Maybe a Facial Would Help

I have a folder on my laptop with photos I might use on the blog, so every morning, I see what's left.  After I use one, it goes into another folder, one I don't need to look through.  I'm dumping this photo here today so I can get it to the "used" folder.  The essential blankness of it just freaks me out.  This carefully coiffed lawn is lakefront on one of my walks.  Swank.  But in sepia black and white, without context. . . I don't know.  

Which was the whole point of the picture.  I just can't look at it anymore. 

You know why people are happier in Nordic countries?  Because they don't have to play the games Americans have to play with EVERYTHING.  We call that Capitalism.  Start with health insurance.  You get into a plan and then it changes, so you have to start looking for another.  Take banking.  Maybe you have fun chasing after the endlessly changing interest rates and the "deals" banks offer if you open up a new account with X amount of dollars for Y amount of months.  Or mortgage rates.  Or cable t.v. offers.  Or specials at the grocers.  Which days are best for BOGO?  

I'm at my wits end with all this stuff.  I don't want to think about any of it.  It makes no sense to me.  I want a bit more steady state.  

Those Nords are living on Rock Candy Mountain. 

When I came back to my mother's yesterday, the maid had left but the dryer was running.  I was worried that something had gone wrong and I went in to see if new sheets were on the beds.  They were.  O.K.  I made a drink and went out to sit with my mother.  

In a bit, she got up to take laundry out of the washer.  She started putting them into the dryer.  It was empty. Then she said, "It doesn't feel like these clothes got washed."  My mother had put the clothes in the washing machine and turned on the dryer.  

"Shit," she said and began putting the clothes back into the washing machine. And then. . . .

"I don't know how to start the washing machine.  Can you help me?"

Yup.  

I didn't feel so well and asked her if it was alright if we had soup and sandwiches for dinner.  As I say, this is more than a full time job. There are no days off.  There is a schedule and things like meal prep must be done.  There are no shifts.  It's a one man show.  

I watch my mother eat.  It is not so much fun.  She struggles now, closing her eyes when she chews, shuddering a bit as she swallows.  It is slow with much pausing between bites.  These are my mornings, my evenings.  Every one of them.  In between, I deal with the other mess that is the remains of my life.  

And so tonight, the boys are doing "an intervention."  Happy Hour.  They start early for me because I MUST be home before six.  I will have an hour of "intervention."  The thing is, I don't know how to hang out anymore.  My social skills have withered from disuse.  Some days when I've done everything I need to do and there are still a couple hours of my afternoon remaining, I have no idea what to do.  What does one do with two hours in the afternoon?  I need new running shoes.  I could go buy some.  Or I could run the car through the car wash.  I'd like to go get something to eat at one of my old haunts, but I'd need to be making dinner in a couple hours.  

And then it is time to hurry back to mother's.  

But yea. . . happy hour.  It makes me nervous.  It is going to jam up my day.  What will I say to them?  What will I make for dinner?  

And so you see why I have to get rid of that photograph.  I can't look at it any longer.  It is the blankness that is killing me.  The nothingness.  The void.  I've become obsessed with death and dying and the soundlessness of eternity.  

I went to my beautician yesterday.  She took a look at me and said she wasn't going to do anything.  I was glad. My hair is just getting to be an acceptable length.  She said we'd wait another month.  Now the old saying is, "If you go to the barber, you get a haircut."  That is meant to be a comment on going to see a doctor, but it holds for many other things, too.  She had driven across town to come to the shop just to beautify me.  She had no other appointments, and she was leaving a good chunk of change on the table. 

We talked for the next two hours.  We are each, it seems, living lives of quiet desperation.  I always have to remind people that taking care of children is not the same as taking care of a parent.  The two are going in opposite directions.  You have hope for a child's future.  There is only despair for the other.  

My hairdresser is Jewish.  That term has always made me laugh, of course, because of the "-ish."  Yesterday, however, I understood.  People who were born and live in Israel are Israelis.  They don't call themselves "Jews," but refer to themselves as Israelis.  My girl is Ashkenazi, hence Jew"ish."  

At least that is how I understood it. 

When I compared Arab Muslims to Orthodox Jews, however, she couldn't quite go there.  The basic difference, she said, is that Islam teaches murder and the Torah does not, that Jews focus on life and Muslims focus on the afterlife.  I said that neither one looked appealing, that the people always looked unhappy.

I was over my head here having a very bare bones knowledge of either.  And once again, I learned not to have opinions about things you don't really know.  As my conservative friend says when he gets caught out like that, "I don't have to know the science.  I just have to know how I feel about it."  

That pretty much sums it up as we head into the midterm elections.  

The woman who owns the salon where my girl works is also Russian.  Somehow the salon is a business deal between my beautician's step-father and her.  Katya has become an aesthetician, I think.  She is Russian, so I am not sure about all the licenses.  They are, as far as I can tell by what my beautician tells me, a criminal lot. I told her that all the bullshit about life in America in the '50s and '60s was true, that there were no locks on bicycles, that you never locked your front door, and that you left the car keys in the ignition.  She said that she was amazed when she came to America how naive people were, that they were easy pickings.  She has learned more empathy over time, she says, but not at her own expense.  Her rough Russian upbringing has marked her.  

"Fucking immigrants," I said. 

Katya has been doing facials for my beautician lately, and her face looks great.  I told her that some of my buddy's go for facials at the plastic surgeon's office.  

"That's why they pay so much.  The machines are terrible expensive, but Katya got hers for much less in Europe." 

Yea.  I'm not sure if I want a Russian facial.  It all seems shady to me.  Still, if the price is right. . . .

Then my beautician told me that everyone is putting a prescription vaginal cream on their faces right now.  "Even the plastic surgeons."  

Estradiol Cream: A potent, prescription-strength vaginal estrogen (like Estrace) typically prescribed to treat menopausal symptoms such as vaginal dryness and thinning tissue. Some users repurpose small amounts of this prescription cream for their faces. Proponents claim topical estrogen helps boost collagen production, improve skin thickness, and increase elasticity.

I had to look it up. I have to think this is something started by Gwyneth Paltrow and sold through Goop. 

"My face could smell like your vagina."

No worries.  I'll try it.  

On my way out, I asked the receptionist how much a facial would cost.  She asked me which kind I wanted.  "The first one," I said. 

$186

Maybe I'll try the vaginal cream first.  

The second part of this post, the part about going to get beautified and beyond, was just added on. The real ending was the blank void of the photograph and how it made me feel.  And so, to bring it all home and tie it with a fancy bow. . . . 

We're In the Money

I went to see my "financial advisor" yesterday.  That breaks me up.  "Wealth management."  Etc.  I am a complete financial disaster.  My broker friends want me to tell them when I am going to invest in anything.  They say I'm an "indicator."  I am someone who can make the markets crash just by putting money into it.  I should have twice as much money as I do now.  It is embarrassing.  The thing is, though, I've never paid any attention.  So yesterday sitting with Izzie, I used all the wrong terms, confusing "money market" with "mutual funds," etc.  I just don't know the lingo. Or anything else.  I got Izzie because he is new, I think, and needed clients.  His office is the least desirable.  He is young.  But what I am doing doesn't require great insight.  And now, for the first time in years, I am making interest on my money again. 

That's all I'll tell you, so don't ask.  I either have just enough or just too little money.  That is the line I straddle.  Thinking about buying new things is scary.  Computers.  A car.  What about a big printer?  When I was working, I guess I didn't care.  I had an art studio for Christ's sake.  Just because.  

That's how I handled my money, "a small but adequate income."

But the economy is freaking me out.  The price of gas is one thing, but I don't drive very far given my life's situation.  But my property tax bill came a few days ago, and it has doubled.  The electric and water bills at my home where I do not live have skyrocketed.  And, of course, food.  So now I have the Old Person's Syndrome.  For instance, I made a very good beef stew on Sunday.  There was a lot left over, so we ate it again on Monday night.  Before the syndrome, I would have thrown the rest of it away, but nope. We had it once more last night.  

Frugal me.  

Organic eggs at my grocery store are $5.50.  I've only eaten organic for a very long time.  Now, however, I'm buying the $2.29 eggs.  I'm going to start buying necessities at the Dollar Store.  Of course, I wait for BOGO items now, and I may start looking at coupons.  If I weren't stuck at my mother's, I'd probably be going to all those old people dinners where you are offered a golden opportunity to buy something.  My mother and her friends used to go to all of them.  At one point, however, one company said they couldn't come anymore.  They'd had all the free meals they were going to get.  

I'm not turning down the free coffee now.  Maybe I'll start going to Costco and eating the samples.  

Just let me pass on to you what I learned yesterday.  The market on average has been earning about 3.8% so far this year.  CDs are now paying 4.6%.  There is no really good place to put your money if you are on a budget right now.  

"So Izzie, when's the market going to come back?"

"Who knows?"

"Sure you do. As soon as he's out of office."  

Izzie probably is a republican.  

He did say that CD interest rates were probably going up again.  Isn't that something?  You can get 4.6% on your money from the same bank that will lend you money at 7%.  

I was better off when I just had a paycheck every month.  I can't believe how much fun I had on so very little money.  But as I've reported, I used to stay in $8/night hotel rooms and ride Greyhound buses around the country.  Even when I travelled, it was in countries where the dollar went very, very far.  Even a poor American could live large in Mexico, Central, and South America.  

But I can't sleep with bed bugs anymore.  I need a good bed and a room with a view.  No matter, though.  Here I am, never to leave my mother's side.  Think of the money she's saving me.  

Still and all, though, I am fearful that the liberal press is setting "us" up for disappointment on Nov 2.  There will be no reckoning, I fear.  When it comes time to pull the lever and Mr and Ms America have to choose between a Nazi and a kid whose pronoun is "they" and who has suffered gluten trauma and has a peanut allergy. . . .  People fear change.  

I am amazed, though, at all the warnings by republicans that the U.S. could end up like France if the dems win.  

"Uh, dude. . . like Jan. 6 never happened?"

What's not on the ballot, however, is climate, and I despair.  That people worry more about A.I. than about climate change astounds me.  I read this morning that a U.N. report shows the U.S. to be worst at meeting it's climate goals out of all developed countries.  My republican friends will simply bash the U.N. as fake news.  They hate the U.N.  

But let's end on a happy note.  One thing that tickles me is young people's love of analog, of anything pre-21st century.  

Bring back the Walkman!

Shutterbug

I have a lot of cameras.  I have a lot of Leica M cameras, and I love them.  They are beautiful and elegant.  But the best pictures I take are very often with that clunker Canon 5D DSLR with the 24-105mm lens.  That "kit" is as big as anything you'll ever want to carry, and yet. . . almost all of my good street photos in NYC were made with it.  How?  Really. How?  There is no way to hide the thing which is why in just about every photo, somebody is staring straight into the lens.  No, not so many as that, but many.  

I took this photo of the boxer/murderer with it.  He is standing behind the apartment building where he lived with his mother in the same spot he and "the boys" once built their cardboard fort.  I took several photos using the zoom lens at different focal lengths.  It is a very wonderful tool which offers many options. This one shot at or near 24mm reminds me of those lonesome empty photos I made for my college photography classes using an old Mamiya film camera and a 24mm lens.  It was then my favorite way of seeing.  

I love those Leicas, but damn, that Canon 5D never lets me down.  

While slower and more laborious to use, I am enamored with the Fuji GFX Sii medium format camera, too.  

If you look closely, you can see little specks of the rain that had just begun to fall.  The richness of the images this camera produces is not to be denied.  

But enough camera talk.  That is just for the shutterbugs in the crowd.  A "professional" photographer, a real cocky, smarmy guy, once called me that.  He was being snide, but I loved it.  I'll never claim to be more than a real shutterbug.  It is outstanding.  My most favorite photographers were all just that.  It was their personal work, not their professional stuff, that is collected by museums and galleries.  

Just to let you know, I'm concerned about my health.  The left side of my body from my cervical vertebrae to my fingertips is functioning poorly, and I am taking too many drugs to deal with the pain.  It doesn't seem to want to get better.  Not sure of my next move.  I have no one to talk it over with.  It is impossible to talk to my mother about any of it.  

"We're a pair, aren't we?"

She truly has no concern for my plight.  Her own consumes her.  I'm just part of God's plan to take care of her.  So she has said.  I tried to tell her last night that I wasn't feeling so well, but she interrupted me to tell me about one of her CDs that comes due next month.  I feel a bit like an astronaut taking a space walk who realizes he has become untethered from the ship.  As they say, in space, no one can hear you scream.  You can scream, of course, but it will not do you any good. 

I went to the compounding pharmacy where my doc had sent a 'script.  It was in a crummy building in a crummy part of town, but inside it looked like the George Lucas film THX 1138.  I stood at a counter before a plate glass window that ran the entire length of the building looking into a huge white room with white counters where four people in white lab coats were, I assumed, "compounding."  A man came to the window and asked me my name and birth date.  Then he went to talk to another, older man who came back and said the drug required prior approval by the insurance company before they could make it.  I asked how much it would be if I just paid for it .  He smiled.

"Over a thousand dollars."

I'm supposed to call my doctor and blah blah blah blah blah.  

In the afternoon, I went to meet with my financial guy, the new one, the kid.  He wasn't there.  He was out sick, I was told.  

"Didn't he contact you?"

Then I began to think--maybe my appointment was for Thursday.  The reception lady checked.  

"Your appointment is tomorrow at 2:30."

I walked slowly and unsteadily across the parking lot back to my car.  Something is going wrong with my legs.  Or maybe it is in my brain.  

I drove across town to pick up negatives from the hipster film lab.  Then, unsure of what to do, I went to the cafe for a coffee.  Since the old fashioned photo booth went down, the place has been boring.  All the cool kids coming in "costumes" to make photo booth pictures are gone.  All that is left are a few sad sacks on computers taking up the most desirable tables hour after hour.  

I've been trying to write the next paragraph for too long now.  I can find no good way of telling it.  Back at my mother's, I was feeling desperate.  That's as far as I can get.  The rest is just too whiny and too grim. I'm being sucked downward in a vortex from which there is no escape.  Life as I have known it is over.  Done for.  All there is now, I think, is the waiting.  

Once upon a time, though. . . . 

A Man of His Word

I didn't want to go.  I surely didn't, so when the tenant called and said that we wouldn't be going to the shady neighborhood in Gotham to shoot, I readily said, "O.K."  

"He wants us to meet him with his two uncles," she said. 

"Where?"

Same part of town as the day before.  I said that there was no sense in my going.  I'd just be taking the same pictures as I had the day before.  

"They want you to come," she said.  "They liked you."

I knew this was some Tom Sawyer bullshit, and I said I'd take a pass.  The tenant told me where they'd be if I changed my mind.  

Just then, I was having trouble with my computer.  I couldn't open Photoshop, nor could I update or download it again.  This was bad news.  I kept asking Adobe for answers, but their help line is just a bad algorithm of boilerplate solutions.  I checked to see that my OS was up to date, and there I was in for a surprise.  My big 27" Mac is old now, I guess, and the OS updates on it are far behind what newer computers are getting.  At some point, I won't be able to run some programs.  The fuckers no how fuck you, that's for sure.  

I restarted my computer.  That takes a long time because I've stored too much on the internal hard drive.  But, when it finally opened, the downloads from Adobe began.  It would take awhile.  Now that the stress of that was relieved, I was beginning to feel guilty.  "A man and his word," I wrote yesterday.  

I grabbed two cameras and headed "across the tracks."  I spied them right away on the gentrified street full of Sunday people milling about, looking into shop windows, filling the sidewalk tables at one of the many bars and restaurants.  I found a parking spot, grabbed my cameras, and joined the tenant and her subject.

"This is the other uncle, Tony," she said introducing me to a small man with a white beard.

I said hello, and we shook hands.  I asked the nephew to sit on the bench next to his uncle, and I popped off a few photos.  As I took the pictures, I was informed that Saturday night had not gone so well.  The brothers did not get along so much, and there were arguments, so the nephew fled in the middle of the night.  He ended up sleeping on the other uncle's couch.  He'd cried all night, he said, at the memories of his childhood brought back by his visit.  

I could smell the tears on him.  They smelled like beer.  

Looking around, he said, "These all used to be Black businesses. There were two pool halls, one there, and one there," he said pointing.  "This was a dirt street."  Then he shook his head and laughed.  "There were a lot of fist fights out here."

We walked up to an apartment building he had lived in for a time with his mother.  The two story cement block building had a new brick front facing the renovated shopping and eating street, but that was all.  Nothing else had changed.  There were three apartment facing three more across a breezeway up and down, twelve in all.  I opened a big iron gate to get onto the ground floor patio.  I looked back and said, "A hippie and a Negro--we're sure to get thrown out."  I looked back to see the tenant's eyes popping.  The informant just laughed. 

I took a couple photos of him outside his old apartment, then we all walked out the back where he said he and his buddies had built a big fort out of cardboard.  There were separate rooms.  

"You had to crouch down to get in, then crawl from room to room," he laughed. Then he just stood there looking around.  

I asked him if we could walk over to his old church.  Mount Moriah is 140 years old.  Pre-Covid, I would walk or drive by on Sundays and see women dressed to the nines in big, colorful hats and bright dresses, the men wearing double breasted suits.  I wanted to photograph them, but as always, I waited too long.  All of that is done now.  

As we approached the church, I saw two women sitting in chairs on the stoop before the door.  I walked over and said hello.  I told them my buddy had grown up here and had gone to church here and that I wanted to take a photo of him in front of the church.  

"Would you two be alright being in the picture?"

"Who is this," one of them asked, and the informant introduced himself. 

"Take off your glasses," she said in that firm matriarchal tone.  "Who was your mother?"

They went through the lineage, she remembering some of the family.  After all the propers, I got him to sit in front of the door between the two women.  

Not a great photo, but I had mere inches in which to move.  When we were done, I told the women that I would get them a copy of the photo.  I knew we weren't exchanging cell phone numbers.  This was going to be old school, an analog print. 

"You can bring it next Sunday," the lady said.  "You can come on into the church if you want."

We walked back to where we'd left Uncle Tony. He was laughing because his brother had ridden by on his bike.  

"He couldn't stand not to know what was going on," Tony giggled. 

"Alright," I said, "I'll be going.  It was nice to meet you, Tony," I said, and I shook hands with our fellow and told the tenant I'd talk to her later.  

And that was it.  The thing was done.  I'd kept my word. 

But I won't commit to doing something like this again.  Here's a man standing.  Here's a man sitting.  Here's a man sitting with his uncle. Here's a man sitting with his other uncle.  

Etc 

I had to drive across town to a drugstore to pick up a 'script, then back to the grocery store to get the fixings for Sunday night beef stew.  I had just enough time to get back to my house and download all the files into Lightroom.   That took awhile, and then it was getting near time for me to go back to my mother's and begin the stew.  I had just enough time to cook up the two photos you see here.  

And then, it was off to the inevitable. Meal prep.  Cocktail.  The end of the Bills and Raiders game as I served the stew.  I'd made far too much and my mother ate far too little.  The stew was supposed to be beef, but I had overwhelmed the pot with vegetables.  It was good.  It was healthy.  I ate a second bowl.  

After the meal, there was still about a gallon of stew left.  

"Guess what's for dinner tomorrow night?" I queried mom.  

"That's O.K." 

After I cleaned up, I poured a whiskey and sat down to another night of television.  You might think you can imagine what it is like, but you can't.  I am on a schedule seven days a week.  I have no days off.  I can't simply decide to have lunch at two-thirty or an early dinner at four if I'm hungry.  If I start editing pictures or cataloging them to make a website or a book, I don't have long.  In the old days, I could work all night. 

"I wish you could get out of town for a few days," my midwest friend wrote.  

I feel myself trapped in a song by Warren Zevon.  

But I'm dreaming something more like this.  

Confess and Repent

For what seems the longest while, I've been sitting here trying to figure out what to say. Can't come up with nothin' other than the weather predictor on my phone said it would rain all day. Never did more than a sprinkle. No matter. I stayed in on my "time off" and cooked up the pictures I had taken the day before. I'll never do a shoot for somebody else again unless they are paying me. This is the only photo I took for myself. The rest can go on a book jacket or a Hallmark card. Having said that, I agreed to go to a hard place in Gotham where the boxer/murderer's father lives and take a few more. Today, I will shoot for me. . . I think. I have no real idea what I am walking into.

Tonight, I will make another beef stew. That is what I am really looking forward to.

Oh, thanks for asking. I think my neck et. al. is just a bit better today, but I can't be sure until I start moving about. If it doesn't get better, I'm in real trouble. I'm still on the Willie's and narcotics to sleep at night. That is going to present me with its own problem, too. Soon I'll just be reciting "Dreams of an Opium Eater." That is not De Quincy's title, it is my own. I've already confessed.  All that is left to do is repent.  

Like most bad things, though, it all began innocently enough.  And then, a twist of fate and a bad decision, and then. . . we have the making of a good story.  It is a matter of how we write the conclusion.  What do you want, peeps, a redemptive ending or the devolution of a pathetic character?  

"Rolling down the street smokin' indo, sippin' on gin and juice."

We live in times when drug users, murderers, and rapists top the charts.  Maybe our story doesn't need a redemptive ending at all.  Rather, it might be a tale of decadent success, just like old Snoop.  Like Kobe.  Like The Don.  

If Bonnie and Clyde lived in these times, they'd have their own brand of something and would be advertising's darlings.  They could have their own t.v. show.  Things would have been a lot different if there was cable tv back then.  

Once again, I don't want to go this afternoon, but I've said yes, so I must.  A man and his word.  But I'd rather just eat and drink the day away.  

Now for the sounds of 1959.  For real.  The jazz of this period thrills me.  This is a really gentle and sweet way to start a Sunday.  I can imagine French toast, bacon, and mimosas.  I have to.  I have none of the ingredients for that here.  Nor a love to share it with.  I'll just have to look forward to a hot beef stew tonight. 

Selavy.  

Tale of Two Cities

I shot the boxer/reformed murderer yesterday.  I was dreading it.  My neck, et. al., was killing me.  The pain had drained me.  I sat in a chair waiting for the tenant to come pick me up.  I fell asleep.  I'd forgotten what a time bandit she is, and as usual, she was over an hour late.  I loaded my cameras into my mother's car.  She said she would ride with me.  

It turned out that she only had an idea of where we were going.  

"You haven't been here?"

"No."

We pulled up to the only apartment complex left in this gentrified part of town.  It used to be "across the tracks," but with oak lined bricked streets, those lots became too precious for the little wooden shotgun shacks that filled them.  The apartment building we pulled up to was a shambles.  It was a simple two story block building without porches or cupolas or any sort of extravagance.  The lot was dirt littered with bbq grills, broken chairs, and old bicycles.  On either side and across the street were new buildings, shops, and restaurants.  

Our fellow came out to greet us.  He seemed either aloof or shy, but it didn't take much conversation for me to tell he was high as a kite.  "Paragon of the community" is how the tenant had described him.  Straight arrow.  Didn't drink or do drugs.  

He walked us around the side of the building where a group of people were sitting with apartment doors opening to dark interiors.  Our fellow introduced us to his uncle, his uncle's friend, and a woman who did not want to be in pictures.  The uncle's skin was spotted with some sort of skin condition.  He was lame and walked unsteadily with a cane.  His friend sat with his shirt unbuttoned in an old, low, lawn chair.  

"Bobby's ninety-three," they said. 

"Ninety-three?!  You're almost as old as my mother."

Bobby had spent his working life as a school teacher and had retired at fifty-nine.  His mother lived here, and when she died, she left him her house.  He moved here from Miami and had, I assume, sold the house. He now lived in a condo down the street.  He was living off Social Security and his state pension.  

"I worked for 36 years," he said.  "I've been collecting retirement for 33 now.  I'm going to live as long as I can." 

Beer cans sat on the ground.  You could smell the remnants of marijuana.  

"Bobby's turning ninety-four in November.  We're having a party for him.  You should come."

"When is it?"

"Saturday, November 4th."

"Sure, I'll come.  What time?"

"Any time after three."

The Paragon was kind of wandering around and mumbling.  I spied a chair sitting in the lot in front of an old oak tree.  I said we could shoot there.  The tenant took him over and I went to the car to get a camera.  I brought three.  I took photos, but they were no more than a man sitting in a chair in a lot beneath an old oak tree.  I took the same picture over and over.  

"This is actually the most difficult thing to shoot--a Black man in a white shirt."  

I wasn't sure if the images were going to turn out well at all.  

In a bit, we walked back to the group and I shot a couple pictures of our subject with his uncle.  Our man kept talking about his mother.  Her boyfriend had beaten her in the parking lot across the street from the neighborhood bar.  That place isn't there any longer, but it was the same place that the characters in Zora Neal Hurston's "Sweat" went to go to "the stomps."  Now it is an upscale chophouse and bar, one of many that now line the street.  I'd lived in town long enough to know the history.  

"That place used to sell Colt .45 Malt Liquor tall boys for ninety-nine cents.  There was a man in there called "The Dollar Man" because he'd keep asking people, 'Give me a dollar, give me a dollar."

The uncle lit up.  He knew the fellow.  In truth, I only knew this story from a friend who had gone to the bar, a biker who wanted to buy some crack.  I'd never been to the bar myself. 

They began to reminisce.  The building next door used to be a store.  

"That was the place?  It was owned by a Korean man."  

The place was gone now, torn down to make way for a big new building that was built to house a women's clothing store.  I took a chance. 

"Ya'll are probably going to hate on me, but that place?  My ex-wife owned it.  Her husband is a builder."

The uncle lit up again and started shouting the husband's name.  

"Shane! Shane!" he shouted with a stupid grin, waving his hand like a debutante.  He was doing an imitation of Shane, the builder.  He always smiled and waived when he was around, the uncle said.  "He keeps trying to buy this building."

"I don't want nothing to do with no Shane," our subject said.  

"When he was a kid, he'd take off running to that store all the time."

"Let's take a picture in front of the new store," I said.  

"Where?"

"Just sit on the wall here in front of it."

I saw two women inside looking out at us.  

"If they come out, I'll tell them to fuck off," I laughed. 

Apparently, the interview the tenant had done with him the day before had upset him.  He kept talking about his mother's beating.  They moved out of town to get away from the boyfriend.  It's a long story that I don't feel like telling, but the boyfriend was chasing them on an interstate highway when their car broke down.  When they tried to run across the highway, his mother was hit by a car and then again and again by others, her body mangled.  Maybe he was straight.  Maybe last night, he just got high to kill the pain.  Beats me.  I'm just guessing.  

He wanted to make some photographs at the lake where he learned to swim. It is a park with two docks and a boat ramp.  Once it all belonged to the city, but Country Club College has bought the properties all around it and built some dorms.  When I first moved to the village, I used to come here to swim for exercise.  That was a long time ago.  

I was driving, and so was our informant, but, he said, he didn't remember how to get to the docks.  He would follow us.  I said to the tenant that she should just ride with him.  Uh-uh.  She'd been a little freaked by the whole scene.  So she said when she got into the car with me.  

"It is just like the places I hung out when I was a kid," I said.  "It's fine.  Your man, though, he's higher than a kite."

"It seems like it."

"Was he like this when you interviewed him?"

"No."

Out on the docks, our subject wandered around mumbling.  

"This is where my uncle taught me to swim.  He just brought me out on the dock and threw me in.  I dog paddled to shore.  When I got out on the beach, I ran right back and jumped in again."  

He said this several times. 

It started to sprinkle rain.  I had a bunch of nothing pictures, but they might please him fine.  They were all dust cover style portraits.  We got into the cars and I drove slowly so he could follow us back to the apartments.  He called the tenant once we got onto his street.  We were done and so I drove on as he turned into the lot.  

"Do you want to get a drink?"

"Sure."

A beer and a Caprese salad.  We sat at the bar next to the village elite just three blocks away from where we had just been.  The contrast was, of course, startling.  

"The old neighborhood is disappearing," the tenant said.  

"Yea.  It all depends on how you feel about having a ghetto in your town."

"I guess so."

She would never have walked through the old neighborhood on a bet.  It was dangerous even for the people who lived there, but the police didn't bother them unless they crossed the tracks.  It was a typical southern situation for the time.  Insert Foghorn Leghorn's voice here. 

It was time to go back to my mother's, so I ordered dinner to go.  I was back to her house by 5:30.  Friday night.  Sitting among the villagers having a drink reminded me of my old life.  At the bar, I'd sat next to a big blonde, youngish for the fellow she was with, salon skin and great legs showing below her white skirt that, with her legs crossed, just covered her panties.  She was wearing a diamond as big as the Ritz, as they say, a very expensive watch and a diamond tennis bracelet.  Once when I looked over, she was showing her man an expensive car on her phone.  I turned to the tenant, and in a low voice said, "Buy me this one, daddy.  Buy me this."  

The barmaid brought her a meal.  It was huge.  I asked her what it was.  It was something special she had them make, she said.  

"We eat here all the time."

If I hadn't needed to get back to mother's, I would have ordered drinks and chatted her up for a good while just for the story I'd have about her and her fellow. 

Before we left, I saw she had already eaten half of her giant meal.  As I say, she was a big girl, still attractive, but she sure had an appetite.  

Everything that day had taken place within a few blocks.  It was a very real Tale of Two Cities.  Developers must be offering many millions of dollars for that old, beat to shit apartment complex, and when the roof starts leaking or the plumbing or electricity needs upgrading. . . somebody's going to get rich.  It won't be long.  The reformation is rolling in exceptionally fast.  Big money always wins. 

Saturday.  I'm still in pain but hope against hope just a little bit better.  The day will tell.  Rain is predicted for most of the day, but since Trump cut their funding, you can never trust their forecasting.  As the song from a couple days ago said, don't let a little rain change your plans.  

I have no plans.  But it is No Kings Day, and there is a protest rally scheduled in front of Gotham City Hall.  If it isn't raining. . . .

Hands on Your Knees

I think I will tell you about yesterday.  If you don't want to hear about it, you should hang up right now, 'cause that's what I'm going to do.  

Where to begin?  I made an ill-advised trip to the gym.  How about there?  Why, you ask?  Why what?  Why start there, why did I go to the gym, or why was it ill-advised?  I thought you'd already hung up.  

I didn't do much there, but it was too much, so I would realize later.  The pain in my left side neck, ribs, scapula, shoulder, and arm is excruciating.  But I went because I'm paranoid about. . . well, everything.  Fat old cripple man who got his hair cut and then changed his mind.  I don't let myself look into the mirror now.  And so. . . here's the thing.  Are you still here?  I'm going to tell you something that sounds like a cock's crow, but I swear to you, it is all true.  When I walked into the gym, it was pretty quiet.  Nobody I kibitz with was there, so I could just get on with it. I walked into the back room where I would do a workout for ninety year old men living in a home where twice a week they get rehab therapy.  Three people were in the room chatting after a spin class.  I walked to the back and started with a dead hang.  A man was telling the instructor about some other class he took. He was a real nerd of a fellow.  I like nerds, don't get me wrong. They are fine people.  But this guy was telling the instructor about the music.  There was one song called "Hands on Your Knees" that he really liked.  He went on and on about it.  And just at the end of my dead hang, he and what I assumed was his wife walked out.  I was laughing.  The spin instructor asked me what was funny.  I said, "I don't think that guy listened to the lyrics.  That song is really dirty" (link).  

Bend that ass over (Baow), let that coochie breathe (Yeah) Shake that ass, bitch, hands on your knees (Ho) Hands on your knees (Ho), hands on your knees (Ow) Shake that ass for Drake (Yup), now, shake that ass for me Bend that ass over (Baow), let that coochie breathe (Yeah) Shake that ass, bitch, hands on your knees Hands on your knees, hands on your knees Shake that ass for Drake (Yeah), now, shake that ass for me

Thus our conversation began.  

"I love your hair," she said.  I wasn't prepared for this.  She went on and on about it.  There was a mirrored wall, but I wouldn't look.  My hair is just beginning to grow out enough that it is a little funky.  Just. But you know how flattery works.  It just does.  She seemed to be interested in everything I said.  She wanted to know more about me.  She was an attractive woman, fit, and had two children, a boy and a girl, in college.  She was a physical therapist but hadn't worked at that for year.  She was thinking about teaching a high school anatomy class.  Her husbands said she should do it if she wanted.  See?  I listen.  I'm a good listener.  I don't like giving out much about myself except for when I am bullshitting.  Except here, you know.  I never bullshit here.  

Ho!

And so, after a long while, the pretty lady said she thought I was a very interesting fellow.  

"You're somebody I'd like to hang out with," she said.  I was kind of taken by surprise and didn't say anything.  What was there to say?  

"Oh, I can't really hang out.  I have to take care of my mother."

No. I just stood in stunned silence.  She gathered up her things and walked toward the door, then turned and said, "I'll see you here again," and told me her schedule.  The cat had my tongue, so I just nodded and said, "O.K."  

What in the heck does "cat had my tongue" mean, anyway?  

I just looked it up.  Odd.  It is of unknown origin, but AI guessed at many gruesome origins.  That's a strange one. 

Maybe that little conversation is why I did more in the gym than I intended.  I would lose weight and build muscle and be a handsome young man once again.  

"Once again?  Ha!  When were you ever handsome?"

C'mon, now--you know what I mean.  You don't have to be churlish. 

By the time I got back to my house to clean up, I knew I'd made a mistake.  I was in big pain.  The doc gave me narcotics, and I've been taking one each night with a shot of Willie's Remedy before I go to bed.  They let me sleep, but I don't want to walk around narcotized all the live long day.  I'm worried about weaning myself off the narcotic already, but a man needs to sleep.  

I was sitting at the computer ordering my mother some compression socks on Amazon when the phone rang.  It was the tenant.  My balls always shrivel when she calls.  It is always something.  But this was about a documentary she is making on an Olympic hopeful boxer who has a tragic story of murder and redemption.  She wanted to know if I was at my house.  She was coming over. 

What she wanted was for me to make some portraits of the fellow.  More so, she wanted to borrow a camera for making b-roll video. Of course.  I was miserable with pain just then and told her I would come take some photos, but I didn't plan on sticking around long.  I could barely focus, I said.  The pain is debilitating.  As we talked, I thought about what I would need to do to get prepared.  With great effort, I got up to rummage through my gear.  Batteries to charge.  I'd bring the Hasselblad, too.  Lenses.  Every movement brought more misery.  

The thing is, I don't want to make pictures for other people.  Now both he and she expect something.  It makes me nervous.  Anybody with a camera can do this.  There is nothing really required to be a photographer today.  Everybody knows how to take pictures.  But, you know, I'm going to be expected to do something else, something more meaningful and magical.  Some funkiness.  

So that is what I am going to do sometime today--take photos of the tragically redeemed boxer. 

The tenant picked up a book off the side table and asked, "Have you read this?"

"I started it, but I didn't think it was very good.  It got good reviews, but. . . ."

She read a page and said, "The writing is pretty good.  Listen."  She read a paragraph aloud.  Some of what she read was O.K., but some of it was too ordinary, so I said.  I repeated one of the sentences then rewrote it in what I said was a more beautiful way.  

"Yes, I guess that line. . . ."

"Take it from me, I fellow who writes every single day for no purpose."

"Why do you write if it is for no purpose."

"I just meant I don't write for money or fame.  But it does mean something.  It gives my life a structure, a narrative existence.  It let's me know more about who I am.  It helps give my life form and meaning, so I guess it does have a purpose, just not one a person would expect."

Just then, my phone rang.  It was an "Unknown Number," but it must be somebody I have called before or it would just go to voicemail, so I answered.  It was my doctor.  She has never called me before, so this was a little spooky.  The tenant stood up and waved a silent goodbye.  

"This is Doctor Schmaltz. I had a question.  Have you ever had a colonoscopy?"

"Yes."

"How long ago?"

It had been awhile. 

"Would you mind if I wrote you a prescription for another?"

Holy shit!  What was this about?  

"Did my blood work come back?  Is something wrong?"

"No, no. . . I was just looking over your chart.  That is what I do on weekends, go over patient charts."

Uh. . . it was Thursday.  This whole conversation threw me for a loop.  

I asked her about the medication she had given me in the office for my blood pressure.  

"I didn't see that you had sent in the prescription for that."

"I wanted to see how you did on it first."

"I looked it up. Seems that it can have an affect on the sodium and potassium balance,"

"The change in potassium is small.  It is mostly an issue with people who have kidney problems.  You have great kidneys.  They are really good.  That shouldn't be an issue."

Great kidneys?  WTF?  How would she know?  

"I'm fearful that your insurance isn't going to pay for this medication, so I am sending the prescription to a compounding pharmacy."

Again, I couldn't make sense of this.  They'd pay if it is a compounding pharmacy?  And I was still wondering if I had colon cancer.  

I thanked her for calling, then sat trying to make sense of it all.  Weird.  Just really fucking weird.  

I called my mother to ask what she wanted for dinner.   She didn't want anything, really.  O.K then.  Soup and salmon salad sandwiches it would be.  An easy meal.  But first. . . what I needed was a cocktail in the garage porch.  I had a lot to think about.  The pretty lady blowing smoke up my ass.  The weird phone call.  What I had to do tomorrow.  And, of course, the constant pain.  It had been a strange day.   But sometimes I have a strange idea that people, some anyway, still like me.  Old men, though, should banish all such thoughts, for they can only lead to some horribly embarrassing moments.  And I would.  I would throw those thoughts out.  Just not yet.  I'd sit with them and the cocktail.  There could be no harm in that. What could go wrong?

After dinner, and after the news, I put on YouTube for a bit.  I let the algorithms do their work.  I love hillbilly music, what is most often called "Bluegrass."  But for me, it is just hillbilly jazz.  If I were more learned, I'd make the case.  If you are not a fan of it, though, you can skip it.  

Hello.  Hello?  

I guess you've already hung up. 

Eggcorns and the Lords of Misrule

Election Day is coming, and the proof will be in the pudding.  Or, as the old proverb goes, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating."  But even the eggcorn "putting" will do. You know, it's a doggy dog world, right? 

O.K.  I'll admit that I just learned the term "eggcorn."

But to the point, or my point, at least, we will soon find out if the liberal press is, indeed, fake news as The Don claims.  For months now, they have been teasing us with premonitions of a sweep in the house and senate by the democrats, and as I've said befofre, it smells like the Hillary mania they gave us oh-so long ago.  It is like every "We've got him now" moment they gave us at each of Trump's fuck ups.  It just feels like false hope.  As the old "eggcorn" goes, "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."  

Either way, though, we will not be a healed or unified country.  We no longer share, as one people, any unified myths.  It's enough to make you want to be Catholic.  

I've always thought that if I were to go to church, it would have to be Catholic.  They seem to have the most fun.  Sure, there have been some bad moments, but that is all part of the color, isn't it?  

Before I let go of this brief political moment, how about Musk?  Once the darling of the left, now the darling of the right, he is the Poster Boy of everything American for me now.  

I collaborated with Chat for this one.  It is better than anything I could find online.  What is it that C.C. always says?  The Lord of Misrule?  The Magpie of Mischief?  I can't remember exactly, but Musk doesn't need an election to fuck things up.  We can't even hope to vote him out of office. When Trump's gone (hear the horns honking), we'll still have Musk, the Government Handout Billionaire.  Trillionaire, I mean.  

This was my Grok version.  I didn't want to waste it.  

That's all I have, really, just the inside of my head.  My big adventure yesterday was taking my mother to the cardiologist mid-afternoon.  He took a look at her swollen legs and made two more appointments for her.  We had waited an hour and a half for that.  We stopped at the grocers and got to my mother's house just in time for dinner. 

Mine is a scintillating life full of daring and adventure.  

Oh. . . peptides.  Everyone at the Physical Fitness Club is doing one or another form of them, some to lose weight, some to muscle up.  The results are pretty dramatic.  I've resisted temptation, though, saying it was too early to tell the long term effects.  Sorry, but I don't believe we get anything for free.  Now that they have been around for a few years, we are starting to hear some bad things.  Sickness, illness, disease and psychological instability.  And worst of all--hair loss!  

But, some believe they will help you live longer.  I'm reminded of the old Greek myth:

The Wish: Eos fell in love with Tithonus and begged Zeus to make him immortal so they could be together forever.
The Omission: Eos forgot to ask for eternal youth.
The Consequence: Tithonus did not die, but he continued to age indefinitely. He grew older, withered, and eventually became completely incapacitated.
The Ending: In some versions of the story, Eos locked him away in a room; in others, she eventually transformed him into a cicada (grasshopper), whose high-pitched morning song is said to be his voice.

I let A.I. write that one.   But that is what living longer may end up being like.  

I think it wonderful that the Greeks had a story explanation for everything.  

So does YouTube.  Here's another one from my feed.  It's country music, the most popular form of music in America.  Why?  Somewhat, I think, because it is predictable, but I also think, sometimes, it can be just pretty, too.  Whenever I am out west driving a rental car at 100 miles per hour through open hill country with the windows down and the hot dry air streaming in, I feel I'm a little bit cowboy, too. 

The Photo

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

And yet. . . one carries on.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The year I was born."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What's up?  I missed your call."

"Where are you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Uber," I said.  

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

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

"Why?"

"My back."

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

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

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

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

Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

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

"Come back in three weeks."  

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

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

"What pain?"

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

"Are you taking anything for it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What brings you in today?"

"The left side."

"What?"

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

"I'll call a priest."

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

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

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

 

Pricey

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

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

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

New edition.  I think it is done. 

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

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

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

I guess I'm resigned.  

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

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

Saturdays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I don't want to be old anymore. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What have you done to your phone?"

"I didn't do anything."

Somehow, she had turned on "Airplane Mode."

"WTF?"

"I didn't do it."

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

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

"Yes."

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

"What?"

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

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

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

Sometimes it might be a friend.  

It was a time of creativity and enchantment.

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

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

Disability

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

See?  Strained, stupid stuff.  

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