Blood and Rockets

When cars were designed to resemble jets and spacecraft they were made right here by proud Americans who looked forward to some future where things would always be getting better, faster and more efficient. Gasoline, then, was ubiquitous and cheap so the image of a fire breathing steel rocket was of no concern, nor was the government spending billions on space exploration. Images of the Gemini rockets and the first space walk were still vivid in the nation's conscious when this beauty rolled off the line. As were the images of Soviet rockets on the ground in Cuba. But we weren't going to let a little money or the distraction of the civil rights' movement or even a developing conflict in a country called Vietnam stop us from from dreaming big , and then chasing those dreams down with a stick. We weren't going to just build rockets, we were going to drive them (remember, the jet-packs were always right around the corner). This  photo is of the much weathered rear end of a 1965 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport. With tail lights that could double as octopus suckers or robot eyes, it seems that it could easily open like some giant bivalve and consume a dairy cow. They were likely meant to convey the appearance of booster rockets, an effect enhanced by the recessed chrome rings that imply a swivel mechanism. The message here was clear: Go Fast and Explore. Wrap yourself in a missile. Encase your body in steel. Cars have always been clothes, or armor, or doppelgangers, but it's been awhile since they were designed to resemble our wildest dreams. But maybe that's because we don't have dreams that wild. 

When this vehicle was on the drawing board, the man, or men, responsible for tapping into our dreams, the car's designers, still had the fresh image of a violent assassination in their nightmares. But you move on. It takes more than the death of a president to shake us and, after all, wasn't it Kennedy's dream to begin with? At least, he made it his dream in the moon speech; which was really his I have a dream speech. Those two dreams, equality of space and equality of race defined a set of ideals we were just not ready to accept and between JFK and MLK the muscle car took off. Three years after this very car hit the streets they shot him too, but nothing was going to stop our rockets. We had to escape. The moon was all we had left - so snowy white and smooth. We sure needed a sea of tranquility. We needed a summer of love. But nobody sees this when you look at this car. We don't see a steel vault of dreams. We don't see a golden age of possibility and promise as embodied by the hands of labor - Michigan manpower, Pennsylvania steel, Madison Avenue sex appeal, good old American know-how, Detroit iron. Aepyceros melapus. High-horn. Black foot. The impala. A Zulu word for gazelle. A fast antelope from Africa, the cradle of human kind. Our first hunts, our first chases were for antelopes. Speed, power, grace. This is a car we're talking about. Or is it? This is us. This is what we imagine that we are. To drive is to inhabit a machine, like some mech-warrior on the asphalt plain. But when was the last time you got in your car and became something else? Something tangible? This was a dream you could wrap your hands around. Long, wide, streamlined, shark-like, ray-like, manta, skate, sea-life like - and after all isn't the undersea world as delivered to us by Jacques-Cousteau the closest thing we can get to space? Chevy got us to space in metal sea creatures that hovered in the air at 70 mph. And we're right there, inside that dream again. All this from a tail-light.

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Elvis Christ

He was not what I expected him to be. He was far older and a little crazy, but in a good way, Mad Hatter crazy, not menacing or dangerous, but rambling and bouncy. He was older than I imagined, but  I could still see the boy in him. He was puckish and buoyant and he was proud of his work - not arrogant. If anything he was humble about it. He didn't even consider it to be his true talent. He said he was a painter and told me that I should see his *real* work sometime. This, the street writing, was something he just did to kill time. He'd been killing time for five years.

I'd seen his work before. Random quips and pithy phrases scrawled on masking tape stuck to the sidewalk, all over North Beach; the birthplace of the beats. At first I thought, they're kids. It had to be. Hipsters, or maybe some homeless college dropouts. It was too tongue in cheek to be a serious political commentary. It was too restrained to be the work of a true lunatic. It was disconnected, sometimes whimsical, often nonsensical, always smart and aware of itself. I liked it. And whoever it was I liked him. I knew it was a he because he left a signature. He called himself Elvis Christ.

I wasn't searching for him, so when I finally did meet him it felt surreal.  As soon as I saw him I knew. Of course it was him. I was kneeling on the pavement shooting one of his random thoughts recorded on a strip of tape - when his voice came out of the ether. I expected someone younger, but I turned I  knew it was him and when I asked him his name he said Elvis Christ with a straight face, deadpan-serious, as if that was the name on his birth certificate. And for all I know it could be, I didn't ask for proof, I didn't need it.

He is a man who is more than just filled with words, he is boiling over with them. He's a word volcano. And this, he said, this is his therapy. Writing things on the sidewalk with tape. Peeling it all back up again days later. Writing more words. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. His head is filled with facts and figures, images and ideas. You get the feeling that if it weren't for this, his art,  he'd be one of those street babblers, ranting like some deranged auctioneer. But he was perfectly coherent and he made sense. And he was smart. Obviously educated. Clearly well-read, up to date and informed. Yet he was distant. He didn't seem to really see me, though we were talking. I got the feeling he was talking through me and not to me. Until I gave him some money. Then he saw me. He asked me my name but he would not shake my hand. He said he had dirty hands from the street. We did a fist bump.  Then I asked to take his picture.

I didn't have the right lens on but I didn't want to fumble for another. I had his attention and I knew I wouldn't have it for very long. I was shooting in wide angle; which was good for the street shots of the words, but not for capturing a person. That's him in the flannel shirt wearing the Cal Poly hat. He dresses young but I'm guessing he's north of 40 - or maybe that's just an illusion, or the affects of  life on the street. I don't know. But he possessed an air of stoic wisdom, as if he was a veteran of hard living, and I could feel that he was no kid, despite how he dressed. 

I loved what he was doing. I love what he does. Now I want to be a street poet. I want to spend my days writing things on pieces of tape, ephemeral things that don't last and don't mean anything to anybody but me. He is like a Navajo sand painter. He writes for no one. He is paid nothing. He works alone. He answers to no one. His audience is everyone. His public is nobody. He has no agent. He has no publisher. He doesn't have a Facebook page. He doesn't Tweet. He gets by on the kindness of strangers. He is unknown and perhaps unknowable. He is neither the legend or the myth. The suicide or the crucified. He is not the darkness nor the light, the son of man or the fallen man, but his name embodies both. He is the street genius known as:

o O o

Of Cows and Cameras

Each and every creature, all living things, and indeed all *things*, are spectacular miracles; incredible uncanny arrangements of atoms. Walt Whitman wrote that a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. Then what of a cow? A cow is divinity disguised as bovinity. A cow is beautiful. A cow is a something to be marveled at and revered. It's no wonder that Hindus worship cows. There is something very spiritual about them - though we take them for granted and even laugh at them. They cow is seen as a clumsy, comical creature, ripe for exploitation and slaughter. It is common to hear humans moo and low when they are moving in unison in large masses and being treated like cattle is a disparaging term that speaks volumes. We recognize our attitudes toward this animal when we say this, yet we routinely eat them, brand them with hot iron and wear their tanned hides on our bodies. But this is not a polemic against meat eaters or an animal rights rant. This is an homage to the cow - an animal I am only now coming to appreciate and love. And I have my camera to thank for that. 

I have had several remarkable experiences with cows lately. I have been approaching them regularly since I got my camera and through my contact with them I have come to love them as much as I love any animal, including cats and dogs. I would, if I could, keep a cow for a pet, provide for him a human name and care for it as I'd care for a child. The more I photograph cows, the more I observe them and spend time in close proximity to them, the more I respect and grow fond of them. I have found them to be creatures of great curiosity and personality who respond to the human voice and they seem to read the emotions in the human face much like a dog. Cows, I have discovered, are excellent listeners. I have regaled large groups of cows with my voice and my observations and they seem to enjoy the attention from the camera. They are very sensitive animals, capable of displaying subtle movements and cautious interest - dispelling any erroneous conclusions I had drawn of clumsiness and stupidity. The more time I spend with cows the more time I find I *want* to spend with cows. They fascinate and entertain me. I have become a sort of Jane Goodall of cows, though my breadth of knowledge pales in relative comparison.

When I finally broke down a year ago and bought that digital SLR I had been fantasizing about for years it was, ostensibly, to pursue my interest in photographing trees. Trees were to be my muses and my artistic/thematic pursuit. And I did pursue them and I still do - avidly. What amazes me however is how many other subjects I have discovered because of the camera. The camera has opened so many doors of expression for me - doors I would never have guessed at let alone opened if I had not listened to my dear, best friend and gotten that camera. Cows were not even on my radar. I discovered that I loved taking pictures of cows through the series that included this fine lady above. Oh I dabbled in cows before, but that gal wooed me stole my heart. Now I am a cow lover and a cow photographer. I cruise the back roads of Marin County with my Canon T1i on the seat beside me and I stop by any pasture where dairy cattle are grazing close to the fence. I have found that the 10-22mm wide angle I got specifically for trees is just fabulous for close-ups of cows. Just look at that face. You can smell it. You can feel the beads of spit on the fine pink nose. You can feel the bristle of those whiskers. And to me, that's the joy of photography. Getting close to strange and beautiful (and sometimes ugly) things. The camera takes me places I would never have gone to otherwise and it gives me courage to approach  unknown and often frightening places and things. The best thing I ever did was dive back into photography after 15 long years of absence. Through the camera I feel alive again. Through cows, I feel human.

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The Reader

 

...as I began to read, it began to grow. Each word I spoke aloud from the strange book seemed to cause the little red bud to get bigger and bigger until it was taller than I - and there were still many words and many pages yet unspoken.  What sort of book was this? I wondered. What sort of plant? Could words fertilize the growth of a life form so quickly? I had found the book inside a box that was lying on the path I took each day through the wood. It was not here the day before. Nobody took this path any longer. It had become overgrown and ill-used since the old gardener passed away. But come to think of it he was a reader, wasn't he? Sherman, his name was. Klaus Sherman, yes. He didn't speak much but he was always reading something aloud. Was he reading to his plants? Odd little man. Furtive. But he did keep such wonderful roses. And tulips. All sorts of flowers and they were lovely. They were so big and beautiful. He must have had some kind of secret. What did I see written on the outside of the box? Here it is. Yes. There are words here but it must be some other language. I can't make it out. I'll have Martha take a look at it, she's a whiz with all things foreign. But that's odd, isn't it? The words on the box are unrecognizable yet here in the book it's the King's English plain as day, and right good prose I should say. Did he write this? Or was it something passed on to him? My, but will you just look at this thing? It's enormous. Why, it looks rather like an artichoke. Perhaps if I read a bit more...

o O o

Another plastic effigy propped up before some curious object to give a sense of scale and wonder. Here we see some commuter engrossed in his newspaper. Now that's a rare sight today. Today's commuter would more likely be engrossed by his Blackberry or iPhone. How sad. There's nothing quite like the crackle of newsprint, or the way a seasoned commuter would fold his New York Times into perfect little readable squares. The daily paper is a dying proposition, just like the commuter in a trench coat. You just don't see it anymore. Guys like this dominated the train platforms of Manhattan 25 years ago. Quietly lost in the Daily News and their Wall Street Journals. The train cars themselves were all but silent, save for the crackle of the papers, a few hacking coughs and the clack, clack, click clack of the iron wheels. There wasn't a single person on a cell phone or blaring tinny music from his earbuds. Commuters weren't trying to squeeze even more productivity out of their already hectic days. When you left the job in those days you pretty much turned it off. If you had to make a call you had to find yourself a quarter and phone booth and you couldn't take your music with you. You asked for directions or you carried with you a set of them you copied down on a piece of paper. A crossword puzzle was a mobile game and the only app that you knew of was the one you filled out on paper to get a job. Of course all that's done electronically now. Everything's 0's and 1's. Which is why this little train figure is so appealing. He's analog. He's real. And the flower he seems to be reading to is even more so. It's an actual life form. Is knows nothing of all this. It is unemotionally non-sentient. It's simply following it's DNA's instructions, which is nature's GPS and the only app we need. 

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