unemployed (still on the booze cruise)

but having fun anyway. who needs money, right? This is amazing:
That's Adam, the one that fell off the bridge a little less than three months ago. I'm amazed he's walking, but back on a bike, even for a few feet? His range of motion and flexibility are phenomenal. I'd still be in bed eating ice cream.

Mike showed up too, which was nice. Haven't seen him in a while.

KW, with the tall bike. That's two bikes welded one on top of the other, for those who don't know.

Neil. Crazier than this picture: we went to high school together and didn't realize.

Random, and more random.

Regan, or Raygun, or something like that. Hates photos of herself.

Sarah, this chick at the sidecar (bar here in the city) riding the tallbike. She's supposed to email me and I'm then supposed to email her the pic. Sarah, if you happen to find this, feel free to steal it from here, too. (That goes for anyone who's image is here. If it's you, and you want to take the pic and do whatever with it, go ahead).

And I'm mostly broke now. If I pay my bills, that is. If not, I've got cash to last a little while.I should pay them and then look for work. That's what I'll do. Yeah.

the new portfolio

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There will be prints! I will go make them now?

interesting times...

Despite the dark cloud of unemployment and impending insolvency, I've been remarkably up this weekend, mostly because I think I finally got out of the hole of a job I was in. The money was too good to give it up but not good enough to set aside what I thought of it, of the whole situation. I was a sell out, and I really hate that I did that even for a little while. Of course, I needed that period of transition to get out of the stupid funk I was in after coming back to oklahoma. A little distance for a little clarity, time to think without impending doom, etc.

Silver linings, right? In disaster lies opportunity, phoenix has to burn first, etc, etc. I hope.

I might have told you, but there are two versions of the story of hope in the greek mythos. This is before the great greek philosophers went and clogged western thought for the next few millennia. Anyway, they say Pandora opened her box and let out all the evils in the world. Curiosity, they say, and they're not the only ones to blame all the world's ills on curiosity or women (although I think the former gets us into more trouble). Well the two versions are different because of where hope comes from at the end. In one telling, it is the last feeble curse to flap out of the box. In the other, the gods take pity on us poor dumb humans and give us hope, to make up for all the cruelty and misery and nonsense that they gave us. (A box that can never be opened? Totally a set up. Pandora is innocent!)

Sometimes I believe the former, sometimes the latter. Sometimes hope is the only thing that keeps a fool like me going, and sometimes it is the only thing that leads me to do the things that I know are right and good. It has, a couple of times, caused me to fall on my face. I feel better having fallen than I would if I'd stayed at home, though.

Pictures later, when I have something to post.

Pictures! As if I were a photographer or something...

So I'm feeling lazy. No captions for you. Guess.

Been a long couple of days. Lot of things happening. Where to begin...

New Orleans is an amazing city, the kind of place just on the cusp of some really cool things happening. After disaster comes innovation and change, and it's such a wild place it's bound to come there. It might not have the population to count, but it's such a great combination of cool people and danger and culture and history that things are bound to happen.

It was also great to see Jeana and Hope, the real reason I was down there. They act a lot like a married couple, in a funny co-dependent way. Good people, and I'm not just saying that because they read this. Hi Ladies.

Also, I drove by the lower 9th ward. It's a whole neighborhood, but subtract all the people and leave the houses to rot for 3 years, and that's what's left. It's shameful and angering, and we should do better.

A lot of time in airports. I'm weird in that I really like the airport, even with the bullshit you have to go through to get to the gate. The one thing I don't like is the cramped seats on some of the smaller planes. But airports are such weird inbetween borderlike places that I can't help but love them.

And then two days of work. Somehow we ended up talking about politics a lot today, and I have to say it was refreshing. When you talk to people, you actually have to think about why you have your ideas of how things should be and back them up. That and it also sharpens your wits, if you keep thinking after you're done talking, about why and the flaws in what the other person said and how to explain your POV better the next time.

Anyway, pictures to follow.

so, I'm chillin in the airport, and waiting on a flight. By the way, fuck all the politicians. I'm on my way to the city that care forgot, otherwise known as New Orleans. I don't know what to expect. That's the best reason I know to go anywhere: it's impossible to get an idea of some places with out going there. The truth of the situation can only be grasped from ground level. Too many stories over too much time, too much mental clutter. I hate to say it but average reporting is a pale gray thing next to the vital lived experience of a place.we'll see. More as it happens.

photos from then till now

So I finally downloaded the card that's been in my camera for two weeks. Andrew, and if you look closely, you can see yr. humble photographer:


Sunset, at more or less the same time:

Anne and Kit, in the mountains. These two together (or separately) are just really awesome, good company and good friends.


Clines Corners tourist trap, where I had an early lunch.

And I'm still doggedly taking my camera to the supermarket. Yes, there are still more pictures to be had there.

And this is my current project: updating my portfolio. Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have shopped it around and have real work as a photojournalist.