I had an illuminating experience wading in the whirlpool and sweating in the sauna this morning: I had a thought rise like incense from the hidden depths of my mind. The I Ching says to expect the unexpected and as I breathed and absorbed the mist from the rejuvenating hot water and steam heat, the thought I had was simply “life”. Life. Suddenly very gently I moved away from my body. I was aware of being a few feet away from this vehicle, my body, the current life form through which I experience and agree or disagree on realities. At that exact moment, I experienced life itself as No Mind of the Tao and the Tao of No Mind which cannot be expressed, nor is it ever expressed; it is both inexpressible and unexpressible.

In the state I was in I knew that, as photographers, we don’t do photos “in-order-to” something else, not even to express our idea of ourselves as in who or what we are. Contrary to what we might believe about creativity, painters don’t paint and writers don’t write, sculptors don’t sculpt and photographers don’t snap shutters and scientists don’t discover and uncover the universe “in-order-to” make something out of ideas. We may think we do, but the Tao that can be expressed is not the Tao because the Tao is not an idea that can be thought. It just Is, and what there Is are fractals of indivuated distinct manifestations of consciousness becoming conscious. The presence No Mind manifests Itself as differentiated, individuated and, apparently, separate forms of awareness particles: energy subdivisable into spontaneous motion.

In fact, we are those particles living, breathing and having our being in, and of, No Mind of the Tao. We are energies of No Mind, the interdependent core and collective aggregate of all life forms as particles of an inward breath, as it were. Consider this the manifestation of No Mind without individuality or identity. Consider the outward breath as a metaphor for the vast spaciousness of differentiated individualized energies, the substance of creative intelligence; this is not God or gods. There is no father-figure or trinity sharing power. The appearance of individuality and secular identity is experienced as natural living processes of breathing in and breathing out, life and death, youth and old age, the recurrence of ocean tides, the revolutions of the planets and the seasons of the year and many more cycles far too complex and numerous to know about.

As photographers, we're not expressing No Mind of the Tao or anything else particularly through our work. On the contrary, No Mind of the Tao itself is the product of our work, not the expression No Mind. If photography is not the expression No Mind it's because it is No Mind, such that a photo by Simon Kossoff or John Linton or Claudia Luthi or Niki Conolly, for example, and anyone else for that matter, is a photo within No Mind. Like smoke rising, photography is an experience of becomingness through direct manifestation of the deepest inspiration.

Finally, before I moved closer to my body and yet still exterior to it, I could see that communication between particles of energy is through images. These images may be photos, or paintings, sculptures, mathematical formulas or some other form of imagery and symbolism; but not language, not words and not speaking. This may be important because how we communicate with life forms from other planets, galaxies, universes, worlds and times is clearly suggested by what Confucius meant when he said "a picture is worth a thousand words." Perhaps he was giving us a clue how to communicate with intelligent extraterrestrial life energy: through images, pictures, representations, facsimiles and visual energies within photographs like magick.

As members of JPG's on-line community, we communicate with each other through images we post. Moreover, we communicate with each other whether we post photos or not. This may be similar to the butterfly effect whereby a butterfly's wings create atmospheric changes in one location that may ultimately alter or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of changes somewhere else. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, communication might be vastly different. The flap of its wings is an essential part of communication. Without it, communication may not have existed at all.

The photograph I've posted here represents No Mind communicating in a language of imagery and space. In this space there is no me, no you, no them. There is only No Mind of the Tao and the Tao of No Mind. Our photographs are of the same No Mind, the same undivided Tao and the same uninhabited/uninhibited space. Our individuality is a necessary appearance just as breathing out is a necessary function of breathing in. So it is with profound respect that I dedicate this photo to all the photographers I have come to know (and there are more than I had room for on this photo) as the energy of No Mind of the Tao and the Tao of No Mind.

The New Order of the World Wide Web

Democracy as we've known it is obsolete. Forget about it. It's over. Dead.

Voting... elections .... candidates...... policies: they're relics. Antiques. They're jokes for standup comics.

If you're still thinking Red States and Blue States, you're thinking sucks! You're not using your head. The state of the global economy is the only "state" that matters!

The new order of government for the world is the Internet.

Call it the New Order of the World Wide Web.
Call it the World Order of the New Wide Web.
Call it the Wide Order of the Web New World.
Call it the Web Order of the Wide World New, or the New Wide World Order of the Web.

Call it whatever..........!

Congress as we've known it will be replaced by a "virtual" congress of avatars each with their own "profiles". There will be no more congressional districts. The Virtual Congress represents all internet activity, especially purchasing activity. It represents real-time purchasing activity, or activity-based purchasing/credit predictability and potential earnings futures. Individual people will think of themselves in terms of stocks and bonds. We will behave in society like stocks and bonds behave on Wall Street. "Representation" (as such) is determined by "votes" and voting is purchasing power (+), or lack of it (-).

Currently, paying online is voluntary. In the future it will be the only way to pay for anything. Instead of each nation having its own monetary currency and value, there will only be Internet Dollars. Every purchase for every item is made online: calculated, graphed and plotted in an instant. Total Account Information is available online throughout the world on every transaction. Every transaction is calculated to show trends in global behavior and psychology. There will be no privacy. As it stands now, criminal activity is the only activity protected by privacy laws. In the future, everything will be transparent. Activity that is criminal will be immediately apparent. There will be no money, no cash, to steal. Nothing can be exchanged without an Internet Footprint. Nobody will have cash on hand. Nobody can exchange a stolen item for anything of value because the only value will be in terms of Internet Dollars and to acquire Internet Dollars there will need to be an internet account, an IP address and other personal tracking devices.

Just as stocks rise and fall hour-by-hour and effect unlimited financial futures, the policy of the future is determined based on purchasing trends, energy expenditures, health, well being and life expectancy projections. People who live "green" will have more Internet Dollars in their account, similar to Frequent Flyer Miles an airlines give its customers. Cut back in energy use and get Internet Dollars to spend. The more you spend, the more influence you have as each Dollar spent is a vote for, or against other issues that concern you or your community. Each purchase (+) or non-purchase (-) is a vote. The consumer prints out a copy of all transactions made during the day and shows a "paper trail" to verify choices made that day at any particular time.

Cultural, social and military policy is determined hour by hour as stocks rise and fall according to internet activity reflecting purchases (+) or the absence of purchases (-) as in the case of the homeless and poor. No matter what you buy or don't buy, your social/fiscal/political philosophy is calculated in each purchase and your vote is selected and recorded worldwide in an instant. All the nations of the world will be linked up together in one gigantic voting block. Individual nations will use its Internet Dollars most directly to effect their nation's issues and concerns, but global issues of land rights, wars, civil rights and terrorism will be decided by the spending/purchasing activity of the entire world. Gone will be the days of government diplomats making policies of war based on capitalism, democracy, greed, or any other political ideology. Communism, socialism, capitalism and dictatorships will be a thing of the past. They will be replaced with avatars from a Virtual Government By Internet. With this system, having a "lack" of Internet Dollars is, in itself, a voting block leverage to effect change according to will. The ratio of Haves-to-Have-Nots is malleable. It can change overnight because it's not based on property values. Rather it is based on the (+)/(-) factors of distribution.

For example, if more liberals buy cars or anything else of value and desire, more than conservatives buy, same-sex marriage is approved, or any other social issue for that matter. On the other hand, if conservative Christians, for instance, buy more cars than liberal LGBT atheists do, same-sex marriage is denied, or some other thing. Lifestyle choices will be accepted or not based on the purchasing activity reflected in the distribution of Internet Dollars, sustainable energy resources and environmental provisions. "Policy" will be set hour by hour, day by day. It changes constantly, just like stocks. Jobs are created to support social agendas whereby the purchasing power of employees is calculated to be in support of, or to be opposed to, any specific idea at any time, on any day; just like stocks. Gay marriage, for example, may be approved on any given day during the hours of 3pm and 7pm based on various parameters established for social/economic monitoring. After that period of time, on a given day, the activity of distribution of Internet Dollars may be such that gay marriage is voted down during the night time hours and is back up again in the morning, or at some other time based on exchange activities.

There's no "policy". There's no need for a constitution; no need for a Supreme Court. The economic activity of the consumer is the constitution. The cash flow of ideas set judicial precedent. There will be no elected officials, no government diplomats, no lobbyists, no money changing hands. It will be impossible to "buy" votes, since all "voting" is thru the collective activity of purchasing and other variables to be determined by internet activity consensus building.

This system eliminates lobbyists. It eliminates corruption. It eliminates special interests. It is the ultimate form of "representational self-government". The citizens of the world govern themselves and each other by the monitoring activity of internet cyber masters. This new world web system puts the entire activity of government in the hands of consumers who are legally required to have an internet account, to give up all their passwords and security information, to purchase only online or not at all.

This is the Brave New World ahead of us. If you don't believe it, you'll probably be the first in line to make your purchase of organic apple juice to vote against it.

Sex

Last time I had sex she was dressed like a man with a white face, a mannequin smooth and hard. Her hair slick as black shoe polish. Eyes dead, tear stains of blood on the bed. The bedroom was dark. Nothing was true. Everything was permitted. The sky was gray. She was pale and smelled like sex. But she lied about not liking sodomy: she liked it and she knew I knew she liked it. She loved it and came back to it like a dog who couldn't escape the vacuum cleaner, the knife, the deranged psychotic. The more I got to know her the more I didn't know if I liked her better as a man or a woman or a dog.nothing is as tempting as pleasure twisting helplessly from a rope. We didn't merely have sex: we stopped being coherent. We made a mockery out of it. A mockery out of paradise. She rubbed my chest trying to make me be somebody. Gave herself orgasms in front of a mirror. Gave me oral sex which was more important than a conscience. I was dominate and she was submissive. I had a tongue like fat flesh. She loved my mouth. Loved my mouth inside her. Loved my tongue inside her brain. Loved the blood in my hypodermic. I was so proud for never having an original idea that I made her beg for every bad thing I did to her.She made me forget monotony. I gave her my undivided attention. We did speed in the kingdom of heaven and I'd watch her stagger down the street and come to my dirty little space. I touched the skin under her nose. Played with eyelashes. Made her sleep on the floor afterwards, chained to the bed. She was the one thing needed: forbidden fruit of a girl who waits on tables. She remembered being in a dirty laundromat, a dirty basement of a dirty hotel in downtown Dirty Town. A place where everybody lives sooner or later. It wasn't wrong to irrigate the field. I tried to find some balance but still couldn't get a taxi. I put gypsies in my arms and sometimes I missed the vein but it was still worth it.one night a few months ago I got a phone call. It woke me up. I answered it. Said hello. She wanted me to drive over to her place. Wanted to be tied up with a bag over her head. Wanted me to do it on all fours from the back end. Wanted me to bite her neck and leave deep teeth marks. Wanted to pretend she didn't know who I was. So she left the door unlocked. I let myself in and out.... in and out....... in and out in a reenactment of the Tribulation in the Garden. Sex was loud and painful. She passed out. I was the prince, she was the dead princess. After that night, I slept on subways. Bought tickets for the long and fast. I got sick from a cold wind that blew under the door and fell asleep. Something woke me up. It was the woman next door masturbating in that virtuous holy place of eternal consciousness. She was dressed like a man with a white face, a mannequin smooth and hard. Her hair slick as black shoe polish. Eyes dead, tear stains of blood on the.

this is what death must be like

is this what death must be like..... standing in front of endless doors painted black in a back alley, waiting to come back in another body just because you can.

teeth reflected in a window somewhere between the heaven and hell of one's imagination.a dark tunnel under an empty highway, only much longer and without the light.

distorted construction site that never gets finished, a mansion that never gets built, windows that look out to emptiness, elevators that dont work and lots of white space.

rolling down the road attached to a wooden board with no legs, going nowhere fast and nobody paying attention.

waiting at a bus stop for a bus that never comes, and if it comes it never stops, and if it stops we never have the exact change.

tables and chairs set for nobody to dine, walking down the street going nowhere in particular and lots of empty parking spaces.

an open mouth laughing at nothing, a kitchen with no food, some dull lights, windows that are locked and nobody there to see it.

looking back and trying to change things you dont like, unhappy with the way things turned out, pointing the finger looking for someone to blame.

a washed out memory, blurry and pointless like a cold wind hitting the back of the neck, and lots of white noise. an easily forgettable past life.

the sad blue light

it was 6am. i'd been working all night. it started to rain. grey skies. black clouds. black skies. cold rain and lots of it. i could use a drink. i walk to the corner. the bar is open every day. "night and day, you are the one." it's wednesday or tuesday. i'm sitting in the corner in the back. in the dark. minding my own business. staying out of the way, trying to get out of the way of the sad blue light.

the sad blue light shocked me like a cop on a raid and there i was -- sleeping with goats. i painted my fingernails with blood. i wrote words across my face. sweat came out of every pore of my body. i had my yes and my no. in the spring it rained. it the winter it snowed.

all i wanted to do was sit in the corner upstairs in the booth with only one chair near the window and be left alone. i wanted to stay away from the sad blue light. so i pawned my mind for a bowl of rice. i disguised my voice over the phone. it was a shadow of things to come. it was the curse, the beginning of the worse. i carried the rugged old rusty cross like a crucifixation around my neck. it rang like a cow bell. it kept me up a few days. i walked around in a trance on a night highway. i stood in doorways waiting to be slaughtered.

i tried to shut off the sad blue light before i went insane. i drank a few more, enough so i could see paint on the water. i saw the grave in the garden. i saw the bathroom door and the alley behind the bar, out back behind the dark corner. i saw the coward in the mirror. i tasted the mud of the ordinary. i fell in the mud. i walked through a maze of hallways and doors painted black. i saw an angel inside a cloud. i saw a demon inside my skull. i heard my voice begging for the end of the world. i ripped up old photographs of an angel with blood on its lips laughing at me. a slow song dripped like saliva from the corners of its mouth. it was bleeding on virgin snow in winter. i saw an angel with emerald eyes. it was crying inside the mountain. it was buried alive inside the colon of the mountain. i wanted to hang myself in the sad blue light.

i fell asleep and forgot to close the window. my foot fell off the chair. i woke up with an appetite for the strange. my glass was empty. my breath smelled bad. apparently, every word i ever spoke had turned rotten like rotten meat and smelled bad in my mouth. so i looked for my coat, my baggy pants, boots and a sharp pencil. then i hid in a closet to get away from the sad blue light. i slept on old faded yellow newspapers.

Going thru life with a square head

(Or being a square peg in a world of round holes.)

First time I knew I was different from other boys and girls was when crazy Virgo menopausal psycho bitch from hell tried to get me to sell out for a middle class income. Rather than blame failure on bad karma, pretending to be happy when it was all in my mind, I settled for no income at all.

Started cropping photos in the shape of a square after I read a story about this girl's father and how he got arrested. As the story goes, she tucked the newspaper clipping about his arrest in an envelope, tucked away safely in a drawer by her bed. It was a private place she set aside for hating him. A place of unforgiveness. A place she kept for remembering sodomy. A place for keeping lies about being at the beach with dad. Looking at photos of grandma and grandpa. Little 5x7's. Never a square. Drank Barcardi to forget her lowliness. Next morning she'd still be drunk. Father went to prison. Did his time. Got out. In the morning she'd still be drunk. Always lonely, willing to be hurt.

Started cropping photos in the shape of a square after Kessler said I needed a psychiatrist because my thinking was all wrong. He slumped behind his christian pulpit like a back-alley bully. He was a coward, a serial killer stalking a smug Mexican resort. Pointed his finger at me for never sleeping. Accused me of being a homoerotic insomniac who had no right to sleep. Kessler begged to be offended. I hated him for manipulating me. So I abused him. Smashed his phone with a hammer. Threw it in the dumpster. His face all swollen red and flushed. Black circles under his eyes. Breath smelled like piss. Religion smelled just like him.

Started cropping photos in the shape of a square after I discovered that to be queer meant to be under the influence of the piano. Nobody wanted to go where everything was nothing. Didnt matter. This was the real deal. Sex was torture. I suffered and struggled. The beast couldnt cause anything. Couldnt work. Stayed up for days without sleeping. Hitched a ride on a bus to Fresno in the middle of the night. Finally got to sleep. Slept like a baby: woke up every two hours screaming.

Started cropping photos in the shape of a square after I got a job as a hustler, panhandler, politician, truck driver and a magazine advertisement. I was never forgiven for being a square art form in a museum of round holes. No big deal. Did a few drugs. Never went back to Sleepy Town, not ever again. Had recreational sex online with other weirdos. We were high risk individuals who loved ourselves more than we loved the shepherd.

Started cropping photos in the shape of a square after I went to Gethsemane's religious festivals. Golgotha was more shocking than a thrift store. Nobody wore robes. Nobody got naked. Everybody was the same as everybody else. They did terrible things. If you lived there, you could kill yourself twice! One guy did it once outside his parents house on Xmas day and again by setting himself on fire drinking gasoline mouthwash. His first suicide note was brilliant! A masterpiece! But his second death was the envy of us all! After that I lived in a mirage. There never was a god to begin with. I cut it loose from my mind. That's when I started cropping photos in the shape of a square.

Started cropping photos in the shape of a square after I got drunk and came home after an all-niter. I'd throw things around the room., Bang into walls. Knock things over in the dark. Neighbors would be afraid. Pretended to sleep. There was simply too much grief and sorrow all in one place to get any rest. Not enough to go around. Scarcity everywhere. The solution? If someone had more unhappiness than they earned in one lifetime, a portion of it would be taken away from them and given to someone who had less. This was socialism and I liked it.

Started cropping photos in the shape of a square after my eyes went white up inside my head. Eyeballs rolled backwards. Upwards. Looking inwards. Glassy. Vacant. Dead. I slept with aries and aquarius rising. We had sex like dogs. Without a dream there was no reason for us to talk. Because of the dream, square photos were more beautiful than I ever imagined. After that, there was nothing left for me to do except pack up and go. Once I was gone, I started cropping photos in the shape of a square.

Junky

junky's connection lived in a trailer park, but junky lived in long beach. so, what's the difference? junky hung out at a corner bar. drank till he passed out. junky made boring confessions of sin. walked home down an alley behind the rockabilly50. stood under a streetlight. lit a cigarette with a silver lighter with his name engarved on it. junky smoked his cigarette between his cracked lips. held it between his first two fingers betty davis style. he blew smoke out his nose like exhaust fumes from an edsel. junky was a defiant queer. a militant limpwrist new york city jew. one shoulder lower, another higher than the other, twisted by a handicap.

junky took showers with boys from the paradisio in amsterdam. he was well-hung like a chain suspended from the ceiling. junky hears a door open and shut. someone puts away the keys, hanging them on the door. they dangle and rattle his soul after five days of bad. junky gave the landlord two days notice. he pasted it on the bathroom wall. junky had a hangover. he prayed on the cement floor. junky's motel room reeked of used tampons. it had the nauseating stench of sincerity cascading down from the top of a cathedral. "just a cheap aphrodisiac", he thought. "urban fat for the new art. for the new jazz. for the sake of the dead." junky had nothing to say. pointed his middle finger in an obscene gesture: a red tattoo of a heart painted below the bottom knuckle of his middle finger, right hand.

junky had a short fuse. his world was a pothole. he slept on the floor of a rock house, jonesin' bad and sickly. his black junky netherworld bottomed out. he had a vision: estimez qu'il n'y a rien ici qui est (think that there is nothing here that is). junky thought about it. "to know is to die", he thought, "but to not-know is to live." knowing was inhumane. not-knowing was human. to know was mortality. to not-know was immortality. so junky hung upside down with his mouth open wide hanging by his neck from the center of the room. junky was exiled from the jazz city. he saw the new order. he ate on the floor with dogs. he saw creatures nobody saw but him and the dogs.

no matter how bad it got, and it got really bad, he could still get an erection. he was a mean drunk who smelled bad. addiction was a gift. a big bass drum pounding in his head gave him visions of the apocalypse: pregnant women beating their fists against their stomachs to wake up the fetus. worms in the womb.

junky slept on roses and thorns, and he gave himself an enema. he slept naked and dreamt that he planted his germ inside the woman. she was collateral damage. it was right for him to irrigate her. he had dominion of the earth. it was right for woman to be his property. he swallowed the oracle for the sake of the world and transformed hatred for the many into love for the few. he was a predator. a farmer with a tractor. in the end, junky was traumatized and drowned in mud. his semen floated in the trash can in an alley somewhere in a big city. in the end, he floated face down in the waters of decency. his breakdown was a failure. we were all pathetic. he didnt want to suffer but for junky, life itself was suffering enough.

women of las vegas.........

.......worked all night with exotic dancers in jazz ghettos. picked up trumpets off the street pregnant by every horn in the city. tried to get out of vegas but the evacuation smelled like a toilet. even the retarded ones, illiterate ones, everyone who had ever been thought of in the entire history of time gathered in the desert. drank from the cactus. everyone burned to the ground. only piano and drums remained beyond the ashes. the next day the dog died. they looked for the body. it was in the casino. nobody knew where. nobody cared.

6am in the kitchen, next day. elbows on the table, her head in her palms looking out the window at nothing in particular. bored, she forgot about her sickness. her eyes drifted aimlessly. cigarette ashtray was nasty. her mouth inside her boots. her red hair smelled like irony envy. sleeping beer breath. she woke up coughing.

jasmine from new york on a visit. passed out with pale white dirty sheets barely covered her below the waist. kicked off the blankets during the night. things got sweaty. jasmine wrapped her legs around libra. pulled the sheet against her ankles tied up with a piece of electrical cord she found under the bed. cigarette smoke drifted into the hole of zero where things were everything in a circle and in a god damn'd hurry! naked wearing a collar, a braclet and a leash. a phone hung on a chair next to the bed. picked up the phone. dialed a number waiting for something to happen. eyes back and forth waiting for someone to answer. it was the end.

a las vegas lounge act: cement casket going to vegas where everybody was a whore. where psychotics were not enough anymore. where under age teenage jail bait entertained and did animal noises when they were drunk. where being awake was a deep coma, a space distorted, collapsed. it was the end again. the end of the snake pit.

jasmine stirred in bed swearing. wanted to get up go to the kitchen. she turned, pushed the sheet off the bed onto the floor. grabbed the brass bars at the head of the bed. Pulled herself up screaming: "i want you now! I'M READY NOW!" libra's head weighed 200 pounds. motioned her head towards the door. her head with a toss of her hair.

next thing happens: man opens jasmine's door. walks in. shuts the door. sounds of gagging, strangulation. chocking on something in the space of the what's so and the what is and all the rest of it. the final masterpiece was to die on las vegas blvd south using a monkey, snake, a live eel on the hottest day of circumstances. evacuating las vegas: a retreat unforgiving.

girls on the strip in a bad mocking tongued each others faces. tossed the magick on the table. turned the lights on but the lights didnt work. wooden table deteriorating. they sing a song "i can drink but i cant think...." ....behind the door blond babe was worse than meaningless. so one morning i crawled out of bed. rode hard, straddled on top until she bled the mexican woman next door. woman listening, the way opened. made the woman, "she is crying!" yeah. women cry all the time. you like it? she listens. you scream.

mexican woman with five kids in the back. her house on fire, huddled together on the kitchen floor. frightened children sang religion for the dead. an unspeakable concept. women brushed their eyes with mascara and went to the tomb to look for jesus. the white horse was at the gate but a wooden box separated them from life and death. women wanted it the way it was when they were unknown but not unknowable. they wanted to be buried in vegas. every morning they begged for the kiss of the inquistion. only saw futility. free to smoke and drink but now they smoke and drink no more.

it's all over but the crying.

we waited for libra's body on a slab without a face. she drove into the parking lot. got out of the car in a mini skirt. legs out the door hot christ thighs up to her hips. wet hair against the middle of her back. the collar of her shirt had a few buttons missing. a slender pearl neck, clevage and so much future. we stood in line. kneeled to lick the sores on her feet. we closed our eyes. the secret of an expectation is its unfulfilled mystery. in vegas there is no reality. just ugliness everywhere. mediocrity. cheap paint and block walls. a desert mirage. no jazz. no zennunderground. nothing but sweat.

there's only two kinds of people live in vegas: those who quit and those too desperate to quit.

walking so slow i fell over

drunk at Whumper's Old Man which used to be on grant street, north beach. head on the bar near an ashtray. bartender poking me to get up. called a cab. dont remember getting in. remember vomiting in the back seat. barely remember getting out of the cab. crawled to the front door. woke up on the bathroom floor. live-in g/f put me to bed with my clothes on. it was 6am. she sat at the window looking out at the cars driving down sacramento street. she smoked a joint. played guitar. a terrible folksong. something original that mostly wasnt. heard it all before. drunk. sick. hung over then sick some more. sang like a wounded animal. i slept on a small mattress in the other room close to the floor. could see the windows. could see the fog. heard the heater come on and off. felt safe. no worries. had cocaine.

side effects include temporary insanity

"how bad can it get?" i asked the doc before i swallowed the pills. fifteen pills. all different colors and sizes. took me two glasses of water and several minutes to get them down. i had a bad taste in my mouth. my eyes watered. my mouth was dry as cotton. as dry as if i had licked the top of a bottle of bleach. dry as burning rubber. dry as it can get from mainlining speed. that's pretty dry. i thought my tongue was gonna fall out. maybe i sucked my teeth down my throat. my brain was on fire. i could smell smoke from my body. the hairs on my arms were little firecrackers. my eyelashes melted off my face. i couldnt see my legs or feel my feet. my hands looked like a fat four-fingered cartoon character. oh yeah... and i never got an answer to my question.

the good dream gone

ten fingers light a cigarette. big block chords up and down the piano like neon paint. slow jazz. slow blues. sad. deep and full as the night, playing one chord next to the other. first one and then another. the lights wet streets empty glasses empty tables and an ashtray. two bottles of wine, the fog and a taxi the full moon the hotel the bed twisting and turning. the jazz band at 2am went crazy and screamed all over the room. more fog from consciousness. more music at a table alone looking straight ahead at space. the good dream gone. forgetting where i came from. forgetting my name. so i walked around the corner to ellis and powell and all is gone. the good dream gone. barefoot, no shirt just a scarf thrown over me. so many people on the street walking but i dont care. jazz blowing a midnight blues. it's something to do. a black and blue midnight blues. first i found a seat and sat there listening. then i got up and walked to the corner of grant and broadway. i stood there waiting for the cars to pass. i waited for the bus. i waited for the moon. by the time i got to the cafe, i had to wait for the nurses to bring me my meds and the little white tabs. but they're always late. so i stood at the corner of sutter and hyde and waited for the bus. i listed to jazz with the brushes pushing so softly that only i can hear. i stood on the corner of geary and taylor and waited for the bus and i waited to hear big block chords that go nowhere. drum beats that beat for nobody. sleep that is only good for me. melodies only i can hear. bright lights. big city. the good dream gone. i drink up and have another for the good dream gone.

getting away with it

it was tuesday the first week in august. it was the fourth day not taking my meds. kicking it the slow way. it was the fifth week of being (almost) sober and now i'm sitting on the toilet with the runs. my ears are hissing and buzzing. i didnt sleep hardly at all last night. sat in a sauna later trying to burn it out. drank water. showered, drove home slowly.

ive been in a dry spell for some time. i sit and look through old photos, admiring some of it, embarrassed by most of it. bored by all of it. some of it's intolerably dull. i dont know what i'm expecting. i dont know what to do about it, if anything. maybe theres nothing to do. maybe its time to quit the game early, see if i can get away with it.

when i stop working long enough to listen i can hear how really useless it is. a lit cigarette burning a hole in a rug is just as useless. but as long as i can stay busy.... as long as i have something to work on, the meaningless insult of it escapes me. it stops becoming dangerous, insane and vicious as soon as i step back and get away from it. the pointlessness becomes even more obvious, as obvious as people who pretend not to be afraid of homosexuals or who go out of their way not to appear to condemn them.

doing something, anything seems to mask the futility. i want to hide from it. hoping i can get away with it, i try to keep busy working on something to stay blind to how empty it really is, but that never works. the busier i am, the more empty i am. the more empty i am, the more i want to work to fill up the emptiness. it's a vicious circle filled with smoke blowing out the ass of a buddhist cow.

zen is all about the thick layer of dust and ash covering everything in life. as long as that dirt stays there i can avoid seeing that it doesnt mean anything. if i keep thinking it means something, i keep working, like walking out of the house one morning and going a little insane. well, all that dirt? those are the photos i take. if i stop taking pictures or writing about them then i'm face-to-face with nothing. a big zero. it makes me want to throw cold water on my head because ive got nothing to say but vague and unimportant things that are being said by somebody else in a more inarticulate way.

so its better for me to keep busy. although photography doesnt shape the nothingness that lies beneath the nothingness in the closet of life, this must be the state of consciousness from which all things arise. if i could get away with it, nothing from nothing would just be a bad dream.

like wet rags over a leaky faucet, dry spells are periods of rest when i can get my edge back without having to do much, without banging my head against the wall. photos are just another form of nothingness like anything else that doesnt matter or make a difference. making something happen or not: one isnt better than the other as long as i can get away with it.

Benny the Jazz says Goodbye

for Benny the Jazz, life was strung together with a series of "goodbye's". the faster he said goodbye the faster he moved to the next goodbye. each goodbye was more powerful, more profound than the last. his life was a demand driven by the next goodbye. a journey towards the next goodbye life could offer. instead of goodbye being the end of something, it was the beginning driven by all of life's endless goodbyes. satisfaction was simple: it came from knowing when it was time to go. knowing when goodbye had reached its limit: the ultimate intimacy. goodbye wasn't the end. it was the beginning, without which goodbye had no power. Benny the Jazz left us with his last goodbye.

Jesus Christ!

NOTE: This photo essay is admittedly one-sided, but so are photographs. Photos only show one side of a point of view the photographer had at the time. So this is nothing new.

I'm not a fan of Jesus Christ. I dont think much of Fundamentalist Christianity nor any of the world's other infamous and notorious religions (i.e., specifially Judaism and Islamic Fundamentalism) -- three major aberrant sociopathic blood-thristy world religious movements on a collision course with mass destruction.

Religion is the ultimate "weapon of mass destruction". Nobody is making an effort to stop the proliferation of religious beliefs world-wide. I say, stop religion! and we'll soon see a more peaceful, tolerant, well-adjused mentally and spiritually healthy earth. Let the proliferation of religion continue unchallenged and we'll see the end of civilization on earth as we know it.

I posted these photos to express the dark semi-secret side to this blood-thirsty, death-obsessed, dysfunctionally and mentally unbalanced aberrant pathological religious phenomena: Fundamentalist Christianity. It's as much a fascist terrorist organization as Islamic Fascism is accused of being and I'm no fan of that either. Judiasm is included in my view of Christianty since our support for Israel was, initially, a religiously motivated excuse. There's more excuses now.

For decades, anti-semitism has been a good excuse for irrational, unjustified military support for all things Jewish. To say anything bad about the Jews is to be lumped in with Hitler! It's easier to get away with hanging a hangman's noose on a tree in Mississippi than it is to disrespect a Jew! Israel/USA is always right and, given enough time, the rest of the world will be dead wrong! And for what? 8500 square miles of dirt.

To keep it simple, I used Roman Catholicism to visually represent the black heart of death. Like a Trojan Horse, it comes bringing honey and sweetness with the "baby in a manger" fairy tale. As a trilogy, the Bible, the Torah (Talmud) and the collected written/verbal teachings of Muhammad are the definitive Big Book of Curses.

Make no mistake, fundamental Charismatic Evangelicalism is no less insidious and dangerous to the future existence of humanity than catholicism and Islam. It may have less recognizable symbolisms for its contempt of human life, freedom of thought, tolerance for diverse lifestyles, behavior and individual creativity, but it's no less visible and controlling.

Most powerful symbolism of social/cultural death-wish inherent in fundamental Charismatic Evangelicalism: modern religious, political and economic systems. Democracy, Capitalism and Religion: the ultimate Triad and Axis of Evil. Systems responsible for the wars we fight, the costs we pay for living, the costs we pay for dying. Hopelessness future generations can look forward to.

Symbolism of Charismatic Evangelicalism: consumerism, coal lobby, big business, oil lobby, fast food, junk food, run-away health care expense, recession, unemployment, red state-Republican-dominated bigotry and self-righteousness, blue state-Democratic-dominated governmental activism and imperialism, homophobia, gun rights legislation lobby, white fat middle-class male-dominated environmental rape, Orange County CA residential demographics as a model and goal of conservatism, the auto industry, right-wing talk radio shock jocks, Wall Street lobby, the anti-choice lobby and the failed, fatal legacies of Dick Cheney's administration and his stupid puppet George W Bush.

If I offended anyone, I'm not the least bit sorry. Read Nietzsche's The Anti-Christ. It makes me look like a Zionist!

fOOT fETISH sEQUENCE 1 thru 6

It's 3am. I'm coughing up blood. No wait. That's not right. I don't think that's blood. I think that's the color red from her short red satin skirt pulled up past her hips to make it easier to dig my way through the rock and pitch a tent inside that cave. I'm spitting out the fibers from her see-through blouse that got stuck in my teeth when I ripped off the zipper holding it together. I'm spitting out the soap and water that turned red from when she washed her short red mini-skirt with the slit up the side, washed it the kitchen sink with her red panties, her red lace stockings, her red high heels dripping dry in the bathroom hanging over the shower curtain. No, wait a minute. That must be a dream. I had a dream that I sucked all the color red out of existence because I loved it and had to have it. I was jonesin' for it like an addict who wanted to know if she had any meat. I loved the color red. Red hair. Red sunsets. Red Rodney. Red Norvo. Red Ryder. The Red River Valley. Little Red Riding Hood. Red Mitchell. Red herrings. Better dead than red. Red blood shot eyes. Red Rock Canyon, white out and blues after hours.

I was lost deep in sleep, sloppily slurping (?) the juices of forbidden kinky pleasure. I rested my head on her thighs, my face hidden by the shadow of her legs. I was as happy as an alcoholic at an open bar with my tongue hanging out waiting for another round. I was alone and content to dream about her short red skirt and red high heels with little metal clasps like handcuffs that pinched her ankles making bruises. There were tiny hooks painted red piercing her skin, which always got my blood to boil over. Large drops of blood found their way into my spoon. Little balls of cotton floated in water.

In my dream, I grabbed her ankles, sucked her toes. Suddenly I heard a loud knock on the door like I'd expect from cops. I woke up, sat up and looked at the door waiting for a big foot to come crashing through it without a warrant based only on a suspicion or a tip from a snitch. The last time this happened I was staying in a southern California resort town, a temporary resident of a cheap motel near the San Clemente pier. Coppers stormed in unexpected-like, planted stuff in my shoe and found works in the closet in a shoe box. It was a bum rap. The stuff wasn't mine. I was holding it for Benny the Jazz.

Anyway, there were no cops this time but a big brown manila envelope was shoved under my door. It was from someone I didn't know. He thought I'd be interested in his foot fetish. I was doing undercover work for deep background. Since he had a foot fetish he sent me pictures to prove it. (See JPG photos posted as "fOOT fETISH sEQUENCE 1 tHUR 6") He numbered them from one to six. That was the sequence he used to ignite the sparks of his perspiration. According to him, he only sweated on the right side of his body. Without his meds, his right armpit would heat up with a burning sensation usually when urinating. The hair under his right arm would be as tangled and matted as a wet mongrel dog. Strange as it sounds, his left side would be as cold as ice. In fact, his left arm pit had no hair at all. He looked and smelled like a Chinese Crested hairless.

In the package he sent there was a letter in a plain white business envelope simply addressed to "Dear Film and Tape Music". I opened it carefully. It could've been a stink bomb. I read it slowly, but first I poured myself a shot of whisky. Then I made myself a sandwich. Avocado, peanut butter and organic alfalfa sprouts with honey mustard dressing and soya sauce with artichoke hearts on the side. I had another shot of whiskey and sat in the chair to read the letter.
He asked me if I wanted to make a movie about his whole life. He said he would sell me the movie rights. He wrote, "I have 40,000 points of power. The C.I.A. gave me finding power. I can find anyone in the world. Sanction power. Market power." He told me to contact Homeland Security to find out when they're going to rent him a loft in New York. He wants to sell me some power. Foot fetish power. Power of the feet. Pisces power. Neptune toes. Saturn soles. He also told me he wants to get started in the porn industry or else.... and he writes this underlined with a bold red magic marker: "I can destroy it (i.e., the porn industry). You either my friend or my enemy (sic). My enemies I will destroy. I am serious." I get it he's serious. I have another shot and cough up some more phlegm. I spit it out into the envelope he provided. The letter's hard to read. I can't keep my hands still. (They twitch a lot more now since I was held against my will at the convalescence home in San Francisco.) Getting back to the letter: he says he'll put sanctions on me and "shut me up permanently!" if I don't do what he wants. He ends his letter and signs it, "May God bless you. Contact me. I am a God. Sincerely, L.L.S."

I sat there for a minute or two in dumb silence. Maybe it was an hour. I just stared ahead, looking out the window with a bland expression on my face as usual. I saw the morning paper spread out in front of me opened to the want-ads. I looked at the first ad; it was the only ad. I pushed the paper away and threw the shot glass in the sink and broke it. But before I did that I had another drink or two. I looked around for the spoon and the works and got ready to get high. I got high. The stuff was really fresh. Little sharp crystals dissolved in water instantly and so clearly I could see my face smiling at me, waving from a great distance and drifting further away. I was hot. Sweating. Breathing hard. I tried to get up from the table but something was different. I felt strangely connected to all living things. Consciousness itself was an odorless substance that I could touch and taste. It was bitter like lemon juice and sweet like a sugar baby. I saw my body with a creature living inside reach out its arms from the centers of all my chakras. Fingers of an alien being living on another planet pulled matter, energy, space and time into my body and pushing it out again worse than it was before. Transforming Kundalini. Renewing a sick feeling of something unforgiving and yet easily forgotten five minutes after it left my body. I saw that my feet had changed and now they had long thin beautiful toes instead of short little hairy stubs with toenails that were falling off. My feet were finally part of a cosmic holism Beyond Good and Evil.

I was stoned. The room was spinning. I couldn't stand up. My ears were ringing and hissing. My eyes were blurring. Everything I saw sort of glistened and sparkled. I was shining. The pupils in my eyes were as big and black as bowling balls. I crawled over to the bed and climbed on it with a lot of effort. I was listening to Beethoven's Piano Sonata #14 In C Sharp Minor, Op. 27/2, "Moonlight" - 1. Adagio Sostenuto. It was raining. It was dark outside and yet a weird laser beam cut into my brain like a carving knife on Thanksgiving. My head was a cooked turkey. My brain, oozing the color red flowing like water out of a rock rolled down my face, rolled down my chest, rolled down to my feet. Chemicals dripped into my spoon. Floating balls of cotton were dark red with blood, almost purple from the main artery. I watched them bob up and down like red apples in water. Red nylon stockings dissolved into crystal fibers. Rain soaked her red mini-skirt hanging on the clothes line out back. Little red high heels hung over the telephone lines in the street. I was a afraid of something, but I didn't know what.

I turned off all the lights in the house. I locked all the doors. I felt like someone was in the house besides me. My head was hurting. My arms ached and were bruised. I thought about going to the Ebony Black and Blues Cafe on the corner of Columbus Ave. and Kerouac Alley. It stayed open every day of the year from 6am till 2am. I looked for my shoes. My feet begin to itch between the toes. I reached down to scratch my foot and fell off the bed. I hit the floor. Hit my head. I could barely see the photos the guy sent me. I thought that if I post them up on JPG maybe the pain in my head would go away. Maybe I'd be able to breathe again. Maybe my skin would stop crawling over my body, like rats running up and down my legs from the inside out. Maybe the light would stop blinding me. Maybe the creatures would run away. Maybe, but not this time. Not today.

CLONAZEPAM/KLONOPIN: Kicking the Underground

Coming off Klonopin, an anxiety med. Doctors in San Francisco misdiagnosed my natural interest in whether or not I was going to live and thought it was "anxiety". For six months I've been taking Klonopin and because it's addictive I can't stop cold turkey. I need to taper off slowly. So that's what I did. Now I'm taking ½ tab once a day. I stopped drinking. I exercise. I go to the gym. I drink three, four liters of water every day. I sit in a steam room or do a sauna. I shower in the nude with other men. Then we walk around the lockers showing off our admiration. If I didn't have anxiety before, I do now.

Klonopin never did anything so that I could tell it was helping. It was what I didn't feel. I didn't feel like I hated the world or people. I wasn't bitter or nervous. I didn't flip out over small things, only the big ones. I didn't feel like I had somewhere to go or something to do. I don't know if Klonopin made me calm, but it made me think I was calm. It made anxiety seem weak, cowardly and vulnerable. I could have victory with meds. I'd need another victory after that. And another after that. Discomfort comes with the withdrawals. Diarrhea. Headaches. Nausea. Boredom. Irritability. Driving in traffic. Insomnia. Restlessness. I used vicodin and hydrocodone to help get past the withdrawals. Without Klonopin, "BE-HERE-NOW" became "be anywhere but here now!" With it, being here is better than being anywhere else.

There are many days when I have no photos and no words. No creativity at all. I'm not interesting and I'm not interested. I've tried to force it, but that's stupid. A waste of time. So I find something else to do and wait for images to come to me. Taking a picture, getting the shot, right now, is as good as any other. Missing it can be better still. It's not taking the picture that makes it; it's what I do with it. A picture is taken. Shutter snaps. No flash. No focus. No thought. Camera and eye, hand and mind all moving without purpose. Or at least it seems like there's no point.

It's no sweat to take a picture. I don't think about it. I don't want to think about it. I don't want to put any thought to it. I want my hand, fingers, eye, camera, thoughts, everything going on inside and outside to be a conscious unified field of experience without distinctions or classifications. That's the way it really is, anyway. I look at the photos and maybe I can make something out of them. "First you take the picture; then you make the picture." Anybody can take a picture or bang on a piano, but I have to see something to make the picture or turn the banging into a form of jazz, which is the kind of jazz I like to play best. It takes being conscious. Awareness of being aware. Klonopin keeps me a little less than fully conscious. And that pisses me off. I have to work harder at it. Go into my high metabolic zone.

The anxiety comes in not being able to make the picture how I want, when I want, because I want everything and I want it now. But it doesnt work that way. There are many days when I see nothing, when I feel like I'm on a respirator. Life support. The image comes to me only when I can see it, feel it, touch it, smell it, love it and hate it, all at the same time. Being willing to give it up. Knowing when to stop, when to wait, and when to start again. Start-Change-Stop. That's what I'm learning about photography and the metaphysical facts of life.

Every night I go to bed. Every morning I get up. Either way, it's been a bad summer for Yin and Yang, the Siamese twins and whores of Chinatown. They sing the blues on weekends at the Buddha Lounge on the corner of Grant and Washington where white is still the color of Ornette Coleman's plastic alto. Sidewalk cafés stay open late just to appease their appetite and it's still a long ride on the Geary 38. I took that ride one night back and forth from the bus terminal on Mission to the Great American Hiway, sleepless till dawn. In those days the shadows of the Golden Gate formed silhouettes of a crucifix across the city, shrouded in a scratchy wool blanket. Life as I knew it was a black and white Zen clock, but beautiful.

Stuck between the bookends of my habitual existence are photographs that articulate my life, often with ghost eyes staring back at me in my nightmares. They fill up scrapbooks either showing me doing nothing or showing me leaving nothing undone. I don't shave anymore and I don't smoke cigarettes but I don't hate them either. Death is a cage of silence to fall back on like a second job where I find things to do to keep busy. My life is really very simple and simplicity is the map for my sacred tour. It's not a very complicated tour. It begins as a numbing sensation in my fingers and goes up my arm until it scrapes the flavor of blandness off my lips. Since I don't believe in God I don't go to church and I don't go out much either. I don't think one thing has anything to do with the other but it just happens that I stay at home most of the time as much as I can. When you think about it, home's the best place for me to be for the good of everybody. Anxiety comes in all forms and sizes. It never used to bother me. I used to crave it but now I don't. I kicked the hard stress. Now I go to the gym, the liquor store and the farmer's market to smell the farmer's daughter. I go down town Nashville to take photos or else I stay home and make love to Nico until I go insane from alcoholism or we die in each other's arms from some other pleasure. Life is sooooo complete.

Today I thought about the challenge. JPG says: "My Precious stories are JPG's version of product reviews, where members write about their favorite and most precious piece of equipment. Tell us about a product or accessory you use and love. It can be new or old, a hand-me-down or the hottest thing on the market. A flash, a lens, a camera... YOUR precious......." OK. I thought about this in the steam room. I think more freely when I sweat. It burns up brain cells and washes the dead ones down the shower drain. I'm going to use a broad brush to paint the JPG guidelines because when I get an idea I'm lucky if it'll be a good one. (Please note: I wanted to submit this story to the JPG theme, but apparently it doesn't fit the parameters of its intentions and I'm unable to make that contribution. Lucky you, here it is anyway.)

Just exactly what is my "precious"? My precious what? What piece of equipment is so important its absence would deprive me of gratification? What product or accessory can I not live without, such that without it I'd merely become a male prostitute with a beard who'd give anything to live a glamorous life in order to get it? Tough questions utterly unbelievable; maybe there are no answers. Efforts to know the answers often kill it. Suddenly a silent sweat drips from my armpits down my stomach, to my legs and down to my feet. An idea, maybe an answer, hit me like a shot of chilled whiskey. There I was in a neighborhood bar drinking again and listening to sadly monotonous jazz. I remembered what it was all about: survival! That's IT! My "piece of equipment" is my impulse to survive! It's the negative of the positive side of life! It's not about kicking the habit of self-deception and self-enabling. It's clearly about photography as an accessory to a daily practice of surviving without resisting, without illness, without spraying my head with glue to keep my brains inside and without having to stumble down the stairs to the men's room. Survival is an image exposed from one world, developed from the negatives of another! Photography is an accessory of survival, plain and simple.

Survival isn't a game to see who or what wins or loses the most, or the least. It's not a game played really well or really badly. It might be a game in the long run, but in the short run it's not about struggling to stay alive to avoid dying just to see the sun rise one more day or to see the full moon shine another month. Survival isn't frustration besieged by circumstances fighting to breathe. Survival as I see it isn't about putting up with, or settling to be, a bored, sterilized, quarantined contradiction without life support, living on antibiotics and narcotics. (By the way, have you ever noticed that the best things you can say about narcotics are the worst things you can say about people?)

Survival is not a choice between eating out or being hungry. It's not about sleeping late on the weekend so we can sleep longer on a weekday. That's not surviving; that's a fatality and a futility. That's airplane food, hospital food, botched blood tests in the middle of the night when you don't know if you'll live to see tomorrow, but you probably will, and of course you always do for a while. Real and powerful survival from an artistic underground sub-culture point of view, as I think of it, is an existence into a future. It's a function of prosperity. It's not conquering life by being separate from it and paranoid as if we're strangers suspicious of it; it's overcoming a tolerance for the mediocre by absorbing and including weakness and flaws, and then transforming that into something simple and easy to experience. It's not defending ourselves against the unknown; rather, it's assimilating the unknown into our imagination.

Survival as a piece of equipment shapes photography. It points to artistic levels, knowable and unknown. Life is experienced through images. Life becomes an accessory of survival itself as an image, such that photography is a child of the affluent. Through photography we index our survival as individuals. Photography shows us that we're sexual beings as resilient in community as we are elastic in the unified field of a greater humanity. The products and accessories used (and photographed) by our intuition for survival are the impressions of all living things surviving as universe, spirit and infinity. Ultimately, photography represents the survival of energy, space, time and material. Using digital cameras and film, these representations eventually become self-portraits. They become images of men and women living within intimate relationships outside all barriers of sexuality and they all have their own stories. These are visual documented histories of the migration of whole generations preserving the memories of friends and lovers, young and old. Through photographs we capture survival of unpredictabe and volatile crowds and their protests. We see the survival of panoramic landscapes and the vast, unending beauty of nature. Photography is all about survival and if you don't get that you might be missing something.

JPG described the "Precious" challenge in terms of writing a review of one's favorite equipment, accessory or product. I thought long and hard about this at the spa in the steam room. I reduced the idea down to its most minimal simplicity: photography is an accessory to survival.

I want to clear up what survival is and what it isn't. Survival isn't a choice between life and death. Death isn't surviving, so that's not a choice. If you're not already dead, then living (breathing) is the default condition. That's not a choice, either. So living or dying, either one or both, is not surviving.

What survival is as I'm considering it has to do with a fundamental impulse to exist by will, or the will to power, as Nietzsche thought of it. Survival is the will to power on different levels of self-expression of life and the will to express existence with authority. Survival is a driving force. It's the source of creativity, curiousity, power and the will.

We put this insight into several areas of life every day, every time we take photographs. As photographers there are five areas of life that we can photograph, five out of eight. They are (1) self-portraits of ourselves or portraits of other individuals. This includes the nuances and atmospherics that surround us, our histories and stories of ourselves surviving as individuals. (2) Men and women surviving as a form of relationships, survival in terms of sexual intimacy, lovers, and children who are products of intimate sexual activities of survival. (3) Groups of people surviving (self-expressing) as members of communities, networks, familes and larger centers, but smaller than "mankind", thriving and interacting as groups. (4) We photograph movements and migrations of human generations in time on a global scale. This is survival as humanity, inhabitants and occupants of a planet. This includes the survival of cities, towns and dwelling places. (5) And, finally, we photograph survival as nature, with landscapes and the panorama of living things in relationships to biological organisms, plants, animals and the effect their survival has on us.

Those are five major areas of life's interests that we photograph. I think every photo can be placed, liberally, somewhere in those five categories. Except for scientists and satellites with advanced space-age technologies, we haven't photographed (6) the universe, (7) the spirit or (8) the infinite. But five major areas of life itself are available to us to photograph. We are not separate from them. We are not strangers to them. They are not outside of us. They are where we put our survival. They are where we plant our survival. Where we live and promote our existence.

Every photo we take, every time we snap the shutter, it comes from an impulse for survival. To survive not being separate from it. We survive by being intimate with... and at One with... these five identities. Survival as life is common to all of us regardless of what we photograph or the quality of the work, or what we know or don't know. Photography is driven by impulses to survival and survival drives us together, and holds us together, as people. Every photo we take reinforces and strengthens our claim on survival as individuals. As sexual beings. As members of groups. As parts of greater unified humanity. As a co-equal with all of nature.

What started out as a joke about knowing something about photography, has become a truth for me that I cannot avoid. It stares me in the face everyday. Everytime I take a photograph I see it: "If you know the difference between a bus stop and and f/stop, you already know too much."

Survival is very simple and uncomplicated. The easier a photo can be experienced, the more profound is its emotion. The simpler the emotion, the more authentic the image, the more complete the experience of survival. At least it is for me.

Anyway, this whole thing was written in context of that challenge, "My Precious" which for one reason or another didn't work out. So if this is too philosophical for some of you, too bad.

i cant think of everything. im not a miracle worker. im not a mind reader. sometimes things just go bad. it's nobody's fault. nobody can explain it. it just happens. or it doesnt. i was living in a house in hollywood between fountain and santa monica blvd. not sure exactly. the house caught fire. everything burned except my drums and piano. the dogs died in the bathroom in a corner. i was working in long beach. drove home at three in the morning. the street was filled with fire trucks. the house was gone. i lost everything except the car and my drums and piano. the money was in the bank in a safe deposit box. it wasnt much to begin with. i worked in burbank at a cable tv company. me and this other guy sold converters. i'd get $1000 a case. went to mexico for a vacation twice. i had a good time. got a tan. floated in the salt water. drank rum and coke and snorted coke everyday between three and four in the afternoon. it was late. i was tired or sick or alone. i dont remember. i dont care. i used to play piano and write songs. i'd sing them and record them. had a dream i'd be somebody sometime but sometimes never came soon enough. it was always too late too much too soon but always late. i took my camera downtown to make photos of my shadow as it passed by but i wasnt fast enough to make it happen. my shadow went past like a comet in the sky, like the right story gone wrong too much too fast. a kid washed his car at 11pm at night and he was shot in the carwash. what was he doing washing his car at a carwash at 11pm in the first place? it sounds too stupid but it's true. if i had a son and he said, hey mom, i'd like to wash my car at 11pm i'd say like hell you are, stay home, you stay home with me, with us. but it rained last night. i woke up this morning and took my meds. i was taking one tab twice a day, then one tab once a day, then a half a tab twice a day, then i'll take a half a tab once a day, then no tabs no time a day. i watched a news report about fat people getting fatter. the skinny stay skinny and the fat get fatter. pancake batter makes people fatter. save a penny, stay skinny. eat more vegis, drink more water, kick the habit kiss the cat wear a hat. the sun was bright and i could see my shadow just like peter pan i had a golden tan my body was strong and full of muscles dancing shadows on the wooden deck. my shadow doesnt spend any money. the recession doesnt bother my shadow. there's no money. there's no time to jump start the engine. face life. foot traffic. transformation for years to come. the life and death of a private life out of sight under the influence bloodshot eyes and an odor like alcohol bailed me out. discover the body. heartbreak gridiron. prayers fall on deaf ears. nightmare's not going away. it's real. it's what happened. a lot of things happen. devasting dedication. why's it so hard to believe? get over it if you can get over it. be patient. a blond in a red dress. a blond in a black dress. driving around giving hand jobs in the front seat. pulled into an alley give a blow job in the back seat of big box chains. big box stores. it's an art. cold coffee coffee black fat belly pulled tight with a body glove. black belt unbutton your pants fake it. it's not hot. i dont feel sweaty. it doesnt itch. it's perfect to hide bra bulge. back fat. be still. take a gun and shoot me and bury me just like you. the curse of death? death is not a curse. death is the other side of the plug nickle. the coin. the two sides of the story. open and shut case. slam dunk. over and out. all washed up. clean up your act. get a bite to eat. dont stop now, first come first served. the master and the servant. yesterday today and tomorrow. get a lawyer and get it done. catch a falling star. it's all over now. not a moment too soon. red high heels. call it quits.

Every Bourbon is a Whiskey, but Every Whiskey's No Bourbon

I go to sleep and it's winter. I wake up and can't get back to sleep. I try hard, real hard. I take pills. I have some drinks. And then some more. I watch TV. I turn it down low. I turn on the fan and the air conditioning. I fall asleep. I have a dream. It's a bad dream, a real nighmare. I get a phone call in the middle of the night, like two or three in the morning. It's springtime. I answer the phone and a voice says: "This is the Sheriff's Department. We have deputies at the door. Open the door and do not have anything in your hands. I repeat, this is the Sheriff's Department........" blah blah blah So I open the door. The cops come in and search the house. There's nothing there. Nobody but me. They said I filed a false report, which is a felony. I get five years probation. I wake up in a sweat. I'm still watching TV. I'm eating fruit. The clock is ticking. Time is running out. It's the Summer Equinox. I'm living in Los Angeles, the Hollywood Hills. The Santa Ana winds are rough. So I move to San Francisco. Nashville. Where am I? I wake up. My bed is wet. My pillow is wet. I'm playing drums with Jerry Inman in Jackpot, Nevada with Garland Frady from Austin, Texas. It's a casino on the border of Nevada and Idaho. We get drunk every night and take black beauties to stay awake and party. I wake up and it's the fall. November. I'm drinking at the Foothill Club in Long Beach.

In my lifetime so far I've been a card carrying member of the Moral Majority, the John Birch Society, the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way and Planned Parenthood. I was in the Cub Scouts and the Order of DeMolay's, which is apart of the Masons, which Christians's are afraid of. I was in the Naval Reserve in Nevada LOL. I went AWOL as a conscience objector which was denied, worked at the Monterey Pop Festival on my way hitchhiking to San Francisco and got out of the navy with an undesireable discharge because I used too much LSD. I guess they were afraid I'd be on watch one night and hallucinate a big flying boat coming out of the sky to attack the ship.

I've studied yoga, meditation, all sorts of magick occult practices, new age crap, and practiced hard-core fundamentalist christianity for several years. Apparently, none of it has done me any damage and I survived in spite of it. I've been pro-choice and anti-choice. I was on staff with Scientology for two or three years. I voted for Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot, Al Gore and Obama. I've been an atheist for ten years going on a lifetime.

I've been a musician my entire life practically. I played drums with Charlie Daniels, Doug Kershaw, Charlie Pride, Conte Condoli, Carl Saunders, Al Bruno, J.D. Manis, Rick Davis, Garland Frady, Earl Ball, Roy Clark, Pat Boone, The Imperials and a bunch of others.

I've had my fill of every drug addiction you can think of and kicked it, enjoyed my share of alcoholism, vegitarianism, fruitarianism and meat eating. I took the Rosicrucian cleansing cure and detox, studied astrology, numerology and tarot reading.

I've been politically far right, far left, centrist, anarchist and socialist. I protested the Viet Nam war, the Iraq war and I hated Bush. Every day for eight years I woke up and went to sleep hating that mo^%#r f&%@king c&*%k su&$%ker! Now that he's gone and the country's in good hands again I don't care about politics anymore.

I've been trying to be a photographer for the past few years, and before that I worked in offices with a coat and tie and no tie and no coat. I havent held a steady job in over eleven years. I've had run-in's with the law, been all around the world once. I've been married and divorced a half a dozen times or more. Luckily for me I was paying attention to destiny and fate and I finally found my one true love of a lifetime living here in Tennessee. These pictures are pictures of her. She's the best that ever happened to me.

And in all this life time of experience and education in the cities of the nation and the world..... after all the experiences I've had and have yet to have...... there's one thing I've learned that has given me a true perspective on life and the true meaning of existence, and that is this:
EVERY BOURBON IS A WHISKEY, BUT EVERY WHISKEY'S NO BOURBON!