Ah, Maaaaan! Am I a Lesbian?

I used to hang out with a guy who was super super negative all the time. His catch phrase was, “Ah, f*ck, man.” One time we were hiking a short, easy-to-navigate trail in Arizona. We were in a section of a wash that had about a million footprints, not a quarter of a mile from our destination. He stopped, got a look of desperation on his face, and said, “Rich, man, I think we’re f*ckin’ lost, man.”

On another occasion, he learned that a lot of gays were really into one of his favorite artists, Natalie Merchant. He looked at me with that really anguished expression on this face, paused, then asked, “Am I gay?”

I’m telling you that to tell you this: I recently discovered an internet radio station called Erin’s Chill. It is almost exclusively female artists, and it is my distinct impression that it is geared toward gay women. The thing is, I am really taken by the music. In fact, I’ve listened to little else all week. Ah, f*ck, man. Am I a lesbian?

An Insufferable Garden Braggart

Preface: yes, I am fully aware that I talk too much about my garden, my gardening success, my beautiful fruits and vegetables, and how over-the-top cool it makes me.

The bounty: peppers and tomatoes
The bounty: peppers and tomatoes

Hmm.

Anyway, there was a frost warning Friday night when I got home from Utah, so I went out to harvest some of the better looking tomato and bell pepper fruit (and to check on the goats). I discovered that while I was gone my garden had taken upon itself to burst forth with the largest harvest, particularly with peppers, of the year.

There’s a freeze watch for tonight, so it may be necessary to rent a truck to haul my harvest (insert dumb winking emoticon here.)

Dream fragment: I star in a sitcom about a man named Adolph Titler

Special Arms Regimental Troops: FARTs. (It’s an implied F)

Dancing is 98% stupid. Nothing else has that kind of stupidity rate.
If one more shallow little bitch tells me to smile, I’m gonna rip out some colon.

Bitch and Flinch, a metaphor in four-quart harmony.

Upon learning that the Concorde had crashed in Paris: “Who cares? It was full of Germans!’ -N

G: “I have a 17-month-old kid now.”
R: “Congratulations!”
G: “All I did was f*ck my wife.”

“I need my alone time so I can stop thinking about killing people.” -Z

Most guys are just grunting piles of hamburger.

The Dick Tater Center for Advanced Shutting the F*ck Up

“Entertainment Energy for Tomorrow!” -Movie studio slogan, 1958

“Green, golf ball sized chunks of gism shoot from your lover’s penis, ripping your uterus to shreds.” -C, audio tape, 1987

“We had Playboys in the fuselage.” -C

“She writes sideways to be all artistic and all this miserable sh*t.” -C

“We can’t have our dirty balls on your table.” -N

The trick to dealing with hateful, controlling, angry people: don’t marry them.

“I would never have known to put my nuts in the refrigerator.” -C

“We need to go to a strip club and experience true love.” -U

I’d rather have a free bottle of water in front of me and a belly-button outie than a fleabag motel in northern Pottowatomie County.

The Bach nocturne mock knock-off.

“I never tried dog food, but it smelled so good! I have a dog dookie story, but I don’t want to tell it. Some weird form of Easter egg hunting; we were grabbing poop as fast as we could.” -U

Dick Van Dyke: you have to admire a man with both “Dick” and “Dyke” in his name.

Real names of guys at my high school:
-Flake Owen
-Dick Harden

Titles for a story about a jerk we knew:
He is a Prick
Dump the God
Patterns of Force
He Drinks, He Lies, Dump Him
The Horrifying Tale of Two-Dicks Ferguson
Infected Adonis
Behold a God Who Bleeds
Cock of Apollo
The Effortless Protuberance
Year of the Ox
Burned Black
Scar Tissue
No Cherry in Sight
A Merciless Foreskin

I have begun referring to my laundry as “butt groceries.”

Probing the Love Canal by Ayn L. Raper

“I need some outside insight.” -K

He knew everyone would stare at his crotch because he was getting a cock leer implant.

“You are one weirdo-plug dude-lick.” -Guy on internet who just doesn’t get it

“‘Cause every girl’s afraid of a Star Trek fan…” -ZZZ Top

Buxton: Still an Idiot

Buxton the Goat: will he ever learn?
Buxton the Goat: will he ever learn?

For the third time in less than a week, Buxton the Goat has gotten his head stuck in the fence. Presumably this is because his horns have grown too long and he doesn’t understand that his head doesn’t fit any more. Since he fights if you touch his horns, the only realistic way to free him is to saw one of the bars in the cattle panel to make the hole wide enough for him to pull free.

I told Abby the first time this happened that I didn’t think he’d learn a thing, and he obviously didn’t.

Flags and Candy

Candy the DJ
Candy the DJ

This morning editor Talina asked me if I had a picture of “Candy.” I assumed she wanted a picture of the radio DJ formerly known as Candy Matthews (who now just goes by her first name.) I was wrong; she wanted me to shoot a picture of a bowl of candy for the story to go with the fact that Ada’s Halloween safe house has been re-branded the “Candy Bowl.” (In my own defense, Talina did not say the word “candy” with a lower-case C, so how was I to know?)

Minutes later I saw Candy at the National Guard armory as we both covered the return of the 1120th Ordnance Company and the attendant parade. She was early with her live spot, so she asked me to tell a joke on the air. I told one of my favorites:

A horse walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Why the long face?”

She didn’t think it was funny.

Time Flies Like an Arrow; Fruit Flies Like a Banana

Cantaloupe about as big as a tennis ball
Cantaloupe about as big as a tennis ball

Tonight was the last night for the cantaloupe vines in the garden. The vines are actually only one plant, since I was occupied caring for Abby when the seedlings were germinating, and I was unable to thin them and fertilize. The result, however, was that the one plant ended up making a decent number of fruits, and they were all delicious. Tonight I harvested the last cantaloupe, which was about the size of a tennis ball, and then pulled up the vines and gave them to the goats.

Our Mildonting Machine

Dirty siding with a clean streak from power washing
Dirty siding with a clean streak from power washing

My global fans might remember that last year I power washed the front of our house and the propane pig. It was very effective, and I fully intended to do the whole house, but it got cold, then rainy, then winter came, then summer came, and before I knew it, a year had gone by. But in the back of my mind, I always intended to complete this rather arduous, time-consuming and shirt drenching task. In the last few days, I managed to get much of that done, and wow!

Today I power washed the filthiest part of the house, the north-facing area of the back yard. It collects mildew like you wouldn’t believe, since it receives no sunshine, and the wind is blocked by the garage. It was so dirty with greenish-black mildew, in fact, that using the power washer was a little like spray painting! It is so effective at removing mildew that as I used it I decided it was a mildonting machine. Get it? I know – it’s a stretch, but hey, spraying water on the side of a house isn’t at the top of human academic or artistic stimulus.

Abby was relatively indifferent to this activity until I showed her a picture of my work, and she proclaimed, “Wow.” The goats, however, were quite curious. I was, after all, the only people in their yard all day, and I must have looked pretty funny standing on my yellow ladder, occasionally squirting myself with filthy backsplash, and having to clean my sunglasses before I could continue.

A Back Road, Red Dirt Gypsy

I got to spend an hour with our friend Tracy Nicole today, whose mom won another in a series of Mary Kay cars. We talked about all kinds of things as we waited in her mom’s front yard for the car to arrive. Tracy is a singer-songwriter, and Abby and I really like her music. While we were talking, Abby called to tell me her baby mouse for her computer at work died, and could I go by Staples and buy her another one. When I got off the phone, Tracy said we were “precious,” which is probably true. She told me she couldn’t sleep last night and wrote seven new songs, the lyrics to which she showed me, and they were really nice.

While we waited I squeezed off a few frames of Tracy, and thought out loud that I would love for Abby and me to shoot her next album cover. Her label is Back Road Management, and her style is "Red Dirt."
While we waited I squeezed off a few frames of Tracy, and thought out loud that I would love for Abby and me to shoot her next album cover. Her label is Back Road Management, and her style is “Red Dirt.”

The Culpability of Islam

The entirety of mainstream politics and media in America continues to refer to certain terrorists throughout the world as “Radical Islamists” or “Islamic Fundamentalists,” as if to intellectually divorce Islam from the terror perpetrated in its name.

It is not the responsibility of the United States and its military or intelligence community to apprehend fundamental Islamic terrorists; it is Islam’s responsibility. Indeed, while many Islamic organizations pay lip service to the civilized world with strongly-worded condemnation of terrorism, what is missing is action.

It is also interesting to note that societies and groups seem to stop hating America just as soon as they begin to have American-style behaviors themselves, and in particular, American wealth. Saudi Arabia comes to mind. A fact that poorer nations, and Islamic nations, conveniently ignore is that without western wealth and capitalism, they would have nothing. After all, where does the middle-eastern world get its wealth? Almost universally it is from petroleum, and America is petroleum’s biggest customer. Imagine how little power and influence nations like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, and others would have without our oil money. They would languish in squalor and obscurity.

Here is a quote from a piece I found on the web recently that was penned just after 9/11, and which begins by condemning the attacks, but rapidly degenerates into a bellicose anti-American diatribe: “As Muslims we must know that the American form of democracy can never be allowed in a truly Islamic society. In the American form of democracy any issue is allowed to be put to a vote of the people, and the majority decision prevails upon all. Can we as Muslims put an issue that has already been decided for us by Allah up for a vote and accept the will of the majority if they vote against the Will of Allah? Of course we cannot, so therefore we can never accept democracy as defined, practiced, and promoted by America.” (Read it in its entirety here.) But America didn’t fly jets into building to directly attack Islam! Imagine the reaction if “Christianic Fundamentalists” flew jets into the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, which is without question the Islamic world’s World Trade Center. The truth is that “radical Islam” invited us in that day.

Of course I can certainly appreciate animosity toward America and its policies. In many parts of the world, George W. Bush is regarded as a terrorist himself. (Let me assure you that “W.” isn’t bright enough to hatch a terrorist plot against the White House Rose Garden.) But as all rational humans know, two wrongs never make a right (”An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” –Gandhi). America is often seen as the bully on the block. The obvious solution for nations that don’t like America is to stop inviting America. Stop buying our Coke. Stop selling us your oil. Stop watching our movies. Stop letting us visit. What’s that? Without American dollars your economy would be in the dark ages? Too bad. If you hate us, get out of bed with us.

In conclusion, I would like to add that Islam is just a religion, and like all religions, is based on a view of the universe that is based on superstition and magic, and is therefore fundamentally, factually wrong.

The Fox and the Shark

This morning Abby and I slept in, and as the morning went by, I found myself dreaming rather extensively about Jorja Fox, the actress who played Sarah Sidle on CBS’s CSI for seven seasons. Abby was disappointed to see the actress and the character leave the show, and with the departure of two additional core characters (Gil Grissom and Warrick Brown [presumably]), she and I believe the show may have jumped the shark.

Jorja Fox's PETA poster
Jorja Fox’s PETA poster

Anyway, in the dream I am apparently on the CSI team along with Sarah, and we have gone underground, literally, intending to blow up a casino. She reassures me, however, that it’s okay, since we own it. She prepares her explosives, which are created by mixing a critical mass of dog food in seven large dog food bowls in the stairs to the basement we are using as shelter (this may have been a result of my reading on Wikipedia about a criticality accident that occurred in 1945). She tells us that when she puts on the last handful of dog food, we need to run as fast as we can down the underground hall.

After the detonation, Sarah Sidle has apparently strained her back, so she is held flat to a wall by a vacuum pump to keep her spine straight.

Whoming

Wil and Marline Fry in Konawa
Wil and Marline Fry in Konawa

No sooner had I read on Wil C. Fry’s blog that he and his wife Marline were celebrating birthdays than I saw them both, at last night’s Konawa vs Wayne football game and homecoming coronation. They were happy to see me, as I was them, but we were all busy, and didn’t really get the chance to hang out. Wil claims to be painfully shy, but I never really know if he is being aloof or I am being a doof.

I also apologize to Giant Muh fans worldwide for not having my own photos of Scott AndersEn handy when blogging about him the other night, and to repair this injustice, I searched my archives for a photo of him that had never been printed or scanned, so it appears here for the very first time. Custom handtinting took me upwards of five laborious minutes.

Yes, photographer’s friends tend to also be photographers.

Scott AndersEn
Scott AndersEn

A. K. A. “Chihuahuas”

This bizarre image is actually Abby doing one of her regular exercises, which therapists and trainers call “bridges,” but which Abby knows by the nickname “Chihuahuas.” Normally the move is performed by laying on the back and placing a weight on the abdomen, then bridging up, holding, and lowering for a set number of times, which is Abby’s case is currently 30. She named the exercise the “Chihuahua” after it became obvious that our dogs could act as the weight.

Regular exercise weights, as you might surmise, don't lick your face as much as live canines.
Regular exercise weights, as you might surmise, don’t lick your face as much as live canines.

My Own Personal 9/11

Here’s my story from 9/11/01, the day of the terrorist attacks:

The first photo I shot on 9/11/01.
The first photo I shot on 9/11/01.

I was at Ada Junior High early, taking a picture of a student and the teacher who saved his life, which we were trying to get into the paper that morning. I overheard some chatter about a plane crash in New York City, and mention of a Boeing 767. My ears perked up. I only caught a couple of details, something about two planes, when I decided I needed to get back to the office so I could hit our deadline.

I was shooting that day with my first digital SLR, the Nikon D1H, which had only been in my hands for about three weeks. It was making deadlines decidedly easier.

On the way back to the office, I heard a parcel of scanner traffic, the Homer Volunteer Fire Department captain was telling his firefighters to fuel up all the trucks because the price of gasoline was about to shoot through the roof. I happened to be passing my usual fuel stop, so I pulled in and topped off my tank for $1.35 a gallon, and at the time I didn’t think much of it.

Adans answer the call on 9/11 by donating blood.
Adans answer the call on 9/11 by donating blood.

Back at the office, I went straight into my office, which was still the darkroom then, and swiftly worked my image, then popped into the newsroom to let editors know it was ready and on the server. I found everyone in the conference room, crowded around the television. There it was, the smoke and chaos that became known as 9/11.

For the rest of the day, I went around town shooting images of the local effects of a national crisis. The Ada Fire Department raised the giant flag in Wintersmith Park that normally only gets used on July 4.

The Oklahoma Blood Institute had a line out the door and down the street of people trying to donate blood.

By 2 pm on 9/11, people were lined up for blocks to buy fuel
By 2 pm on 9/11, people were lined up for blocks to buy fuel

By noon, the gas stations had lines out the door and down the street, and prices were above $4 a gallon. I thought it was pretty selfish of the station owners to jack their prices, and I also thought it was pretty selfish of everyone to buy every gallon of gas in sight. What if the crisis had been much more severe and the military needed it? I thought it was pretty unpatriotic, and if I’d know what was really happening when I was about to gas up in the morning, I wouldn’t have tanked up.

The woman who threatened to sue us because she was not saluting the flag
The woman who threatened to sue us because she was not saluting the flag

In the days that followed, I shot a lot of images of people “doing their part.” Some of it was genuine, some of it was self-serving. 9/11 happened on a Tuesday, and that Friday night, football was replaced by a candlelight vigil at ECU’s Norris Field in Ada. Like the previous days, some of it was genuine, and some of it was indulgent. Overall, the vigil itself was appropriate.

The reason for its importance to me isn’t it’s photojournalistic value, but the fact that the woman in it threatened to sue us over it. (I cropped out all the faces for our protection.) The reason? She isn’t saluting during the Pledge of Allegiance. She said it made her look unpatriotic. Look at the photo. Is she saluting? No. Does that make her unpatriotic? No, of course not. What makes her unpatriotic is that in the midst of the most deadly terrorist assault on American soil in history, she only thought of how it made her look. What a bitch.

This is another view of area motorists lined up waiting to buy fuel, the price for which was going up as they waited.
This is another view of area motorists lined up waiting to buy fuel, the price for which was going up as they waited.

Coolest Mother-in-Law Ev-ARE!

Background information: Dorothy Milligan was Abby’s mother-in-law for 23 years while Abby was married to Paul Milligan, the youngest of three brothers. He died in 1992. In spite of the fact that Dorothy is not technically related to us biologically (except that Abby’s daughter Chele is Dorothy’s granddaughter), we still regard her as our mother-in-law, and she feels the same way about us. Dorothy lives on the other end of our bucolic pasture, and we all take care of each other. (Pay attention – this will all be on the test.)

Tonight I took something down to Dorothy’s house for her, and she was there to receive it. She told me that yesterday a large Kingsnake fell into her living room from above. She assumed it came from the attic or a high bookshelf. It appeared stunned to her after it fell, and not wanting to kill it, she brandished a broomstick or other implement and attempted to usher it out. The reptile awoke, and managed to slip away behind her computer desk, and she hasn’t seen it since.

Here’s the cool part: she doesn’t care. She figures that if she doesn’t bother it, it won’t bother her. And it might eat some mice while it remains a guest. Man, she’s cool.

Oh, and she’s been to Israel three times.

Eastern Kingsnake
Eastern Kingsnake

Come September

When I was outside today, I could feel it: September. The air was different. It was as if the sun were struggling to be hot, but failing. By now the spiders are big, the pond is low, the baby rabbits have all grown up. Summer is ending.

Apple in the "desert." Michael and I made this image on my very first roll of Kodachrome 25 in the late summer of 1978.
Apple in the “desert.” Michael and I made this image on my very first roll of Kodachrome 25 in the late summer of 1978.

The C-Names List Listed

The dinner gang, thinking up names that start with C
The dinner gang, thinking up names that start with C

For those of you who thought that our Norman gang cranking out a list of baby names that start with “C” was funny, here is the actual list…

Casper, Carmen, Caper, Canter, Chai, Covey, Colorado, Cumin, Caledonia, Cayenne, Cisco, Cecelia, Calypso, Cyrus, Ciattle, Clooney, Clara, Charlene, Cloud, Chaz, Cobalt, Conifer, Cale, Cane, Chipotle, Cole, Coco, Ceecee, Celtic, Carrot, Cuba, Calliope, Captain, Clover, Clever, Camilia, Cassius, Clay, Carter, Cullen, Comet, Cosmo, Chandler, Candace, Cello, Crowe, Cassini, Chenille, Coat, Conch, Copper, Caviar, Cancun, Coral, Caper, Cannon, Corina, Chewbaca, Civet, Coors, Cord, Cora, Cosette, Countess, Colliedge, Charlotte, Caspian, Coriander, Chandra, Caper, Congo, Chellie, Ciprian, Cedar, Cinema, Chase, Chad, Cherish, Cherry, Charm, Curry, Cassia, Cyril, Cree, Cinderella, Coclea, Cambridge, Card, Claudio, Cannibus, Corky, Cocina, China, Canal, Cristobal, Cognac, Cider, Crash, Cash, Cadance, Catelyn, Cailiu, Caymen, Cashmere, Cid (Cyd), Cork, Callico, Creed, Casiopia, Camel, Cleopatria, Carnivoire, Case, Canado, Camarron, Cimmeron, Cyan, California, Coast, C, Chapps, Chapel, Canary, Cupid, Custer, Casanova, Cruz, Cruiser, Caleb, Cave, Carpe, Cooper, Corvette, Cobra, Chevy, Camero, Carera, Ciao, Corncob, Cricket, Claud, Clyda, Clint, Conon, Corona, Chardonnay, Chablis, Captain, Cougar, Chevron, Chino, Christmas, Chromo, Cinema, Chaplin, Cicero and Cerebellum.

Under the Swirl

As Gustav slowly churns to our east, the weather here has been breezy, cloudy, occasionally rainy, and a little mysterious-looking. As evening fell, I walked around outside and watched the sky change. Low clouds streaked by from northeast to southwest, and high clouds caught the last light, as in this image of one of the young pecan trees I planted this spring.

One of our young pecan trees under a Gustavian sky
One of our young pecan trees under a Gustavian sky

Reassurance

It must be very reassuing to believe in a life after death. I don’t believe in life after death because I don’t believe in death. Death itself is a transformation. Now I am a human. Tomorrow I may be dust. But all that I am remains. Maybe I am the sand in the desert. Maybe I am the water in the sea. But I am still here.

(You may regard this as a class 4 attempt at being un-funny)

“How come life gets so sh*tty sometimes? You just don’t know if you can hold on any longer. I just want to close the garage door in my car and have a nap.” -H

For every human there are approximately 1,000,000 ants.

Chances that an American cannot name a single right protected by the Bill of Rights: 1 in 3.

Rank of Catwoman among superheroes American boys under the age of 10 say they would most like to be: 1.

My intestines shall forever be known as my bioslurry management device.

10-06-2001  —>  Doctor on Fox News accidentally says “smallcox.”

Meet the Hugh family!
Hugh Jexcess
Hugh Jorafice
Hugh Jamerican
Hugh Junit
Hugh Jerror
Hugh Janus
Hugh Jidiot
Hugh Jass
Hugh Jantlers
Hugh Jorgan
Hugh Jaxident
Hugh Jego
Hugh Jenema

We are a table of margarita kill-bots. Oooo! Somebody order a seaweed enchilada!

F*cking Eskimo restaurant! These plates are so cold!

She said she was scared enough to pee her pants at an elementary school haunted house. What was that about a box of noses?

Neuratic. Hugemungus. Huge mongoose.

“You’re cool. At least on paper.” -N

“A possible nuther anthrax threat.” -Fox News

The U. S. Army Penetration Weapons Research Center at Dickson Moorehead, North Dakota.

“I’ll tell him how the cow ate the cabbage!” -M

“You know that ride, Space Mountain, that everyone goes on just to say they’ve been on it? I feel like that ride.” -J

What about Dixie? Write about Dixie!  (Secondary punch line: My Dixie Wrecked.)

Dixie wrote some crazy sh*t, but nothing crazier than her fourth suicide note:
“Dear stupid sons and daughters of bitches,” it started, and got worse from there. Eventually it rambled on for three pages, and she compared herself to Christ, “except that I didn’t have it coming like he did.”

The Irony of the Sacred

Recently an internet acquaintance got agitated with me on a forum thread about Mormon sex. The thread dealt with some of the myths regarding Mormon customs and practices. The person who started the thread ended his entry with, P.S. Do you take your special underoos off when you get freaky? Or is their a special ‘hole’ in the front for marital relations?”

Well, after the thread had gone on about four pages, and the subject of “underoos,” which are actually called the Temple Garment, had been exhaustively explored, I poked around and found a picture of them on the internet, which I hotlinked to our discussion. Within minutes, I got a private message explaining that the Temple Garments were sacred, and could I please take the image down. I did, and apologized, not because I was sorry, but because I am a civilized and diplomatic person.

I’ve had quite a few Mormon friends, and more than once they have gotten offended at me in the same way, for relatively minor conversational maneuvers.

Like all religions, the Latter Day Saints have propped a lot of their beliefs on silly fiction. Symbols like the Temple Garment are just an artificial structure that keeps the people (sheeple) busy worrying about banal minutia instead of really examining the world around them, which will reveal the truth that there isn’t a magical being in heaven making it all better.

Somniloquy

In college I had a roommate one semester who talked in his sleep almost every night. Being a night crawler, I heard most of it, and wrote down the good ones:

“Space Monk, wanna sharpen my knife?”

“I said I want some pie!”

“Put a little foam on it so the kids can play.”

“Bill, I don’t know anyone. Give the pad to Ray Roberts.”

“Can you get those ladies to sh*t? Who gives a sh*t?”

“If she doesn’t get in there fast, tell her to f*ck off, goddamit. Good!”

“My mother has a wolfpoint.”

“You bastard! You bloody bastard!”

Our 15 Minutes

Then Vice President George Bush, 1988
Then Vice President George Bush, 1988

So the other day I was trying to rattle off a list of all the famous people I have met. I was really struggling to think of their names, and whether or not they were really famous. Charles Kuralt, Wilford Brimley, Ralph Nader, Erin Moriarty, Reba McEntire, Fran Tarkenton, Brian Bosworth, Jeremy Shockey, Larry Linville, Davey Jones, Vincent Price, Hoyt Axton, Harry “The Cat” Brecheen, Rudy Giuliani, Barry Switzer. I know; it’s a pretty weird list. I’m sure there are more.

I guess the most historically significant figures I’ve met would be George Bush Sr., and Mikhail Gobrachev. At the time I met and photographed Bush in 1988, he was running for President, and was spouting his now famous lie, “No new taxes,” which he actually said in my presence.

Rudy Giuliani signs a child's shirt in Ada's North Hill Shopping Center in 2021.
Rudy Giuliani signs a child’s shirt in Ada’s North Hill Shopping Center in 2021.

Here’s a neat piece of trivia from that day: when going through security checks, I was searched by a DEA agent, and an Army Intel agent.

Gorbachev was in Ada in 2005 on a guest speaker tour. Oddly, though he is a routine guest on these tours, he has not learned any English at all, and speaks entirely through a translator. We followed him all day to document his visit. In this photo, he is greeted by Mike Halverson, who used to rent airplanes to me.

Mikhail Gobrachev, 2006
Mikhail Gobrachev, 2006

Lamb of God

Sometimes I listen to Christian pop music. I like it because in some important ways, its sound stays out of the mainstream dreck. The lyrics, on the other hand, can get pretty lame. The biggest problem I have with them is that they are so obviously manipulative. They play to the simplest fears and most childish idea of their audiences.

Does the picture you have in your mind never turn out right
Do the things you do leave a hole in your soul
Is the best you can do always short of the goal
And the way it’s supposed to be just never is
How can you live when nothing’s there
Something is gone inside you now
Look to the Word that says it all
Everything will turn out fine

I love the fact that Christians assume that if you are different from them, you must be crushingly unhappy. Theirs is the only way, after all, since without really thinking about it, they accept that a 2000-year-old book has all the answers. And they know that the Bible is the word of God simply because it says it is.

“We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.” -Episcopal Book of Common Prayer

I also like the way the Bible treats people like pets or babies. I mean, God is your father, and you are His children? Are you kidding me? I guess not. I guess Christians really are children. They’re easier to control and indoctrinate than adults, so why not? The Bible and the Christian faith also spent a lot of time and energy establishing people as sheep or lambs. Now, come on, that’s just insulting.

 

“So I was watching this one show where – there’s a guy on stage and he pretends he has contact with the dead and people are watching…[At this point, some people in the audience answer Crossing Over.] No, not Crossing Over. It was uh, church.-David Cross

Church Wedding

The garden is in mid-summer mode, yielding lots of peppers and tomatoes, but fewer cucumbers, which don’t tolerate the heat as well. I had planted a patch of cantaloupe, but only one of the seedlings survived, since I was busy taking care of Abby when they were sprouting. The plant that survived ended up sending out numerous vines, and there are now maturing fruit on them. I had wondered how to tell if they were getting ripe, but it turns out that they simple fall off the vine when they’re ready to be eaten. I had this one for breakfast this morning, and they are nothing short of succulent.

A ripe cantaloupe from my garden
A ripe cantaloupe from my garden

Quiz time: why is this post titled “Church Wedding?”

Culling the Herd

1. “Religion easily has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there’s an invisible man…living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn’t want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.” – George Carlin

5. Faith means not wanting to know what is true.

6. Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

9. If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

12. “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.” – Mark Twain

13. “A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows.” – Mark Twain

21. “If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.” – Voltaire

22. Those who believe absurdities will commit atrocities. – Voltaire

45. There’s a phrase we live by in America: “In God We Trust”. It’s right there where Jesus would want it: on our money.

48. “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” – Isaac Asimov

The Cuervo Gold

Sign greeting visitors in Cuervo, November 2007
Sign greeting visitors in Cuervo, November 2007

In 1999, while traveling along Interstate 40 in New Mexico, I noticed an exit that harbored a small village called Cuervo nestled against a mesa to the south. I made a mental note to stop there the next time I was through, and did, in September 2000. The town appeared mostly deserted, so I prowled around a little and photographed some of the buildings that were verging on being ruins.

The next time we photographed Cuervo was with Abby on our first vacation together, The High Road, in July 2003. We managed to be there just as the sun was setting, and the light was really nice. We noticed, however, a few signs that said “Keep Out.” (In fact, while searching for information about Cuervo on the internet, more than one page talked about a feeling that they were “being watched,” and I felt the same way.) We didn’t venture onto the properties with those signs, but did photograph a couple of them from the road.

With lots of trips out west, we saw the town of Cuervo, which in our minds was a “ghost town,” out of the corners of our eyes as we passed it at highway speeds on our way west. On one of my trips out west, The Next Cairn, I decided to stop and see what had become of the town in the last few years. Sadly, I was greeted with a bright yellow sign on literally every property that declared, “POSTED Private Property. Hunting, fishing, trapping, or trespassing for any purpose is strictly forbidden. Violators will be prosecuted.

I don’t know if the few people of Cuervo got tired of tourists (like us, I guess) crawling around in their ruins, or if a lawyer told them to put up the signs to help protect them from liability, but I was sad to see this photographic gold mine become inaccessible. I am glad that I stopped and shot it when I did, and I will respect the signs and stay on the road to make pictures in the future.

Abandoned house, Cuervo, New Mexico, September 2000
Abandoned house, Cuervo, New Mexico, September 2000

Conscience of the King

Last night I dreamed that I went out to the garden to shoot the rabbit that has been eating my tomatoes. (In reality I am considering doing this.) While I was out there, I saw some interesting camouflage targets in the grass, so I shot at them. Later in the day, I heard shooting, so I looked out to find everyone I had shot had returned with their assault rifles and machine guns. Suddenly I am in Wal Mart, helping one of my shooting victims bag his groceries.

The garden as see from the back yard. Peppers and cherry tomatoes are in the foreground. Behind them are cucumbers and tomatoes. In the distance is Morning Glory Mountain and the orchard.
The garden as see from the back yard. Peppers and cherry tomatoes are in the foreground. Behind them are cucumbers and tomatoes. In the distance is Morning Glory Mountain and the orchard.

Head Over Heels

The negative
The negative

So I was sorting and organizing some 2003 negatives at the office today. The layout of my office makes it fastest for me to flip through notebooks of film and hold them to the light without removing them from the notebooks, so that they appear upside down and backwards. If I see something I need, I’ll pull it out and look at it on the light table. I came to a page and saw someone who seemed vaguely familiar, and very beautiful. “Wow,” I thought, “I don’t remember photographing her!”

So I pulled the sheet of negatives out and flipped it around. It was Abby. ;>)

The positive
The positive