Parlalyzed

Originally Published Sunday, June 29, 2014

It is time to take some time off and travel, but I sit, paralyzed by. . . by what?  Fear?  Lethargy?  I've not been able to put my finger on it.  Money.  Now there is a big part.  Traveling anywhere has become hideously expensive.  Flights from here to NYC have almost doubled in price for the summer.  The cheapest decent rooms I could find were at the Pod Hotel, and they were still $250/night.  And going to Montauk from there, the price shoots up.  I've been looking at Amsterdam/Prague for ten days.  Round trip to Amsterdam which used to be a cheap place to fly is over $1,500 round trip.  Then flights to and from Prague.  I found, however, that it is cheaper and easier to fly to Dublin, and I've not been to Dublin, so a Dublin/Prague trip is possible.  Still, if I wait until September, the prices drop pretty drastically.  I've wanted to take a trip to Nashville and Memphis with a swing down to New Orleans, a road trip with cameras.  Just rent a car and go.  So. . . what's stopping me?  Or Detroit which is a hot place to go right now.  Or Chicago or Montreal.  And San Francisco and the High Sierra are always calling. 

Meanwhile, I've quit going to the studio almost completely.  I think Lonesomeville is done for a few years.  I can't do it any more.  Sometime I will write truthfully about that project and who I met and what it was like.  Few people have done what I did for the past few years, manic to make it all happen, casting caution and money to the wind.  It was an adventure.  But I am home from that jungle for awhile.  I will try to find another project equally challenging, equally trying and edgy.  There is something about the adrenaline rush of asking people to stand naked before a camera whether they are clothed or not.  I'll find it.  I will up my game. 

But we've all seen enough naked people, right?  What!  I know.  No one can ever turn away from a nude, even another one.  And I have enough of them in my files to continue posting them for years if I want. 

If I really have guts my next project will be called "Fifteen."  There is nothing more dangerous in the world than that, nothing more ugly or beautiful.  Nothing. 

I half way through Nic Kelman's "Girls."  I am buying a bunch of copies for my friends.  They should all read it.  Everyone should.  But for people who know me, they will smile and say, "Yes, I know.  You've said."  Every page says something true well.  I wanted to wait until I finished it to talk about it, for it may take a turn that I won't like.  It very possibly could.  But my fingers are crossed on this one.  Best case scenario is that it ends much in the manner of Jay McInerney's "Bright Lights, Big City." 

But I've wanted to do a large format project called "Church" for years, photographing pastors and preachers in front of their churches and including quotes from the few questions that I want to ask them.  Not just Christian.  Synagogues, Mosques, Buddhist and Hindu Temples.  Oh, I would love to do a series on Hindu festivals alone.  I've never seen anything as sensual as those in my life.  They beat all. 

It is Sunday, and I must decide if I am going to an early morning yoga practice.  My back hurts and I am full of coffee.  I'm not certain that is the right combo.  But I can't remember when something like that ever deterred me.