all the troubles of love (happy valentine's day)

come from not asking the right questions.

of course, you may ask of whom, etc. yourself first, the little red flags. don't ignore those rags waving bravely in the night. they may look like the white flags of surrender in moonlight and under the influence. we can be moved by ghosts and shadows.

i mean, questions always arise, i'm sure of it. yet we desire the 'perfect one' so much, we're leery of throwing too much light on the darkness. maybe we'll frighten him/her away? if i express any skepticism, perhaps the 'sought one' will fade like a violet, or break into a terrible temper and storm off to the next available bar to drown the sorrows, the lost magic.

so, we fail to ask them if they drink, if they have a husband or wife, to what kind of religion do they subscribe? and politics, never ask about it! do i dare scratch my nose? oh, god, what about the cheese stuck between my teeth? (a friend divorced his first wife cause he couldn't stand it.) my image as the highest of beings, can i let it be shattered?

hey, baby, you'd better let it be. sooner or later that pedestal will crumble. even the gods couldn't love very long, turning to human beings who had beautiful flaws. that's why in the classic movies the lovers quarrel first. they can't stand each other. cast barbs. scorns and arrows, that's all that shows up. until they get the negatives into an enlarger where they can be turned into positives.

every question you should ask, but refuse to, drives another nail into the coffin of your love. what if you can't stand her underwear? how about the graffiti on his neck? and the important things. does he/she clean the sink after ablutions? do you have to ask twice about the garbage? and that temper, have you tested it? will it turn violent? the sooner you know these things the better.

no, it's not hopeless. stay in circulation. i've just come from the flick about the young queen victoria.

http://www.amazon.com/Young-Victoria-Emily-Blunt/dp/B001C4AFOY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1266211232&sr=1-1

right after an intense quarrel (they already married), out riding in a carriage, alfred throws himself across victoria's body to save her from an assassin's bullet. if the real couple half as feisty as these two, it changes my view of history. and i must admit, i left the theater believing in true love.

what better way to spend a valentine's afternoon? skip presidents, memorials, wars, and labor. this one should be THE national holiday. (remember all those cards you wrote in grade school and rejoice.)

the big bang, or, who, exactly is to blame?

this evening i'm thinking about sex. thinking, that's as far as i've gotten. why does it seem so dangerous? i once read we fear its power, that it can bring down presidents. well, do we need more proof? clinton's cigar led to all today's troubles with the economy, war, and dreams of the future. for want of a match, the world was lost!

yes, i understand less about sex than i did at 14. at least at that age it consisted of dirty jokes in the junior high hallway. and women swearing in public? it just didn't happen. the first time i passed the door of a kitchen where a table of girls were swearing like sailors, it sent a shock throughout my universe. now, today, that certainly can't happen. everytime i walk down main street...

and i prefer this new situation. the liberation of women has freed us all. for what, i'm not quite sure. sex seems to cause us as much trouble as ever. we don't have a culture of rusty-coathangers and back-room operations. still, sex gets us in trouble. and i'm not really in favor of abstinence. between a rock and a hard place, that's where i am.

i mean, what a crazy world where the mighty fall when found out. a famous golfer gets caught putting into the wrong... you know what i mean. and the powerful can't even enjoy their status, which should put them in the realm of steady and various satisfactions. eisenhower had a mistress (who would have thought), not to mention FDR. and JFK plus marilyn monroe, that's a movie yet to be made. (was he killed for messing with a gangster's moll? that's one theory.) no wonder we bottom-feeders live in fear!

these thoughts come to mind due to photos by lewis carrol shown in class today. somehow he pictured little girls being seductive. (he told them stories while photographing - not the lewd kind, as we know.) he had the knack of making them want something from him. (later it's called 'highschool charm'.) no, it's not sex, but seduction. the promotion of desire to get something. and boy, do we know that one. every other billboard in america uses the alice technique. this works so well cause danger and satisfaction go together like a horse and carriage.

yes, i'm mixing my metaphors, the only way to approach this subject in a jaded land. work's much safer than sexcapades and most of us know it. yet, temptation is sweet and sin its own reward. and didn't america invent the big bang, whereas the ancient romans would have called it 'jupiter's orgasm' and been completely satisfied?

falling in love isn't easy to do

not with facebook as your guide.

you see, the necessary ingredient for instant passion is illusion, or as martin luther king said, 'Nothing's so dangerous as a sincere ignorance and a contientous stupidity.' this applies in private life, as well as public.

or as c.g. jung so aptly described, 'We project the image of the perfect (anima or animus) onto a flawed being. Even mothers can't live up to it.' as long as we can fall in love with a character onstage or in the movies, we're safe. alas, we confuse the performer with the real person, who at home makes kites fly.

then, why do we do it, over and over? only passion, good or ill, can make us change, give up our comfort and bad habits, the job we suffer cause of the pay and hate, the wife or husband who would put us in the poor house if we attempted to divorce them. ONE NAIL HAS TO KNOCK OUT ANOTHER. that's what i have pasted over my door.

so what about the internet's most popular social site delivers us from the demons and keeps us rooted in the every day and desperate? ah, it's no secret, not any more. you have a flash of interest, your libido rises to the occasion. immediately you go home and look him or her up. (i'll use the feminine, since that's what interests me, but the sex doesn't matter. one of the funniest and truest and ultimately tragic books for the analytically-inclined is by the gay french critic, roland barthes: http://www.amazon.com/Lovers-Discourse-Fragments-Roland-Barthes/dp/0809013886/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265738259&sr=8-1 highly recommended.)

let's see, you've been struck by a bolt of lightning, cupid has trashed you, hidden in the mistletoe. and now you have that person sprawled before you (figure of speech), their pictures, often dozens if not hundreds, friends, family, parties, clothes, restaurant scenes, sacred and profane. it's all there. WHAT BAGGAGE THEY CARRY. in other words, they've a life. how can you love it all? they read the wrong books, see stupid movies, make a living in mundane ways, and have the desires of sheep.

no, no, i know it doesn't always happen. sometimes there's no picture, not even of them, no friends. what are they hiding? are they anti-social? this is definitely a person without trust and openness. egad, that's even worse than personal revelation.

and, of course, every once in a blue moon you like everything about them. they like rabbits as pets and so do you! they've read 'the mummy's curse.' my god, i thought i was the only one in the world. their greatest ambition: to climb mt. boro on bali with the one they love. ah, i did that, but by myself. here it is, THE PERFECT ONE. now you're tongue-tied around her (him), nervous, not yourself. you spill coffee on your pants, you step on her dress which rips when she tries to rise from the table. you blush at the touch of her hand and pull it back fast. all in all, you've become an absolute fool. knowing less, you could pretend she hadn't looked at your profile and seen right through you.

in the old days, anybody could have been a poster-child for your fantasies. not any more. the new world of ultimate disclosure has left us with reality. will the species survive? only mistakes have kept the world going so far. (i cut myself twice shaving this morning, thinking about all this. it's a good sign.)

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!