Warning: Those Easily Offended By Stupidity. . . .

Joel Sternfeld

There was a time.  How in the world can one make photos like this now?  That is what I want to know.  That is what I want to do.  

Is it awful?  Isn't it awful?  I should have put up a trigger warning first.  

WARNING: PHOTOGRAPH MAY CONJURE UP BAD MEMORIES

The past seems wrong now, doesn't it.  I mean all of it.  People were truly horrible.  They listened to country music and shit.  We're in the process of fixing that.  

Sorry.  I didn't have a picture worth sharing today. I haven't most of the time now, but I do anyway.  Share, I mean.  Nothing like this, of course.  I've put that stuff away in the vault.  

I wish I had someone who wanted to be photographed relentlessly, ceaselessly.  At my beck and call.  All of the time.  That is what I'd do.  And one day that person would look back and say. . . ?  

"Jesus. . . look at my shorts!"

Do you assume this man to be a father or a pedophile?  Do you assume a gender role for the smaller person in the photograph?  Do you wonder how the relationship turned out?  Where they are now?  

I not only haven't a photo to post today, I apparently have nothing to say.  Just gibberish.  Nonsense.  I can't even come up with a long guarded, secret revelation to spill.  Surely I have something hideous I could confess.  

Can't think of one.  My life has become pretty bland.  Another day, another selfie.  

I've quit watching television news.  I think I'll quit reading the news as well.  All the headlines are the same, it seems. 

"The Future Is Disastrous.  Can We Prevent It?"

How do you prevent the future?  We have to invent a Time Machine, of course, and go back into the past.  That's what people do.  They give way to nostalgic remembrances.  Still, it doesn't prevent what hasn't happened yet.  If we could only kill the little baby Hitler. . . and his ilk.  

But you know, even Anthony Bourdain couldn't prevent the future.  

I should heed my friend Tommy's step-father's advice.  Old Rex was sly as a fox.  

"If you're stupid, keep your mouth shut and nobody will know it." 

Old Rex.  He even laughed with his mouth closed.