So I was at the Folsom Street East street festival in New York this weekend where I took a whole bunch of pictures. I realized two things, one of which was that I think that I have grown out of my camera. Sure some of the pictures are okay but I think I could do better with a better camera that shoots and focuses faster and captures the images with more pixel information in them that I want to see and not just the ones that I'm left with.
The other thing that I realized was that I wondered when was or is the appropriate age to hang all of this fetish thing up. Apparently for some like my friend below, not too soon. I wonder if I'll ever be that way?
Did you hear that 16 year old Abigail Sunderland who was sailing solo around the world has been found safe and sound? If you are like me your first thought will be, "who?" followed quickly by, "who cares?" But apparently, most people don't think the way I do.
Actually it's not that I didn't care about poor Abbie, but just like that 13 year old boy who climbed Mount Everest where people have died in droves I wonder why no one is up in arms over parents allowing their children to do stunts like this. Not being rich or even white, if I had kids and left them alone in my house or apartment for a day or two, people would want my head on a platter for child neglect or endangerment. Why the difference? Or am I just making something out of nothing?
Rand Paul is the Republican candidate for the US Senate from Kentucky. He is also a Libertarian and a Tea Party member and I guess I’m not.
When I was younger, I never really understood the whole meaning behind political things like Civil Rights and maybe other stuff. I could never understand what was so wrong about sitting at the back of the bus; I mean that was where all the cool people sat. I’ve forgotten what the actual bus number was from Newark ‘s Penn Station to South Orange, but I remember you could smoke at that back and since it was the late 70’s and early 80’s most people were smoking something different from Marlboros or Kool cigarettes. Sure the bus driver would shout out, “Stop smoking that shit or I’m stopping the bus,” but nobody ever took any notice of him. Even if you didn’t smoke you could get a slight but nice buzz if someone was smoking the good stuff or perhaps a pleasant odor that would linger in your clothes long after you had left the bus that would make it all worthwhile.
I remember also that I didn’t really understand what the big deal was about sitting at the lunch counter at Woolworths. In fact I thought that if anyone had seen me sitting at the lunch counter at Woolworths sitting next to Mr. and Mrs. Birnbaum arguing over the price of linen or chocolate covered pretzels, I would probably die of shame. I figured that if I was going to eat out, it had better be someplace decent. As Susan Green had taught me, I needed to go somewhere where a girl wouldn’t regret being seen with me.
When I grew older I began to understand why it was wrong for private businesses to discriminate against people because of their color, their religion, their gender or sexual orientation. I began to understand that even though people would call their businesses private, they would still accept deliveries for their businesses on roads that were built with public funds from all people. They would still accept the services from the police and firemen whose salaries was paid for by the same people that they would have had beaten up and or had the hoses turned on against. They would still accept protection from foreign invasion by troops that consisted of people, who they would refuse service to while allowing their businesses to grow and flourish and I knew why I had been wrong but I wonder why doesn't anyone else feel that way.
It’s a funny thing this era of a Post-Racial America. I never thought that there would be people who think that this was a good time to bring up the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What’s next, an attack against the Americans with Disabilities Act or the repeal of the 13th Amendment and a reintroduction of slavery?
Some people you have to look at all the facts and the figures and the stats to see what they are about. Others, you just have to feel them to appreciate them.
There will be no dates or numbers here for you to look at, just a celebration.
Apparently there’s a movement going on and I know nothing about it. Oh God I feel old. You can tell when you are getting old and the whole world seems to drift by you and you don’t even have the ability to be a spectator let alone be a part of it.
I was in Rittenhouse Sq. the other weekend at the Spring Festival in Philadelphia. Spring Festival is a euphemism for saying we celebrate May Day but we aren’t Socialists. Anyway I took a picture of this man, well actually there were a bunch more people in the photograph but I cropped them out, they weren’t the ones that I was interested in. He, like the others, was carrying a sign that said “Free Hugs” and I wanted to get my hug. There are some days when you are in need of little love and affection and you will get it anyway you can. But this day wasn’t going to be one of those days for me.
From a distance he seemed like he would be taller than me and I hate to be dominated physically by anyone so that would defeat the purpose of getting hugged. Plus even though my first instinct was that straight black men don’t hug other men. I had seen him hug other men but with that bearhug type mentality thing where he would wrap his arms around someone, lift them off the ground while squeezing their chest against his and whispering….I’m starting to digress. I think I need a moment here.
So, I think what I was trying to say was that whatever motives I had for getting a hug were probably not the motives that this young man and the group had for giving a hug.
I posted a black and white version of this picture on Facebook and a friend of mine had said that he had seen a group of people doing the exact same thing in Union Sq. in New York but he had thought that it was some sort of joke. That made me do a little research on the net and sure enough there is a website dedicated to free hugs that explains how the idea came about and was created by Juan Mann and that’s it’s really nothing other than being able to share empathy with another human being.
Could there be a movement traveling the entire world that I was blithely unaware of?
A couple of years ago, I was at a party that was being held to celebrate Barak Obama going over the top with enough delegates to win the Democrat candidate for President. I have forgotten which primary night it was, but he was supposed to finally beat Hillary Clinton and bring the Democrats together and beat whoever would be the Republican nominee. However it didn’t turn out that way.
Hillary did her third or fourth comeback and beat back Barak while Governor Huckabee dropped out on the Republican side. I remember how people laughed at Mrs. Huckabee and said that she was so ugly that she must have been a man. For some reason I was surprised at the misogyny going around from both men and women and listened to how they hated Mrs. Clinton primarily because she was female.
I don’t know how the conversation turned to truck drivers and border control, but someone suggested that Mexican truck drivers were a hazard and threat to the road and Americans in general and that they should be regulated and or restricted from entry. When asked why, the young man said because most of them couldn’t even read English. I wondered to myself if having the ability to read The Grapes of Wrath or I know Why the Caged Bird Sings was really a qualification for good driving, but I kept quiet.
Now listening to Tim James who is running for governor of Alabama, I’m starting to wonder if I’m the only one who thinks this language thing is just a bunch of bullshit and that maybe there should be more pressing issues to deal with.
Okay, so I’ve decided to not even look at the new iPad. I mean I haven’t really heard or seen how people’s lives have been changed by it, so I’ve decided not to get it. At least not until the price drops and I can get it without having to switch to AT&T in order to get service on the road. Plus with all the stuff that I carry now I’m starting to look like one of those homeless bag ladies that trudge along with all their worldly goods in tow and last thing I need is more stuff to lose.
Yesterday I was on the bus in Northeast Philly, the first time that I’ve ever been there, when a young woman picked up a cell phone from the seat in front of me and walked over to the driver. She had him open up the door as she called over to one of the men who had just left the bus. Apparently the phone didn’t belong to him and she turned and went back to her seat where she started to flip through the information stored on the phone. Why do women do that?
Now if that was me and I had the slightest bit of interest in even getting up, I would have given the phone to the driver where he would have turned it in to Lost and Found or pocketed the thing for himself. There would be no fuss and I would no longer be involved. But she on the other hand was trying to figure out how she was going to lay that trap and I say that because it happened to me once.
About 2 cell phones ago I left cell phone on the train and I didn’t realize it until the next day when I was at work. After trying to figure out where I could have left it and calling around to the different places that I could have left it I finally decided to call my phone and see what would happen. A woman answered and said that she had picked up the cell the previous night and that we could meet at lunchtime the next day where she could give it back to me. I wondered to myself why we couldn’t just meet after work and get it done with, but I let it go. Instead I just called up Verizon and had the shit cut off, no point having unexpected calls to Guam being listed on my next phone bill.
The next day I went to the train station at 8th and Market and approached her. I could tell that it wasn’t me that she was expecting. I guess I didn’t look like the picture I was using for a screen saver that month. No dreads here. But she squared her shoulders back, gave me the phone and started to give me the mini-bio of herself. She told me that she and a girlfriend had received comp tickets to spend a night in Atlantic City but the girlfriend had dropped out; would I be interested? The girl was on the hunt for a man.
Now it’s true that I have preferences and those have never stopped me before, but this time I had to take a stand. After all it may seem at times that I’m somebody’s piece, but only because I’ve allowed it. I’ve set too many targets and traps myself not to know when it’s being done to me. So I said that I would get back to her and excused myself as I praised God silently that the she didn’t accept the $20, or was it $10 that I had offered her?
Yesterday on the bus I made sure my wallet was in my pocket and I checked my bag to see if both of my cameras and my 2 week old HTC Droid cell phone with the 2 naked white men for a screen saver was there and I felt secure. I may already have too much stuff to lose.
I don’t really know what I was thinking of when I went last week to the Apple Store at the Cherry Hill Mall. I had wanted to see what the iPad looked like and how it worked. Even though I know that it is just a glorified, oversized iPod, I wanted to know if I could seduce myself into getting it. I wanted to see if I could be one of the first people I know who would have it. I wanted others to say ooh or ah and I would be the focus of attention and people would look at me with awe and fascination. Which is really strange because I don’t think I like being the center of attention, it allows people to see my flaws which I take serious efforts in hiding.
That’s probably why I don’t like taking pictures of myself. It’s true that I can look at myself 2 or 3 years after a shot has been taken and say, “that wasn’t so bad,” but to look at photo of me taken today or last week or a few months ago will make me shudder as I see how this sags here or how those poke out there and I will run for shelter, denial or destruction of the evidence. I need my privacy, my anonymity while I pretend to look like something that I’m not. However, for some reason I don’t seem to respect the fact the others may feel about themselves the same way as I do.
Take the picture above for example. When I found out that Apple wouldn’t have the iPad until this weekend, I sat outside the store wondering what I should do. So I took a picture of the store and made sure that I had the mother and her baby in the frame so that I could put a human aspect to the picture. I didn’t ask her if I could take the picture and in fact I did my best to conceal that I was photographing her. Now suppose she was on the run from her wife-beating husband and didn’t want her location known, I’ve just jeopardized her security. Or take the picture below that I took last year. Supposing Papa from the old country sees his beloved daughter out in public with a man and no hijab or mask bringing shame to him and his family. Next you’ll be reading about her and her ritual punishment in the papers and I will be responsible. Will I care? Yes I will, but then life goes on.
I will care unlike the bastard who took a picture of me and an Ex all those years ago while we wearing matching thongs at the July 4th event at the beach in Malibu and published it in the gay magazine, Frontier. Did he care that he had exposed me to ridicule in front of friends and family and possible job loss? Probably not. It's a good thing that no one I knew read this magazine.
I wonder if they still have that event on July 4th?
Now I don't know what you're stance on publicly regulated health care is but did you see this video shot by the Columbus Dispatch? I did but I don't get it.
It came out on Tuesday I think and I missed it, but thanks to YouTube I've been ablt to catch up to everyone else. Although, I don't really think that it's unique. It's probably the same type of thing that's going on all over America. It is the same kind of action or reaction that you saw when congressmen and women had their town meetings in order to explain their position of health care reform. It is the same kind of angst that you saw and felt when people compared President Obama to Hitler or Josef Stalin or some sort of "Manchurian Candidate" last year.
Very few things shock me anymore, but to see a man throw dollar bills at another man suffering from Parkinson's Disease as if he was a cheap stripper on a pole where you could see the marks left by the heroin needle in her arm and the sordid and loose looking pussy lips that had seen tighter and better days, makes me kind of pause. Not that anyone has a right to treat strippers that way, but where do people like this protester in his awfully clean white shirt come from? Are they the same ones that sent millions of dollars to Haiti and other areas in need of relief or are they ones that burn crosses in the middle of the woods or the lawns of other people? Why is there such a dichotomy in being an American.
Did you hear that 16 year old Abigail Sunderland who was sailing solo around the world has been found safe and sound? If you are like me your first thought will be, "who?" followed quickly by, "who cares?" But apparently, most people don't think the way I do.
Okay, so I’ve decided to not even look at the new iPad. I mean I haven’t really heard or seen how people’s lives have been changed by it, so I’ve decided not to get it. At least not until the price drops and I can get it without having to switch to AT&T in order to get service on the road. Plus with all the stuff that I carry now I’m starting to look like one of those homeless bag ladies that trudge along with all their worldly goods in tow and last thing I need is more stuff to lose.
I will care unlike the bastard who took a picture of me and an Ex all those years ago while we wearing matching thongs at the July 4th event at the beach in Malibu and published it in the gay magazine, Frontier. Did he care that he had exposed me to ridicule in front of friends and family and possible job loss? Probably not. It's a good thing that no one I knew read this magazine.
