Of course, when I was printing out the sleeve art for the Pink Floyd boot, I ran out of ink.
I went to Best Buy, and on the way back I was nearly run down by a huge truck. Dual axle, bright red Chevy pick-up with flags emblazoned everywhere. I could see kids climbing around all over the driver as he ripped by at about 90mph, shoving my little green Escort station wagon into the shoulder. God bless America and all that.
IN A WORLD that is buckling under the weight of profit-making, that is overrun by the destructive sirens of techno-science and the power hunger of globalization— that new brand of slavery— beyond all that, Friendship exists, Love exists.HCB
I don't know why I can't stop thinking of the preface to Blake's poem Milton. I don't want to seem uncaring regarding world events, but I think there is more to be gained by a return to doing what man does best: make art, make friends, and search for love.
Rouze up O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court, & the University: who would if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal war. Painters! on you I call! Sculptors! Architects! Suffer not the fashionable Fools to depress your powers . . .WB
For most of us, mental war is what matters most right now. Fighting to hang on to what is good in humanity, refusing to be another victim of terror. I hope everyone out there keeps writing, making pictures, and making love.
Being a Pink Floyd fan growing up cured me of a lot of things. It stopped me from becoming a fan of "jam bands," it stopped me from marching to the tune of a corporate drummer, and it forced me to take a hard look at who I was.
There was nothing more antithetical to punk than Pink Floyd. I was at the LA Sports Arena in 1981 to witness The Wall. I walked away with the feeling that there was just no way to follow its spectacle. Big rock was done. It had done it's thing, and it was now officially over.
Yeah, I went though my period of Syd Barrett nostalgia in the late 80s, but even then I knew that what Pink Floyd really represented was the zenith of the arena as a venue for rock. I thought they were best at a form of sonic sculpture, but the sculptures were just too big and destined for collapse. No more wandering around in outerspace. No more psychedelic drugs. No more big rock for me.But its a fond memory, nonetheless. Back to the era of drugs with three-letter acronyms, back to the time that those furry animals were crawling around in my head. It's high time, Cymbeline, please wake me.
[funny how the manufacturers of bootlegs can't spell]
It's a guilty pleasure, to be sure. So many memories of that time are filled with crazy visions. Life was less serious. Wake up in the morning and figure out how to get high that day. Too bad we all have to grow up sometime. Or do we? I suppose I still follow the same regimen. Only these days, it's poems and books and music and pictures.
There's been a lot of people buzzing about the new Dylan album Love and Theft
I bought it yesterday at a warehouse store. I looked at it at Barnes and Noble, but ON SALE for $14.99, marked down from $18.99? CDNow had it for $13.99, but there's shipping... Oh well. Sam's Club was $13.49. Why all the worrying about price? Because every time people trumpet something this much, I'm usually disappointed. I just didn't want to invest in it all THAT much.
Don't get me wrong, I love Dylan. It's playing away in the background; I got to track nine before I found anything that hit me at all. Up to that point, I felt like I was listening to movie background music. Pleasant enough, but hardly earth-shattering. Maybe it's because I'm quite fondly attached to Time Out of Mind and when people started saying that the new record made it seem forgettable, well... I don't think so. That record was a real high water mark for my love of Dylan; this one, I'll have to spin a few more times before saying something more specific. It's just hard to get over the shock of giving money to a corporate monster. I like to wait until they drop their prices back to earth; the only things I like to rush to buy are the independent label shoestring-budget things. Who the fuck do these people think they are kidding with their pricing structure?
I'd much rather plug Here Come the Miracles by Steve Wynn, or the new reissue of Days and Wine and Roses by the Dream Syndicate, but I haven't bought the reissue yet. It's long overdue. If I didn't have the turntable obscured by so many CDs right now, I'd drag out my vinyl for another listen. Days of Wine and Roses changed my life. So far, Love and Theft doesn't even merit a slight ripple.
Everybody says I don't care
Well I don't care!
I'm just trying to remember
The days of wine and roses
Buried in the back pages, there have been a few good Steve Wynn articles lately: Miracle Worker and Dream On. I'm a little scared of the reissue, because they say that it is "brighter," but I know I'll buy it anyway. This 1982 album is such a landmark in my consciousness. I haven't trumpeted Here Come the Miracles as loudly as other folks, though I love it. I suppose it's because I have found such a steady growth in Wynn's output; it's not a case of revolution, just evolution of a long-slaving songwriter. I wish people would look at Dylan that way, rather than touting each new one like it's a new tablet from god. 'We don't need no stinking tablets!'
I've got a weird sort of relationship with Robert Frank. Sometimes I love him, sometimes I scratch my head, but he always obsesses me. I'll spit out a quick review, for those who aren't up on their photo history. His book The Americans, which is composed of photographs taken by the Swiss emigre traveling across the US in the late 50s set a new standard for photographic books. Following in the footsteps of Walker Evan's American Photographs, The Americans managed to weave a sad and beautiful and brilliant poem of America, complete with an introduction by Jack Kerouac. In the sixties, he turned to filmmaking, though he was also responsible for the cover art for the Rolling Stones album, Exile on Mainstreet. I was puzzled by his 70s effort, Lines of My Hand because it was so raw an personal, so far away from the documentary thing that I was after at the time. I didn't buy it. I was sorry.
In the late 80s, I managed to track down a copy of the then out-of-print book at a massive book sale. I paid $2 for a book that was then selling for $500, instead of the original $50 shelf price. Since then, I've stopped hesitating.
I picked up a new one today, HOLD STILL--- -- - keep going.
It felt like a bargain for $42.
. . . more
Neil Young performed John Lennon's "Imagine" on the tribute thing tonight. I'm sort of awestruck by him, and by Paul Simon's performance. I didn't even commit suicide when Celine Dion sang "God Bless America." I'm slipping; normally that would have induced vomiting. The whole affair was quite restrained; nobody grandstanded too much with the possible exception of Paul Schaefer, as usual. I never watch this sort of thing. Why did I watch it?
I can't explain why I sat there like a drone throughout the thing, only nearly throwing a brick through the TV once when Tom Petty did "Won't Back Down," and again when Limp whatever re-wrote a Pink Floyd tune, clearly reading the lyrics off a sheet in front of them. Funny, I was thinking about Pink Floyd earlier, listening to "Careful with that Axe Eugene." People are having a hard time being careful these days; it was sort of scary to see Ali jitter through saying that "if he had a chance he'd do something about it." There's a lot of "champs" out there right now, biting on their fists, looking for something to hit. Me, I'd rather imagine— but that's pretty hard these days.
Neil noted this in his one minor alteration to Lennon's lyrics. Instead of singing "Imagine no posessions / I wonder if you can" he sang "I wonder if I can." That's the sort of honesty that I have come to expect from Neil.
Wow. That one triggered a big flashback. I turned over all the photographs I had of my first real girlfriend to her; there were very few nudes, but she wanted to erase herself from my memory. She even rifled through all my negatives and took those too. I resolved to never let that happen again; it wasn't fair. There were some fine photographs in there, including this survivor. But what I really hated to lose was a photograph I can still see in my head; it isn't even recognizable as her, it only showed her neck, chin, and mouth arcing through a rusted metal portal. One of my favorite photographs of my early period, and it's gone forever. I suppose it's a matter of trust; people get worried that their image may be misused. But my photographs are pieces of my life, and you just can't have whole chunks of your life ripped away without a fight. But it sounds like Nguyen Trong Thanh lost his fight. Just another sad backpage story in a rather sad time.
I always wonder about the great photographs out there that people never see. Other than some clumsy multiple exposures, there is some fine work here in the documentary tradition. You really owe it to yourself to check these out; to me, this kind of actuality is what photography is all about. I recommend these photos, not because of the timely subject, but because of the universal humanity of photographs like this one. It lends a dose of reality to patriotic hymns like Battle Hymn of the Republic where "truth" "is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." I wish I could believe that "truth" will march with careful feet.
Why am I awake at this hour?
I called and talked to my older brother Stephen last night, for the first time in months. Of course, he launched off on a rant about how we should "kill all the rag-heads and let God sort them out." He cracks me up sometimes. Most people don't get him. He's a biker-type guy, with swastikas and all sorts of other bullshit tattooed on him. His rants are often misogynistic too, and if I thought he was even half-assed serious I'd disown him. The second part of his outburst is easy to discount: he's an atheist. I asked him about the guy in Fort Smith who was arrested by the FBI as a suspected potential terrorist the day after the attack. I saw an interview with his wife and kid, and it didn't seem to me like he was a terrorist even if he was a "rag-head." I asked Steve, well, do you think they should kill him? He said "No, of course not-- you know what I mean." That's the scary part. I do. Even though he talks like the big woman-hating racist, nothing could be further from the truth. He's really a gentle soul, getting gentler every year. I had to ask him why he talked that way. He said, "Well, I guess I just like the rhetoric!"
Maybe that's part of the problem with the "current situation"-- people just like the way the words of war sound. I don't. It bugs the shit out of me, as a matter of fact. Any time you study a civil war in a History or literature class, they say that the situation was somehow more unique because the war is "brother against brother." Aren't all wars brother against brother? Or did I miss something somewhere? The rhetoric is just so damned imprecise.
I wish people didn't like that flavor of rhetoric so much.
Doing Documentary Work should be required reading.The past few days there have been a massive convergence of themes in my head. I spent the first half of my life working as a photographer, and now I’m trying to make sense of things as a writer. I suppose I’ve been drawing connections, and creating a new philosophy as I go, and for the first time I’ve found the majority of these ideas brought together in a single book.
I wish books like Doing Documentary Work were around when I first adopted the life. I felt intuitively from the beginning that photography was a “means of understanding” and that it was at its best when it was used as “a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's originality.” I quoted the full passage from HCB just a few days ago, and the words “documentary photography” were not even available when Bresson and Kertéz began photographing. But people like these were my models, my heroes, before I knew what the words were supposed to mean. Robert Coles develops the idea into a much broader and more useful context.
Coles began as a psychiatrist doing field research and questioning the limits of impartiality. Currently, he teaches Documentary studies at Harvard and is the editor of Doubletake Magazine.
I was a little disappointed that PJ didn't play The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore on Leno, but I'm not surprised. The more I think about it, This is Love was more appropriate. She seemed noticeably distracted; I thought it was funny when Leno admitted to being distracted by her outfit, as well. What man wouldn't be?
I just can't believe life is so complex
When I just want to sit here and watch you undress
Indeed. For distraction, I downloaded another boot, Janis Joplin at the Texas International Pop Festival 8-30-69. SHN files are a wonderful thing. The quality is only fair, but it reminds me how joyful blues can be sometimes. I am going to Try, just a little bit harder to not sink into the deep pit of blues that seems even closer these days. I've been on a Johnette Napolitano kick lately, and Still in Hollywood really showcases all the best and worst sides of her band Concrete Blonde. It's probably one of the better CDs to get of theirs though, if you aren't familiar with the band, because in my opinion most of their commercial output was really hit or miss after the first album. But that voice! I just love her voice. Revisiting their first album, I had forgotten just how solid the songwriting really was. It's just that from the second album forward they layered so many effects on her voice that it was just grating. Many of the versions on Still in Hollywood are more stripped down, and better, but some are even worse in that respect-- the remix version of "Bloodletting" for example. So it's a mixed memory trip for me. Johnette is best when she sounds like Johnette rather than a studio creation. I was pleased to discover some more recent MP3s are available, and that she has gained experience from her time as a popstar:
"There is nothing in the world like rock ‘n’ roll for turning one into a deluded, self-important boor."
"I'm a Wire" didn't do much for me, it's linked from the unofficial page, but it's just too thick. However, "The Cut" dances on the edge of density and intensity, sort of like Diamond Dogs by Bowie, but not nearly as farcical. The lush multitracking probably means that I won't listen to that much in the future but it was sort of nice to hear a "rock tune" right now. The real prize, in my opinion was "Fresh Blood." It is almost a direct rip-off of "Hey Bulldog" by the Beatles, but it lumbers along a dark and ominous track given the state of current events. If you've just got the time for one, try it. You'll get the idea. "Juan Quezada" is a nice experiment, complete with Tom Waits style crowing roosters and whatnot. Oh well, I'm a fan so perhaps I'm cutting these tracks more slack than most would. What do I know?
On the local news tonight (I never watch it, tonight was a fluke) There was a brief shot and mention of an anti-war demonstration in downtown Little Rock. They mentioned that there were similar demonstrations in LA, Seattle, etc., but then they moved on. Another interesting indicator was a story about the recruitment boom that the National media were picking up on. It seems that in Little Rock, recruitment is actually the same or lower; many parents are calling to ask how they can make sure their children are ineligible if there is a draft. I checked for any online evidence for these stories, but there wasn’t anything. The local “liberal” weekly did mention one high school girl who changed her mind about enlisting, the day of the attack. Of course on the conservative nightly news, they quickly cut to pictures of people painting their houses red white and blue; this is the buckle of the bible belt, after all.
Not quite the stereotypical picture of gun-totin’ Arkansas you had, huh? This place is different than any pre-conceived notions I ever had. It sort of the same story with the place I came from in California (Bakersfield). “Nashville West” really doesn’t have much of a country underground— I’d say it was more of a Heavy Metal town way back when... Little Rock has a large gay population, but I’d say the 60s hippie refugees are probably most responsible for its, um, eclectic attitude.
None of this helps me much, I’m not gay and I’m not a hippie. Yes, you can count me as one of those people who think the Grateful Dead are boring as hell. I suppose I just don’t neatly fit any category; I hated the Sex Pistols and the Dead Kennedys, but I love lots of other punk rock. Go figure. Lately there has been a big shift in my musical taste.
I love women.
I downloaded SHN’s of an Aimee Mann boot the other day; it’s pretty good. I wasn’t crazy about Til Tuesday’s Voices Carry when it first came out a million years ago. I think it was because I was fed up with the whole vocal-effects circus that was going on with pop at the time. Now that I hear some of her stuff, both old and new, I may have to buy a CD to check out. But there was a side-effect, one of those horrible coincidences that I’ve got to spill out.
My last big love (a story I don’t want to tell more fully) was involved in an affair with a married priest when we first connected. A married priest? Yes, there is such a thing. If you move from another religion into the Catholic Church and you are already married, they let you stay married as a priest. Anyway she was having this affair with a priest with a wife and three kids (she met him at the University, he was a teacher too), and he was a bit quirky when it came to sex. Imagine that. A guy who is supposed to be upholding the public trust as a teacher and priest having clandestine sex. But I digress.
This fellow just couldn’t stand it if she made any noise whatsoever during sex. He would “shh” her, or clamp his hand over her mouth. Consequently, the song Voices Carry had great meaning to her.
Needless to say, when I heard the song again after so many years it generated some pretty unwelcome mental imagery. But the rest of Aimee Mann’s newer material was arresting enough to make me want to listen to it some more, even though I could have done without that eyelid movie.
To close on a more humorous note, I was rolled on the floor laughing at a commercial from a lawyer about some class action suit over a drug:
If you suffer from any of these side effects, including:Okay, I just have to wonder how many dead people picked up the phone to call?
Well, enough of that for now. PJ Harvey is going to be on Leno, evidently she was in Washington during the attack. Perhaps I'll write more later.
I really had trouble sleeping last night. Read five essays for class; read large stretches of Hume's History of England; Finally opened my mail to find out that I had the front cover of an entertainment insert of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, and three more photos inside. It's a Republican newspaper, so I don't read it. It was from about a month ago, and they were photos of Martha Jordan (Louis Jordan's widow) and some photos of the tribute concert a year ago. They were cropped in a crappy fashion, a typical newspaper hack job. I'm almost sad I was given photo credit. Oh well, it wasn't the first time this has happened. I suppose I'll give them to Karen, she keeps a sort of clip file on me. I don't plan on selling myself anytime soon, so publication credits of this type are of little use to me. I was glad that Steve Koch (the brains behind the tribute, who is trying to get a monument erected for Louis Jordan) sent me articles from the St. Louis and Memphis papers too, regarding his continuing effort.
When I got up, I read Bob Lee's post on the Neil Young list about Clearchannel banning a bunch of songs from their playlist. I thought about linking to it, but when I checked Badger's blog, I saw that it was already buzzing about. It was a rough day, schoolwise, and I scrambled to find the microphone for my walkman for class. I flipped the switch to test it, and the local Clearchannel drone was playing "Head Like a Hole" by NIN, which was on the banned list. When I got home tonight, I found out it was sort of a hoax. I tend to think that it's probably "only a hoax" because they got caught so quickly. Silly, silly corporate program directors. "Yes, we know what the public really wants..."
I walked the teacher back to her car after class, and she asked "How do you have the time to read so much?" I didn't give my usual, true answer: I have no life. This time, I just didn't say anything at all.
I was surprised to see a vistor from the United Arab Emirates today; I noticed that I also had a referral from Slashdot. I wonder what for? This place is about as far off the mainstream of web life as things come; most people can't take too much of me.
Just another observations I want to get down: ALL the home shopping and infomercial programing went off the air right after the attack, and for a day afterward. Commerce stopped? I never would have believed it, if I hadn't been watching. Also, I noticed today on a yahoo newsbyte that Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen are slated to perform on a special telethon for New York, from Hollywood, this Friday. I wouldn't have dreamed this either; all four major networks are going to carry it, burying the hatchet in the ratings war. In America, this is pretty damn unbelievable.
To take photographs is to hold one's breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeing reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.
To take photographs means to recognize—simultaneously and within a fraction of a second—both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye, and one's heart on the same axis.
As far as I am concerned, taking photographs is a means of understanding which cannot be separated from other means of visual expression. It is a way of shouting, of freeing oneself, not of proving or asserting one's originality. It is a way of life.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Amen.
Okay, so I couldn't keep from reading the wrong books.
I took out the trash late last night and noticed that my neighbors are more prominantly displaying their pictures of Vishnu, perhaps to remind everyone that they are hindu and not muslim. I doubt if most rednecks know the difference. The one thing I've missed all week is all the Indian children playing outside my door. They are so well behaved and polite, especially when compared to American children. But they've been inside, even though the weather has been beautiful.
I read the essay I finished last night, Hot and Bothered this morning and was appalled at all the errors. Of course, in fixing it it's now grown to 3,000 words. I actually requested that I not be forced to read it in class, partly because it contains drug references that some might take exception at (being the bible-belt and all) and partly because I have the sneaking suspicion that most just won't get it. After I finish posting this, I'll fix the online version. There were some good essays read in class today, and I wonder at my ability to always pick the most complex things to try and convey. Yeah, like I'm going to explain a town in a 1000 word essay. It's tough, even with 3,000 words. But I've never been good at scaling back. This crap just flows out of me, and I'm starting to really appreciate just how much people just don't want to know.
My buddy Slim wrote a song about that once. People always ask "how are you doing?" but they sort of brace against it, because you know that they don't really want to know. People are complicated; you've got to be careful who you let in. The problem is, eventually, no one gets inside without bursting into flames from the pent-up tangle of emotions, especially from so-called arty types like me.
When I walked outside after class, it was black. The rain clouds moved in, and I knew it would be sprinkling by the time I got out of the library. I had to xerox four essays to read tonight, but I think I'm going to put that off and read more of Hume's History of England instead. I can read more about "process theory" tomorrow. The books I ordered from Powells shocked me by showing up today: Doing Documentary Work by Robert Coles and The Mind's Eye by Henri Cartier-Bresson. I'm tempted... but... school, think school. The history at least helps me make sense of Milton!
When I got home I could see the little indian children playing inside their apartments through sliding glass doors. There are a lot of Indian or Pakastani children, and adults, in my apartment complex. I really hope that things stay as low key as they've been. Everyone is looking so serious. Smiles are hard to come by these days.
Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call life; though unreal shapes be pictured there
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies, who ever weave
Their shadows o'er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it . . . . he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love
But found them not, alas; nor was there aught
The world contains, that which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendor among shadows—a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene—a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher, found it not.—Sonnet— Percy Bysshe Shelley
I've just put up a new essay. It's not as polished as I'd like, but at least it's readable. The assignment was to write about a "multicultural experience." The result was Hot and Bothered. Driving down the street in California is a multicultural experience, and I picked the day I photographed the first Bakersfield blues festival to describe. I'm not sure what I think of it yet. I just wrote it. So, if you've got time to read around 2,800 words, give it a try.
Talked for hours on the phone with an old roommate from the Valley, Rick. It felt good to talk to one of my old paisley friends; liberals and music lovers are hard to find. But churches aren't.
