don't forget to experience the world

the way younger people are. i'm saying this to all my old friends who feel the world is falling into decay.

hey, voters 20 to 30 overwhelming rejected proposition 8 banning gay marriage in california. who are the intolerant ones here? though it means my own demise, i sometimes think the ancients need to die off. maybe there is an ultimate justice in the universal design.

of course, i want to say to my younger friends us old folks have learned something by being around for awhile. one is, as oprah says "I don't think of myself as a poor deprived ghetto girl who made good. I think of myself as somebody who from an early age knew I was responsible for myself, and I had to make good."

ah, yes, there is something of the bootstrap mentality here. there's good luck and bad luck. sorry, that's how it is. last nite i watched a great video, the city of god

http://www.amazon.com/City-God-Alexandre-Rodrigues/dp/B0000D9PNX/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1265612819&sr=8-1

and the burning documentary that came with it. born into a slum, you certainly don't have as many options. frankly, watching the films, i thanked my lucky stars, i thanked my parents, i thanked the place and time into which i'd been born. such movies give us perspective and, i hope, a certain humility.

or take the example of being born a dwarf. okay, it's not much fun starting out and it can get worse. i've just come from a moving production of

http://www.amazon.com/Babylon-Heights-Play-Irvine-Welsh/dp/0393329860/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265613058&sr=8-1-catcorr

at the blue room theatre. (you can see dress photos at www.pbase.com/wwp/bab ) at the same time you do have to have 'attitude' to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

what am i saying? basically, stay young. you've nothing to lose but the chains of the past. yes, this is why america keeps jumping back up. the world of invention and innovation. keep pumping that money into education and giving the young their chance.

what did i learn today?

a fellow classmate described the creative process of salvador dali. the master would lie down with a spoon in his hand suspended above a glass. as soon as he began to drift into sleep, the implement would drop, waking the painter. and he'd note the images that had come into mind as he left this planet for the dream. no wonder dali blessed with a surfeit of imagery. whether or not you like his work, you have to agree he covered a lot of territory.

walking down the english department hallway, i ran into craig, a sixty plus student like myself. i learned he'd moved to new mexico, sixteen miles north of albuquerque. he returns to chico once a month to finish his master's. this brought back images of d.h. lawrence's grave, his ashes sunk in a ton of concrete north of santa fe so no one could steal them. i paid my respects years ago before my vw bus threw a valve on the way to the zuni reservation. spectacular country.

today, i learned that american daguerreotypes by southwark, hawes, and whipple incredibly beautiful and much more various than i had thought, not only portraits but much else, like the st. louis hat factory where mercury vapors drove the makers crazy and created the saying 'mad as a hatter.'

i learned a stiff walk on the way to class interrupted by a heart-attack glazed old-fashioned from starbucks can change impatience and petulance into a placid mood of acceptance.

and very unfortunately, i discovered it's the beginning of allergy season as chico transforms into the land of daffadils, even as the rain falls. i woke with a heart beating a tattoo of ominous and erratic proportions. this afternoon i gave all my diary foods, those with cheese like a frozen tamale, to a roommate. how i'll miss the yogurt, cottage cheese, and whole wheat toast smothered in cream cheese.

today, i learned again i cannot focus my interests (photography) without getting antsy and depressed. fame and fortune await those who do so. i simply cannot limit myself to one path of expression.

sunday, i did attend a woman's volleyball game. it's the one event at the olympics i truly enjoy.

www.pbase.com/wwp/voll

how can you sell out

if nobody's willing to buy? i mean, try me.

i've never been good at selling. i always lose money. impatience may be part of it. a trailer salesman once told me, 'if you're willing to wait, you'll get your price.' fat chance. not this kid.

part of it, of course, i hate having stuff. everything wears down: cars, clothes, shoes. at some point it goes in the trash, or it gets sold extra cheap. my last truck went for 700 dollars. damn, the tires were almost worth that. everytime i see it parked at barnes & noble, i want to steal them.

alas, theft and lying against my policy. not because i'm a good guy, but because i've discovered once i start stealing and lying, i can't stop. reality turns into one big cover up. and i can't keep track of everything. admittedly, jail might not be bad. free medical attention, which you might, unfortunately need. after walking around the medina in tangiers years ago, i was informed i might have been raped. luckily, it never occurred to me.

r

as i was saying, i have all this camera equipment which i probably should sell. yet i can't think of a good reason. and what happens to my pro potential? yes, for the moment nobody's buying, but i'm convinced after i'm dead i'll be a cult object. everything i've touched will turn to gold. call me the 'king midas of memory.'

my salesman grandfather said when he sold bibles as a youth and doubled his money, he was convinced this was the occupation for him. nobody told him his father, an influence in the community, put the muscle on people. he chased that illusion his whole life, an ultimate avid supporter of ronald reagan, one of the greatest con artists who've ever lived. at my grandfather's memorial service people stood up and testified to what a shyster he could be. ostensibly, he had to leave his childhood home in ontario due to shady dealings.

a curse on profit, as much as i would like to make it. money, ugh, how can you touch it? give it to me.

the futility of contests

ach, god, i do hate losing. that's the reason i don't enter most contests, whether it's for a woman or a trip to the moon.

the choices made in most competitions, say those for photos, depend upon criteria i find offensive, like beauty and sentiment. obviously, i prefer the oblique angle, not exactly cynical, but questioning.

so it is with great trepidation i'm entering a fight for high status: the barnack photojournalism award:

http://www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com/#/en/home

of course, it's total nonsense on my part. yet, i'd love to go to arles, france where van gogh painted extraordinary pictures and be feted by the photo world. nothing ventured, nothing gained, i say.

perhaps it's the six-pack of sierra-nevada that gives me the reckless courage. who cares what the reason! here's my request:

a request for help
since i started as a journalist in high school, do photos in a series, and enjoy history, i'd like the enter the leica barnack contest (turns out you can use any camera). for the past two days i've gone through my 2009 photos and have come up with six themes, which i've posted on my site.

www.pbase.com/wwp/entry1

www.pbase.com/wwp/entry2

www.pbase.com/wwp/entry3

www.pbase.com/wwp/entry4

www.pbase.com/wwp/entry5

www.pbase.com/wwp/entry6

i'd first of all like to know which theme has a chance of winning (i like them all). this contest for photojournalism, so it has to have social content. look at past winners and see what i mean.

http://www.leica-oskar-barnack-award.com/#/en/home

they don't always go for top-heavy political emphasis. each theme i've chosen backed up by dozens of photos, so these particular ones don't have to be the final choice. i would like curator evaluations of what might be strongest, given the requirements.

thanks much for your insight.

wayne

www.pbase.com/wwp

what do i have to lose except my reputation, which doesn't exist!

the moment of truth

last nite at the blue room theatre a group of actors read chekhov's three sisters. deja vu, for me. fifty years ago i attended a production of the play at san francisco's actors workshop six times. it's memory has never faded. i didn't know why until last nite.

we read two translations/adaptations, one act of each, the tone quite different. the writing styles radically opposed (the second by david mamet). the first act worked wonderfully, lots of humor, charming characters, not what we normally associate with checkov. the mamet version turgid and depressing, the characters coming across as whiners, a common complaint with the audience for these plays.

afterwards, various participants commented on the spoiled nature of the sisters and brother. how they stewed in their own juice and never got anywhere. this certainly didn't make them seem very appealing. we left with the jury out.

suddenly, i realized what the play about: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH, something we all experience. that time when we have to make our own living. dreams come crashing down, the child no longer a child. the play traces the experience of such people hitting the harsh realities of the world and finally coming to terms with them, accepting them.

let's face it, at some point most of us find a situation and place where we dig in and spend a large portion of our lives. security and comfort more important than grand schemes of performing on broadway or re-inventing the wheel.

at first the youngsters, who've never worked, imagine work will free them. they hallucinate the sweat and toil as a kind of ecstasy. we in the audience can't help smiling. alas, in the course of the play they learn how tyrannous and petty labor can be. in fact for the social-climbing working-class woman who takes over the house, work becomes the only reason for existence. when an aging servant can no longer work, she threatens to throw her in the gutter. as the sign over the entrance to auschwitz says, arbeit macht frei. work makes you free. i think the irony of that is lost on none of us.

checkov hated work, complained all the time in his letters about having to write so much to support a large family. as a boy, he felt like a slave in his father's store and said, 'i had to beat that subservience out of me.' looking at the wall of personal photos in his moscow apartment, i had an epiphany. checkov dressed and appeared to be a dandy. i don't know why that seemed to explain so much, but it did.

what liberates us

mostly we go in circles. in our thinking A leads to B to C. we've built a personal logic over time, and we're convinced it's right, the only possibility. in this sense most of us conservative, no matter our political persuasion.

as my friend marilyn says, people who consider themselves always right have a lot of energy. they certainly make it hard for the rest of us, the self-doubters, the ones who exist in pale shades of grey. we get trampled, steam-rolled, as these un-doubters rule the roost.

my union friend charlie once told me, you need two people to challenge authority, to strike from different directions. this proves to be a good policy in the practical world. you need an ally, and thus to believe you can always go it alone can defeat you and your cause.

do we all have causes? of course! people who hate to pay any taxes say to hell with everyone else. this is especially true of government workers whose whole lives have been paid for by the public till. the paradoxes never cease to amaze me.

ah, though what i've said brutally true, you can break the hold of the logic gripping your mind like an octopus, the temporary solutions you've adopted over time to survive, which ultimately solidify into doctrines and knee-jerk reactions. therapy's one. that's the counselor's job, to show you the facts of your existence can be computed in different ways, leading to new results and resolutions. alas, the success of even the most powerful applications don't necessarily free you. lobotomy might be an example, or shock-therapy. the correct drug can do wonders, if one exists for the problems you're having.

my preference remains elsewhere: in the world of art. nobody seems to know what art really is! astounding, after all the talk. well, i'll give you the secret: art re-arranges your dna. it cuts deeper than the banter of freud, the facility of jung, the persuasiveness of present-day practitioners of reality therapy. the latter simply says, conforming you'll be happy.

when an artist creates from the deepest self, the result's radical, a feeling of euphoria that can last for at least two days. i've just come from the film broken embraces by the spanish filmmaker pedro almovodar.

http://www.amazon.com/Viva-Pedro-Almodovar-Collection-Education/dp/B000EAT24G/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1264397217&sr=8-2

i left laughing, in love with the world and happy with myself. outwardly, i suddenly could speak to people and feel free. i wanted to advertise what i'd just seen and encourage everyone to go. why?

this director simply isn't conventional. he accepts what the rest of us consider outrageous (when we have to keep up a face and be socially acceptable), his characters more honest than most of the people you know. enveloped by his world, we absorb a new equation for our emotions. and our judgements of ourselves lift, if only for a few moments.

when is a cigar not a cigar?

i've never liked my name. a sad fact, but true. my mother gave us names that could not be turned into nicknames (her reasoning). even my sister couldn't stand being called cherry and asked us to call her cheryl.

what's in a name? wouldn't a rose by any other...? i remember hiking alone in the sierras, age 20 or so, thinking, 'ah, let these mountains remain unidentified. after all, the native americans called them something else.' the pristine lakes felt like puddles before time, when lightning flashed and caused the first amoebas.

it shall remain nameless. if only it were possible, but that's quickly disappearing. a couple of articles in wired magazine trace this sad fact. the author first recounted the story of a man who tried to abandon his identity while his wife collected the insurance. he got caught. then the author himself attempted to stay hidden for a month, he too ultimately betrayed.

http://blog.newscloud.com/2009/09/how-we-caught-evan-ratliff.html

ah, for the old frontier, where one could vanish, put on six-guns, grow a mustache, and have a new life. or, say, leave lithuania for ellis island. assume an american name, and erase the past, reborn. why don't people do this more often?

as we all know too well, if we walk through a room, the police can pick up traces of our dna. you can find old girlfriends from fifty years ago by tracking them down through the net (i've done it.) despite books like how to disappear and never be caught other books like find anybody, anywhere, anytime belie the premise of the first.

theoretically, you could go to a distant country and begin again. yet, as the poet cavafy wrote, 'destroy your life in one corner of the world and you destroy it everywhere.' other famous sayings like 'wherever you go, there you are' seem to be true. on the other hand, brain-damage can totally change a person, like the brother of a college-friend who skidded on the ice in montana. his IQ dropped from 166 to 72. his family had to adjust to living with a temperamental stranger. and if that can happen...

truly, drugs, madness, brain operations, they could make us someone else, however the fun would be gone cause we wouldn't know who we once were. the magic of changing your name remains in your awareness that you've done so. what good is it to live in tahiti if you can't remember living in cleveland. the world's full of ironies.

samuel clemens changed his name to mark twain, and got away with it. rock hudson (roy harold scherer jr.) was not what he pretended to be in more ways than one. only actors can become someone else without escaping to the desert or erasing their fingerprints. how strange, the most visible become the intangible. replace yourself with an image and maybe you'll be saved from yourself.

i encourage you once again to see the inside story of the munchkins: http://www.blueroomtheatre.com/ you'll never dance with the tin woodman again. www.pbase.com/wwp/bab the actors knocked them dead last nite.

and you might check out the disguises of yours truly at

http://www.pbase.com/wwp/perform