Who moved my frog? So much for our happy ending.

 

Even in our age of equality some women are still waiting for their handsome prince.  It has been said time and time again that a good man is hard to find.  I have heard countless stories from women about guys who used them and treated them shabbily.  That sounds really bad for men; however, all of these stories start out with a woman completely smitten with a guy because, he was incredibly good looking. ( I would also like to point out that I also know a lot of stand up guys who could not be more devoted to their mates.)   Physical beauty is obvious so, do not be so naive as to think that the person you are so smitten with doesn’t know that people often feel that way about him or her.   It isn’t that really attractive people are bad; it just isn’t healthy when the attraction is not close to equal.   Even after that explanation for failed attempts at love the question still remains: where are the princes?   Maybe we are just as lost as the princesses.  Maybe we are more lost since we have no one to guide us.  Women have countless books, magazines and Dr. Phil to guide them toward happily ever after.  Guys on the other hand have nothing.   No magazines with advice a half way intelligent person would ever take seriously, no books and Dr. Phil could not care less about those of us in the testosterone set.   In our growing age of equality among the sexes why can’t the princess save the prince or the knight?  If the knight has to share his armor it doesn’t seem fair to send him off alone to slay the dragon.   I know many women may feel like they have been kissing frogs for a long time, but what if the prince wasn’t handsome?  What if he looked like a frog but, had all of the inner qualities of a prince?  Would you recognize him?  The reality is that beauty and life is we know it is quickly coming to an end.  In less than a century most of us who are now in our twenties or older will be dead.  So my advice to those looking for a future mate would be to close your eyes and ask the question what kind of person do I want to share my time on earth with?  

Stuper Size Me

I drove up to Tennessee to shoot some of my portraits. While I was up there I found out that one of my rear tires was flat. As I was watching my dad raise the car up with a jack it blew me away watching that little jack lift up a car. I already knew that a jack could lift a car because, that is what they are for, but it is a different experience when you actually see it. It made me think about how we associate size with power. The bigger is better perception within our culture is the root of most of the inefficiencies in our society. The popular big SUVs that are much larger vehicles than most people need are also gas-guzzlers. The average SUV gets about 10 to 15 miles to the gallon whereas their small counterparts get 30 to 40. The traditional desire to own a big house has drawn a lot of people working in the city to move out into the suburbs, which causes a lot of the traffic. The traffic in turn wastes hours of the time of many, causes accidents which raise insurance costs, destroys the environment and encourages a sedentary lifestyle. The increased commuting also takes time away from cooking and family time; precipitating an unhealthy diet and relational dynamic. The bigger is better paradigm in a lot of ways drives our economy, but it also puts a lot of people in serious debt. It leads people to buy houses much bigger than they can afford. People also spend thousands of dollars on bigger and better Televisions and other electronics; they keep coming out with newer and better ones it doesn’t stop. You’ve got flat screen TV, well is it plasma? Oh you have a plasma TV, well have you seen my HD. That’s a nice DVD collection you’ve got there; you should come over sometime and check out my blue rays. That’s a nice Satellite do you get HBO 439,847,000 or ESPN 284,019? No, I only get HBO 1 through HBO 230,934. Do you get MTV 233,999 and if so do they play music videos? Give me a call on my cell sometime I’ve got 9,000,000 anytime minutes and free nights and weekends. Does your phone burn DVDs? No, mine is a little older it only grooves records. No matter how big the car is the little jack can lift it. No matter how big the house is you can’t get in without a small key. Even a giant ship is directed by a tiny rudder.

Those were the weird old days

So I am wondering through this antique flea market looking for something nostalgic like a rotary phone or a typewriter.  I couldn’t find any that fit my budget and I almost walked out of the store with nothing but, as I was exiting I saw an ashtray set from Mobel’s WhoreHouse in Las Vegas.  I knew I had to buy it, but this is very strange to me because, I don’t believe in prostitution and would not go to a whorehouse.  For some reason the uniqueness of the item was so compelling that I was driven to overcome my reluctances.  I think was the fact that it was branded with a logo and everything.  What would you do if you saw a shirt that read “my friend got high at Ted’s Crack House and all I got was this lousy T shirt?  Now to set up a still life for this particular item I had to do something that I had never done before; I had to buy a bra.  As awkward as it was I think that shopping for the bra was even more awkward than actually buying it.   However it would have been really nice if they had a self-checkout line.   This was only the beginning of the awkwardness.  I began searching Craig’s List for nostalgic items.  I found a couple of ads for an old typewriter.  One ad wanted thirty dollars and the other wanted one-dollar.  So naturally I wrote the one-dollar person first, but when I checked with them about the price just to make sure before I drove to their place they informed that they wanted thirty dollars.  I assumed that I had accidently written the wrong seller.  I discovered that the two different ads had different seller names and prices but the same address and photo of the typewriter.  Not only did they have different seller names they also had different stories as to why they were selling the same typewriter.  One was selling junk they did not want and the other selling collectables.  I decided to call them on their rouse.  I took screen shots of both ads and put them together in photoshop and attached them to my reply to their request for thirty dollars; my reply read “thirty is a little much for me.  I could go as high as fifteen however I am curious as to why you have two entirely different ads for the same typewriter.”  Needless to say I did not receive a response from them after that.  I also found some old glasses on Craig’s List.  I made arrangements to buy them from the seller and was about to make my first trip to Paulding county.  First I had to swing by the atm to get some cash; then I pulled into some empty spaces in the Wachovia parking lot to enter the address in my GPS.  Unfortunately their address was not recognized by my GPS,  so I was fiddling with it while listening to my buddy Pete who I was on the phone with tell me about his worm farm.  All of the sudden I look up and there is a guy about fifty feet directly in front of me with a long lense taking pictures of me.  So, I got off the phone, put my GPS down, put the car in drive, and got out of there.   Well, you will be happy to know that I got those glasses, Pete was able to order the worms he needed, I was able to borrow a typewriter from Paris on Ponce, and my brother got over his cold, which has nothing to do with any of this except that I found out today.  I hope that you have enjoyed our time together today; till next time ta ta.

If you're happy and you know it scratch your head

Do you want to be happy?  Is that not the stupidest question ever asked?  Sometimes it doesn’t even seem to be a choice.  Relax this isn’t some melancholy diatribe.  I don’t usually spend much time thinking about the topic of happiness, because I believe that it is more of a perspective and a little bit of a by product from wise choices and humility.  However, yesterday I was browsing in Binders while waiting for a friend to finish shopping when I stumbled across these how to draw books.  One of the books was titled “How to Draw Stupid Characters”.  The character on the front of the book was this guy with a big smile on his face.  I started to wonder why do we associate happy people with stupidity.   All of the dumb characters in cartoons are also the happiest.  Some of those would be: Goofy, Odie, Homer, Peter Griffin, Barney Rubble,  Sultan from Aladdin and Dopey.  Some of the dumb happy tv characters include: Joey(friends), Kelly(married with children), Woody (cheers), Rose (Golden Girls), Bull (Night Court) and Corky (Murphy Brown).   What I find even more interesting is that the smartest characters are often the most downcast and cynical.  Some cartoon examples include: Lisa(Simpsons), Brian(The Family Guy), Garfield, Stewie(Family Guy) and Kyle(South Park).  Obviously TV and real life are two different things so, I thought about it from a real life perspective.   If I saw two people one was really happy and perky and the other kept a serious look on their face and didn’t say much, but rather just looked intently.  What conclusions would a draw about those two individuals?  I would probably expect the perky person to be easy to get to know and probably fun to hang out with but, I would not expect them to be as smart as their somber counter part.    Why is that?   Shouldn’t the smarter person be happier?   Are happy people being misrepresented and misjudged?  Happy people are however usually more successful.  But are they happy because they are successful or are they successful because they are happy?  In every presidential election I have witnessed the happier candidate won.   Or is it all just a façade?  Are they just better at appearing happy?   Do people hire you based on your qualifications or on what they think it would be like to spend 9 hours a day with you?

Dangerously Low

My dear fellow Americans last week I warned you of the international threat to the coverage of Michael Jackson and our inalienable right to know everything about famous people and people who know famous people.  However there is a new and much greater threat brewing in our own homeland.  We are in danger of losing danger.  Now I am sure that there are going to be some neigh sayers out there declaring that danger is too risky and we are better off being safe and secure.  While being safe might seem a little bit more comfortable and less of a threat; danger provides us with something that will drastically improve our lives: fear.  Fear causes our pituitary glands to release Adrenocorticotrophic hormones which signal our adrenal glands to release cortisol which gives our body complete access to stored nutrients immediately to meet high energy demands.   Fear gives us more energy and uses up extra nutrients that would become fat, making us more efficient and thinner.  Folks there was a time when I could buy rat poison that didn’t tell me not to swallow it.  With all of the major predatory animals driven out of our country our stupidity was our only source of danger.  Now warning labels and liability laws are robbing me of the fruits of my foolishness.  Many lawmakers have sent us towards a danger recession by outlawing everything that could cause danger; stopping danger before it even exists.  In order to meet our daily fear needs we need to create threatening situations that don’t exist; which brings us to our solution: paranoia.  Fortunately I am not the first to see this great need like true patriots the hard-hitting reporters at Fox News have already began leading the way in making paranoia accessible to the masses by devoting most of their reporting to isolated kidnappings and rapes to make them seem common.  What better way to provide people with the fear and distrust that they desperately need than to convince them they that could be attacked by anyone at anytime.   Unfortunately not all of our leaders are working towards fixing our fear deficit; much to my horror our president is actually working against it.  Now I have tried to get on board with President Obama in an attempt to find some common ground he is after all a celebrity, but he stubbornly insists on forcing hope on the American people.  Not only is he going to great lengths to make healthcare affordable ruining any chances that we otherwise might been able to have of fearing for our health; he is also working towards good relations with Russia.  President Obama recently signed a nuclear reduction agreement with Russian President Dmitriy Anatolyevich Medvedev in which both countries agreed to lower their nuclear warhead surplus by a third.   Now to some of you this may seem like no big deal but, let me assure you that this will lower our chances of being able to have a nuclear war by 33.3%.  His actions are pulling us further away from another desperately needed cold war.  Do you remember our last cold war; it was the golden age of danger.  Fear and distrust were booming!  Fear was so abundant that people had to discipline themselves to smoke marijuana just to keep from over dosing on it.  Of course it wouldn’t have been half as great if we hadn’t had a great leader who knew how to lead by example: President Nixon we salute you.  So, my fellow Americans I urge you to join me and Fox News in replenishing our fear supplies otherwise the only thing that we will have left to fear is the absence of fear itself.

Folks earlier I posted a blog warning you all about the serious threat against the coverage of Michael Jackson; I appreciate your comments and I am glad that you have decided to join me in protecting our American right to obsess over any celebrity that we want dead or alive. However, in the midst of the support the ridiculous accusation was made that Jackson was a pedophile. This attack on Jackson is completely absurd because, everyone knows that he lived in Never Never Land and no one grows up in Never Never Land. Therefore, Jackson could not have been a grown man and a child cannot be a pedophile. Let’s not remember Jackson in a negative way. Let’s remember him the way he was; a star who touched a lot of people.

Jackson Coverage Threatened by World Events

I like many of you have been following the news coverage of the defining issue of this decade;  that’s right I am talking about the aftermath of Michael Jackson’s death. Last week Omar Richardson wrote on his blog that we need to let Michael Jackson rest in peace.  I agree Richardson 100% and the best way to let Jackson rest in peace is to talk about him until no one wants to hear about him ever again.  So, far we have had adequate coverage of Jackson, but an international conspiracy is working to infiltrate our news and distract us from the importance of the finalization of Jackson’s estate.  In an attempt to take coverage away from Jackson current Honduran president Roberto Micheletti took part in a military coup ousting former president Manuel Zelelya from office and exiling him out of the country.  These actions enabled him to knock Jackson down to only two of the top four stories on Yahoo News, but he wasn’t satisfied with that in his insatiable desire to take attention away from the King of Pop Micheletti then shut down all of the airports preventing Zelelya from reentering the country knowing that it would instigate conflict with the U.N. and take more media coverage away from Never Never Land.  Micheletti isn’t the only culprit in this insidious plot.   Out of desperation to knock Jackson out of the news North Korean president Kim Jong Ill began performing unauthorized nuclear tests to incite tension in the U.N. hoping that this would steal media coverage away from the King of Pop.  When actions failed to distract the media enough  to prevent coverage of Jackson’s medicine cabinet he began firing missiles into the Sea of Japan.  President Ill if you are reading this;  I know what you are trying to do and you are wasting your time, because in the Land of the Free if you aren’t: a movie star, singer, TV personality, athlete or have eight kids we don’t care what you do.   The biggest conspirator involved in this vile scheme is Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who ordered the arrest of several British ambassadors; claiming that they were involved in inciting riots following the re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  At first that may appear to be an honest mistake.  However when you consider that Jackson bought the rights to many of the Beatles songs you can see that this is a direct attempt to distract Jackson’s biggest supporters from the news coverage of his own death; who would be more concerned about the British than the fans of the man who bought their music.  Not only were his actions an attempt to thwart our much needed coverage of Jackson’s funeral arrangements but, he almost prevented us from hearing about the retirement of Casey Kasem.  Khamenei, read my lips the American spirit and the American will to only pay attention to American pop culture is much stronger than your little political moves.  This American only spirit dates all the way back to 1823 when former U.S. president James Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine telling other nations to stay out of our affairs because, we don’t care about yours.  

It was once said that “you can lead a horse to water and you can even make him drink but, you can’t change his point of view”-Caedmon’s Call.  I interpreted that to mean that you can force someone to go where you tell the person and do what you tell that person to do, but you can’t force that person to change how he or she feels about it or what he or she thinks about it.   This is relevant in photography, because as photographers we are often trying to change or affect the minds of our viewers.   Some photographers are often tempted to go over the top in beating their audience over the head with their messages.    When they try to dial it down and attempt to carry their point with a little more subtlety they run the risk of their message getting lost.   Recently I saw the work of an artist who successfully found the balance between noninvasive subtlety and clear communication.   On Friday June 26^th I attended “minus: an exhibition” a photography and painting show which took place in Atlanta at Studioplex.  The concept of the show was minority groups.  The artists involved in the exhibition were SCAD graduate photography and painting students.  Photographer Karen Shacham’s work was successful in achieving the balance between clear communication and pleasant subtlety.   Shacham’s series titled “Couples” was about lesbian couples and how they were no different from other couples.  She posed them in an almost Olan Mills style; she had one person sitting in a chair with her partner standing beside her with the hand on the shoulder and the other holding hands.  The women in the photographs were dressed in typical business casual clothes.  The backgrounds appeared to be composed of cheesy traditional wallpaper.   They were framed in traditional family picture frames. The titles of each piece were simply their names.   Every aspect of the work including its presentation worked to communicate one thing: that lesbian couples are just as normal as mainstream traditional couples.   In every aspect of the work she made the couples look like a stereotypical family photo communicating the normalcy of their relationship while subtlety mocking the traditional family photo and its cheesiness.  Another artist that attempted to communicate the same message was Catherine Opie.  However, Opie had her subjects dressed in ways that reflect the stereotypes of gay couples that cause people to see them as different.   Opie creates work that is a little more in your face, but in doing so, she alienates a lot of her audience.   Shacham did not make that mistake and will therefore be able to reach and affect a much broader audience.  Lately I have been attempting to find a similar balance in my work.  My struggle is between my humor and my message.  In the beginning I was so over the top with the humor that my message got a little lost.  I have learned to rein it in but I am still looking for the perfect balance.  Well, goodbye.