thought he was taking too much on.  Morgan's sister was my beautician for years.  She was a lesbian but said she was in love with me.  I don't remember when or why I changed beauticians, but in all those old photos of me where I have a mullet--that's her. 

Whenever I see Morgan and Morgan ads, I feel cheated somehow.  I got run over almost to death and didn't get my millions.  It's a game.  If you are going to get run over, make sure it is a city truck or one belonging to an alcohol distributor or Amazon.  Don't get run over by a scumbag.  You won't get shit. 

I told my b-ball friend once that his was a cozy job, that he and the insurance companies had it all worked out so they never went to court.  They knew the parameters.  Offer, counter offer, done.  Nobody likes to work. 

He didn't appreciate that at all.  

One of the Morgans bought T's house.  

I've searched high and low for the video clip of John Morgan's DUI arrest.  Holy smokes is it funny.  But it is nowhere to be found now.  

For all of it, I've never met John Morgan.  I just saw one of his social media posts where he says Elon Musk is a good friend of his.  I'm just running in the wrong circles, I guess.  

It's a little early in the morning for many kinds of music.  Let's continue the autumn theme.  This one goes well with coffee.

A New Syndrome

Today's post will be a struggle.  Troubles and worries and not much else.  Mom's feeling terrible, she says.  

"Where?"  

"All over."

I believe her.  She didn't eat her dinner last night.  She went to "lie down."  I don't remember seeing her again before I went to bed.  I don't remember what time I went to bed.  It could have been early.  I took another P.M.  That's three nights in a row.  I sleep well but get up tired.  

"How'd you sleep?" I ask my mother this morning.

She just shakes her head.  

"Do you feel any better."

"No. I hurt all over."  

It is a hard case.  Can they up her pain meds?  The doctor already seems spooky about how much she's taking now.  Her pain is palpable, and it is taking us both down.  There is nothing I can do.  But we go to the pain doc tomorrow, so we'll bring it up.  

Her life is very internal now.  Her world is shrinking.  

I took this exactly one year ago when she could still smile.  

I have to quit reading the news in the morning and watching it in the evening.  I don't want to say "they lie" but the morning papers have more speculation and opinion than fact and the t.v. news is all hype with watches and warnings and what to look out for.  They report flood "warnings" and tornado "watches" and the like, and I worry about people who live in those places, but when I call or write them, no, nothing like that happened.  "Everything's fine.  It might have been to the north, south east or west of us." 

I'll watch no more.  

These blurry pictures are from the Asian marketplace with various booths and restaurants.  It is all food.  And look--people are enjoying themselves.  These photos mean nothing, but I enjoy the "feel" of them.  I'm fairly addicted to the blur.  

I wish I could cheer up.  I wish I did not have to worry and worry and worry.  I feel anxious all the time now.  It never goes away and sometimes borders on panic.  And I have acquired something new recently, a brand new syndrome--I can't stand to be touched.  Sometimes people will touch me on the shoulder, and there is a woman at the gym who always wants to hug. These things feel painful to me now, and I had to tell the woman I didn't want her to hug me anymore.  There must be a name for this one.  

O.K.  I just looked it up. 

Haphephobia: A rare specific phobia and anxiety disorder involving a morbid, persistent fear of touching or being touched by others.  Can trigger a panic response, including a fast heart rate, hyperventilation, sweating, shaking, or freezing in place.

Maybe I should actually go in for a massage instead of talking about it.  A massage and a facial. It might help.  But I know I'm getting buggy.  The life I lead is one of constant stress and morbid fear.  At night, I dream of my failures.  They are plentiful.  Almost everything.  Any success I may have believed in now seems like a Willy Loman concoction.  

If history is any guide, in a day or two my mother will rebound.  Not all the way, but enough, and we will begin the cycle once again.  I, on the other hand. . . .  

I am so very tired.  

I've just dumped a bunch of shitty pictures on you here so that I can get rid of them.  My folders are full of such things.  Shitty pictures, shitty writing.  

I gave you that song by Ella Langley right after Q gave it to me.  Well, I think it seems a little plagiarized now that I've heard this song.  There is at least the kernel or the germ of the idea for her song here.  

Terrible Generalizations and Horrible Facts

I have over 20 years of daily writing here, with a few exceptions, and I am being told that I need to download them because Google is not supporting Blogger any longer and one day it might all just disappear.  I asked A.I. how to do that, and it gave me detailed instructions.  One day, I guess, I'll get around to it.  I should. That's a whole lotta wisdom and imagery just lying around.  It would be a shame to lose it.  

I need an assistant.  You know the old joke asking how many retirees it takes to change a lightbulb?  It is basically true.  I don't get so much done in a day anymore. 

Maybe my mother can help.  

I was invited to a Brando Appreciation Memorial at the Irish pub on Saturday.  I was very gracious in declination.  I told Travis about it and told him that I said I would go if they paid me $5,000.  It is more like $12,000 he took from us and another buddy.  But those at the memorial won't care about that.  For them, it is just another colorful Brando story.  

For me, it was a real heartbreak.  We'd been friends for decades.  

Selavy.  My ex-wife took a lot more.  I am not a fan of hers, either.  

I continue to have mal de tete.  Not a headache but pensées et rêves pertubants.  Just a bad head.  Not long ago, my dreams were wonderful, romantic and sometimes erotic, but now my head is filled with practical things I must do, things left undone.  These are not nightmares which would be preferable.  No, it is much worse than nightmares, just the bland troubles of everyday existence without relief.  Imagine watching a snowy t.v. test pattern all day and night.  

The nightmare is real, though.  Did you watch Trump's U.N. speech yesterday?  Surely you have seen it.  Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. . . I thought Reagan was bad.  Trump is demented, and most of America voted for him three times.  

People are changing their minds, though.  Staunch Trump supporters are now sending me IG memes and AI videos showing Trump to be an evil buffoon.  Hardly anybody sees a good alternative, though.  On the other side we have people who adore baby killers and drug addict actresses who OD.  

When I looked around the room at the U.N. speech, though, I didn't see anything enviable other than a few representatives of the Nordic countries who will eventually be invaded by Russia.  One must remember, however, that there were a lot of Nazi supporters in Sweden leading up to WWII.  

Many, if not most, of my liberal friends are considering boycotting the upcoming elections just as they already have the evening news. 

I believe that much of our situation is due to what the New York Times article termed "The New Barbarians" (link).  They are no Guggenheims, not interested in being patrons and matrons of the arts.  Indeed, we live in a cultural wasteland of ultimate fighting and football and superhero movies.  Millenials and Gen Zs are nostalgic for the recent past, the late stages of the 20th century.  

I think that's cute. 

But the poles have reversed, and we know what that did to the earth last time it happened.  It wreaked havoc on the planet. This reversal has only been cultural, though.  Where liberals were all about "free love," it is now conservatives who are "sex positive."  O.K.  I am simplifying everything to make my case, I know.  Dangerous acts of (il)logic you might claim.  Unsupported generalizations.   

Yea, yea, yea.  I know.  I'm as bad as most op-ed writers I scream about.  I should delete all that and stick to the facts.  

And the facts are that the days are getting shorter, the leaves beginning to turn, and animals are readying for migration or hibernation.  Those that are left.  Bird populations are in decline.  Not so many of them come south anymore.  Global temperatures have changed so much that we now find armadillos as far north as Ohio.  Mosquitoes carrying Dengue fever have invaded my own home state.  The facts are no more enjoyable than my silly generalizations.  

All by way of saying I have mal de tete.  A bad head.  I'm a worried man with a troubled mind, and I can't seem to kick it.  I see no way out of my present condition, either.  I live in one of Beckett's plays.  He was a darling of Peggy Guggenheim.  

And on that note, I would probably like to post Ryan Adam's song "Sylvia Plath," but I will go with what I had intended when I began this horrible post.  Either song, though, would do. 

Equinox at Least

And so it is autumn, or it will be at 5:05 p.m. today East Coast DST according to The Farmer's Almanac.  I find the Almanac an essential element in life.  It is chock full of good information.  Unfortunately, I did not have a start to autumn picture, so I had Chat make one up.  It was too tame for my tastes, so I asked it to make a gentle autumn color photo out of this.

Of course, the b&w is better.  I've disappointed myself in not preparing for the moment.  

This was my hurried Dick and Jane slash Chat creation.  Oh my how she's grown.  I should have had Spot frolicking outside the window, but I was in a terrible hurry. I still have until the cocktail hour, however, don't I?  

I had to see a financial advisor yesterday.  It was making me nervous as I know nothing about finances.  The fellow assigned to be at Schwab was young and I'd imagine not as intelligent as I'd like.  That said, he seemed to this financially under-educated oaf to know what he was doing half the time, so I gained confidence as we went along.  I told him to put all my money on red and spin the wheel.  If we hit, I'd be rich as Midas.  

That is not what I said at all.  I told him my main objective was not to lose money.  It really didn't matter, I said, because I am taking care of my mother and will be dead before I ever get to spend any of it.  He looked at me as if he could see the truth in that.  Once I gained my footing, I did what I usually do and made some statements that tilted the room and kept him off balance.  I always enjoy watching people flay their arms about trying to stay upright. Disorientation is my usual goal.  

Maybe not the best thing to do, though, with your financial advisor.  Still, I felt pretty good when I left the office.  There was a Home Goods store right across the street, and I was feeling like being among the throng, so that is where I went.  You can't imagine, I am certain, how much such a mundane thing is like an adventure to me now.  

The store was full of cheap chintz and women picking through it looking for diamonds, emeralds, and gold.  If you needed an ironing board or a woven basket, you were in luck.  I was the only boy in the store, though, and enjoyed getting looks from these house fraus looking for stimulation.  

I'm not sure they saw me as The Stimulator. 

When I left, the afternoon was gentle, and I thought to adventure more.  How?  Oh, yea. . . I could go to the mall!  I could smell Bloomingdales when I entered the door.  That would be something.  

I was on my way when I remembered something.  I had to take my mother to the dentist at four.  Oops.  Adventure aborted.  What to do?  Oh, well. . . there is always the Cafe.  

When I walked in, nobody was at the counter.  I waited awhile, then the owner's daughter walked out.  I haven't seen her this year.  You may remember her from a photo I took of her behind the counter wearing a shirt that said, "It isn't illegal unless you're caught," or something similar.  She has a deadpan expression, what is now referred to as the Gen Z stare. 

"You cut your hair," she said. "It looks nice." 

Really?  Hmm.  She is young, so I have always felt invisible.  

She told me her band had been "on the road."  I was quite impressed, I must say, as they had done a ten day D.C./Philly/NYC tour.  

"What kind of music are you playing?"

"Punk."

I'm surprised that is still a thing.  

"I used to play in a band.  We were kind of popular."

"What was it called?"

"Oh, you wouldn't have been born yet, I think.  In our last iteration we were New Suburbans."

"I've heard of them," she said with a faint Gen Z smile.  I was absolutely certain she hadn't. 

But that was fun.  As I said, it is almost like having friends.  

I got back to my mother's house in time to take her to the dentist.  She wasn't ready. 

"You said five, right?"

Jesus Christ.  She couldn't find her sweater.  She couldn't find her purse.  I went outside to let the steam off.  This was not what I wanted to do with my day but it was what was required.  

When we got into the office, the receptionist said not to sit down, they were ready for her.  She took her back to one of the dental rooms.  I followed, but when they put her in the chair, it was obvious that I was not invited.  I wan't sure what to do, but when the dentist walked in and asked my mother how she was doing, she yelled out in her best hillbilly way, "I can't wear this shittin' thing!"  Oh. . . I knew what I was doing now.  I went back to the lobby.   

We were back at my mother's house before five.  It was early, but what else was there to do?  I made a cocktail. 

My mother made a scotch and coke.  Hillbillies, man.  Just saying.  

We sat in the garage porch and enjoyed the gentle afternoon without speaking.  When my cocktail was finished, I thought it too early to start another.  

When I woke up, it was after five.  The once pretty lady with the two big dogs was walking by.  My mother told her about a week ago that she couldn't pet her dogs anymore.  They make her itch, she said.  So the once pretty lady walked up to say hi but kept her distance.  She asked my mother how she was doing.  

"I'm not good. I just came from the doctor, honey," dropping and shaking her head in the negative.  Pretty soon, nobody will want to stop to say hi, I fear.  

But the once pretty lady still talks to me, not as before with that cocksure confidence but as two people who have suffered the old ravages of time.  She spoke of her own medical issues.  She turned fifty a few months ago.  She has autoimmune disease.  She has some gut issues and hopes it is not Crones.  I'm certain that her hormones are doing their worst, too.  She has put on a lot of weight this year.  Even my mother noticed.  I hold my breath hoping she does not say it out loud, but I can hear her in my head.  

"You've put on a lot of weight recently, haven't you?"

My mother's clan is not subtle.   Theirs is not a quiet sophistication.  

After dinner, my mother was complaining about pain in her shoulder and arm.

"I think that dentist did something to me."

What to do?  She already takes enough Percocet to knock a horse down.  I decided to give her an Advil and a Tylenol, too.  But the Advil I got out was a PM, so I put it on the table and got a regular Advil.  Then, not wanting to watch television any longer, I went to read.  I was thinking that after my previous horrible night, I would take the PM to help me sleep.  

When I went out to tell her goodnight, the PM was gone.  

"Did you take the pill that was on the table?"

"Yes."

Jesus Christ--she was wired.  There is no amount of drugs that will touch her, I think.  

I took a PM and slept the whole night through.  My mother--not so much.  

Nothing is scheduled for today.  I'll try to take an autumn picture, perhaps, some bucolic pastoral scene.  

Let's end with an autumn song.  You've heard this one before.  It is one of my favorites.  

A Lost Summer Song

It is the end of summer, the very last day, and I wonder how you enjoyed it.  I hardly noticed as every day is nearly identical for me now.  But the temperature here has dropped five to ten degrees, and the shadows will begin to grow longer, and we are coming to my romantic season.  Romantic in the emotional sense.  I am not expecting intense affection with or from another person.  I would if I ever got out of my mother's house.  I could still be a charmer, I think, but that may just be a sentimental memory.  It doesn't matter anyway.  My choices in life are limited now.  

Still, I want to enjoy the shortened days, the long shadows, the extended sunrises and sunsets.  

But the other thing has me in a panic.  I have been waking in the night believing I am dying.  Of course it is true.  We all are.  But I have to get up to try and escape the darkness of the room and of my tainted brain.  It is anxiety bordering on full out panic attacks, I think.  I am trapped only allowed to care for my mother.  I can't even imagine what would happen if I had to go to the hospital.  She can do nothing on her own.  I despair of ever living in my own house again with my own time and my own things.  None of you can imagine this.  It is impossible.  But it is a reality under which I am withering.  

And there is nothing I can do.  

"I told you before, you need to get help.  There are companies that will come in. . . ."

But let me get away from this talk and back to the whole.  It is the last day of summer, and I went looking for appropriate songs.  I know many, but I couldn't think of them.  There is a Van Morrison song, I am relatively certain, that moves from the end of summer to autumn, but on my life, I cannot remember it.  So I Googled "songs of summer."  There are plenty of lists.  I even went to Rolling Stones top 100.  Wow.  There is a lot of music I have gladly missed.  Cardi B (?) and L'il Naz were on there separately and together three times.  I'm not proud about not knowing those songs.  I just don't care.  

And that made me feel kind of sad.  I need to be back at the factory where kids can keep me informed.  They are a great source of popular wisdom with which I am losing touch.  Have you ever watched any of those videos coming out of The Villages?  Yea. . . that is what I'm talking about.  Living in a fantasy time bubble where they needn't be troubled by things contemporary or new.  I can't believe they haven't made a hit television series about it yet, a kind of "The Prisoner" thing where you can't escape.  

Yea, yea, yea, I know.  It's an old tv show from the '60s (link).  But it is as bad to not know the past as it is not to know the present.  Nobody, of course knows the future.  Well, except for that one thing we must not think about. 

Something fascinates me about today's picture, but I can't put my finger on it.  It is an old photo that I had never cooked up until a few days ago. Now I keep going back to look at it.  It is a much better photograph than the ones of the little pixie I posted yesterday.  People get goofy when they know they are being photographed, but a photo like this is a photo of unconsciousness.  Is that right?  We can't know what the woman is thinking, but we can see the results.  We surely wonder what she was thinking earlier in the day and earlier in life. She is a projection of her choices and the cultural forces that helped her make them.  She is perfect in her way.  If we knew her, she would surprise us, I'm certain.  People are complex.  This outward projection is simply that and all the photo captures.  Pure surface.  

But the water is deep.  

That photo was taken in the last month of winter.  It was my one day trip out of town this year.

Well, this is a mess of a post.  I blame it on being up for an hour in the middle of the night.  Such a thing is new to me.  I've never had trouble sleeping before.  

I want to go home.  

"Forget about it."

Most of the summer songs I could remember were about summer coming, not going.  I've posted Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun in the Summer Time" far too often, and Chad and Jeremy's "Summer Song" too, I think.  So I'm going to end with a real pop tune, the one that played over the credits at the end of "American Graffiti."  I know, I know, I should play some Harry Styles or L'il Naz, but. . . .

"Hey, you kids get off my lawn!!!"

Chimera

CI got an email from the hipster film lab saying I had two more days to pick up my negatives before they trashed them.  I didn't think I had any negatives there, but I thought I'd better go and check anyway.  Besides, it is just around the corner from the brewery that makes Punks beer, and I wanted to get some.  

When I pulled into the little parking lot, I saw a girl sitting on a cement block in a dirty corner between two buildings, and when I parked, I decided to grab my camera.  When I walked by her, she said something, but she wasn't talking to me.  You see her pink phone propped up there.  She was facetiming with someone, so I just smiled and walked on.  But I decided that if she was still there when I came out of the lab, I would ask to take her picture.  Why?  Beats me. It was like going into the shitty little sub shop to take pictures.  It was simply trying to get some confidence with a camera again.  

Inside the lab, two girls were working the counter.  One I had never seen before, and from the interaction between the two, I think she was new and learning.  The other one recognized me.  I like being recognized now that I don't have a life.  It is almost like having friends.  

I told them why I was there, but there was no film.

"Oh, whoever checked you out must have forgotten to put it in the computer."

I remembered that it was the pretty blonde who sometimes knows my name when I walk in and sometimes acts like she's never seen me before.  What could I say but, "O.K."  These hipster kids are not the best workers in the world.  So I have read. 

Now I was faced with making a photo of the dirty little corner girl.  Could I?  I find it far easier to not take the photo and tell myself it wouldn't have meant anything anyway, but when I came around the corner, she looked up and smiled.  I waved my camera in the air.  

"Oh, I think I'm being photographed."  

I realized she was talking to the person on the phone. 

"No, I was just asking if I could," I said.  

"Is it film?"

I turned the camera around so she could see the screen.  

"You can see the pictures."

"OK.  You caught me eating my breakfast."

It was 2:30 in the afternoon.  I felt stupid and hurried a couple snaps.  I didn't tell her to look this way or that, not to smile, to put her hand here or there. I felt dizzy.  

"I can send you the photos. . . uh. . .  you're on your phone, aren't you?"

"It's o.k.  Send them telepathically."  

"Ha.  Alright."  

When I got back in my car, I had an idea, though, and as I drove by her, I rolled down the window and said, "Do you work here?"  I pointed at the building.  "I can make a print copy for you."

"A print?  Oh. . . but I don't work here.  I'm just a visitor."  

The idea of a print seemed unusual to her.  She was a sweet girl, all smiles and gentleness.  But what was she doing there sitting on a broken cement block facetiming and eating an egg mcmuffin in a dirty little corner?  If I didn't have the photos, I would think I had hallucinated the whole scenario.  She was a pixie, a chimera. Of course I was dizzy.  What did those markings on her body mean?  Hieroglyphics or runes?  

But I was pleased enough that I had the encounter and made the pictures.  They were nothing, but it was something.  

I drove around the corner to get the beers, but when I pulled into the tiny parking lot, there was something going on.  A big tent and outside seating.  Too early for Octoberfest, I thought, but it certainly looked like it.  I could smell barbecue cooking on a grill. The parking lot was full but for one handicapped parking space.  Whatever.  I grabbed my mother's hang tag out of the glove box.  I'd only be a moment.  

When I got to the cooler, the cupboard was bare.  No Punks.  Well darn.  No beer, no film, but driving away, I felt it had not been a wasted trip.  I had some pictures in my camera.  

Yesterday I thought I would use those pictures to make up a story about my relationship with Carrot Head.  Have you heard?  He's in a jam.  Did some sex things with boys who are complaining now.  When the story came out, he tried to commit suicide.  My antagonism for him is well known around town.  Whenever friends and associates see him out, they always take a photo and send it to me.  Red torments me with it.  She is infatuated with him, she says.  She wants to meet him.  

This was sent to me about a week ago by a former colleague.  Just FYI, I have altered this in A.I. replacing my friend with the image of another woman since I haven't asked her if I could post the picture.  Otherwise, it is accurate.  But I get these "sightings" quite often.  People find it funny.  

My beef with Carrot Head comes from an incident in a tiny, wonderful restaurant in a house in a neighborhood within Gotham city limits early this century, sometime around 2002.  Long ago?  The girl whose photo I took would not have even been born.  

The tale would have been crafted around that.  

But this morning, I felt bad about it all.  I don't want to crow over someone else's misfortune and I actually feel badly for him.  He will definitely lose his gig at the Luxor in Vegas now, and probably every other gig, too.  But he is worth 70 million dollars which ain't chump change for a prop comedian, and after he pays these boys off, there will be plenty of money for him to live out the rest of his life.  Look at P Diddy.  He got off, right?  

No, other people's misery doesn't make me happy.  It is other people's arrogance that gets my goat.  I think about the girl in the photo.  What sort of life does she lead?  Not just her, but her entire community.  Was her sweetness a front?  Does she do bad things?  Does she steal to get drugs?  Has she ever committed an immoral act?  What are her goals and aspirations?

My friend and one time boss at the factory sent me a message yesterday, a "Death Notice," about two people we worked with who have died.  I wish she hadn't.  It stayed with me all through the night.  I could feel Death's cold fingers and smell its stale breath all night long.  It has left me strange this morning.  I should have died when I got run over on my Vespa.  It would have been better, I think.  I don't want to do it again, and now I have The Fear.  I don't like waiting.  In the not too far away distance, I can hear a voice crying, "Next!"  You can't cheat death, I think, but you can cheat dying.  Dying is the hard part, and I would prefer to avoid it. 

I doubt I'll be getting any more Carrot Head pictures from friends, and I will probably never run into him again.  The whole beef was stupid anyway, and I think it was my fault.  

And so it goes.  

Here is something A.I.  I can't believe it, a past reimagined.  If A.I. is going to kill us, I hope it is tenderly.