photolosophy

Posted on by
5

Life is unfair and full of disappointment. Here’s me, with my wee Fujifilm X10 in hand, walking down the street, spotting a mustard-colored corner building. And oh lawdy, there are two women walking down the sidewalk toward that building, one of whom was wearing a shiny blue jacket that would look amazing against that mustard wall. All I had to do was stop, wait for them to be in front of the building, and squeeze off a couple of shots.

But no. They stop before they get there, climb into a parked car, and drive off. So I have to settle for some random guy in a black leather jacket and khaki pants. And if that’s not bad enough, when he reaches the right point for the photo, he’s badly out of step. I shot the photo, but c’mon…it’s like these people have no aesthetic sensibilities at all.

Seriously, would it have killed him to step off with his other foot?

But then I notice there’s a fire escape on one side of the building, casting an absolutely delicious shadow on the mustard-colored wall. But some asshole has (and I assume this was done deliberately) parked a dull white block of an SUV right beneath the shadow, completely ruining the visual. Imagine somebody sticking a big wad of gum or an old bandaid over the woman in Hopper’s ‘New York Office, 1962‘ and you’ll get the idea. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot the photo.

Happily, there was a nice detail worth photographing. The shadow of a string of holiday lights made a nice filigree in an abstract block of color and darkness. It’s not entirely satisfying; it’s like eating croutons that have no garlic. Better than nothing.

It’s got the crunch, but lacks flavor.

But I’ve been told patience is my only redeeming quality (seriously, a million years ago when I was in middle school, in trouble again, having waited in an uncomfortable chair for a long chunk of time for the Boys Advisor to lecture and chastise me for some offense, I was told that patience was my only redeeming quality…and I’ve clung to that one quality ever since), so I decided to wander off and return later when the offending SUV would be gone.

And that’s what I did. I kept walking and shot a few more photos, including this bizarre doorway of a shop that had gone out of business and was blocked by a Port-a-Potty. There’s a sort of warped genius at work there.

Somebody thought, “We’ve got a doorway, we’ve got a port-a-potty, let’s put them together.”

And when I eventually returned to the mustard-colored building? The goddamned white SUV was still there. Not only that, somebody had parked a blue trike motorcycle in the adjoining parking space. I tried not to take it personally, but it hurt. I don’t know what’s wrong with these people. I still couldn’t stomach the idea of photographing that appalling SUV, but I could swallow the blue trike. It allowed me to get a bit of that glorious fire escape shadow. And there was a blue doorway behind the trike, and a rather nice arch overhead, both of which mitigated the offence. Well, somewhat mitigated it.

Okay, but at least I spared you the goddamn SUV.

Life is unfair and full of disappointment. But in a world of white SUVs, there’s also mustard-colored corner shops and doorways blocked by Port-a-Potties. There’s always going to be something around the corner…and you never know what it’s going to be. That’s why we walk around with a camera, right? It’s the philosophy of photogr…ooh. Photolosophy.

Okay. I like that. I’m almost certainly not the first person to come up with that term, but I’m not going to Google it. Not Googling is part of my photolosophy.

where’s dookie?

Posted on by
1

Whenever I have a story published, I get asked this question: “What’s it about?” And I’m always at a loss for an answer. You’d think, since I wrote the damned thing, that I’d be able to tell folks what the story is about. But that’s the thing about stories…or at least that’s the thing the stories I write (and I suspect that’s true of most writers). They’re never about just one thing.

I have a story in the May/June edition of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (which, by the way, is an absolutely wonderful magazine if you like short mystery or detective fiction). It’s called Where’s Dookie?. I can confidently say it’s almost certainly the best short story you’ll ever read about Kool-Aid collecting. And yes, that’s a thing: there are actually people who collect Kook-Aid. I wouldn’t make that up. (Okay, in fact, I would make that up, but I’m not.) But it’s not really about Kook-Aid collecting.

I could say it’s probably one of very few pieces of short detective fiction that deals with the obscene cost of insulin. That would be accurate, but the story isn’t about the pharmaceutical industry. I could say the story revolves around the importance of family, which would most definitely be true. But it’s not actually about family. It also deals with the difference between commercial art and art for its own sake, but I’d be lying if I said the story is about art. The story involves issues of gentrification, and dive bar culture, and retirement communities–but it’s not about those things. Not really. The title suggests the story is about Dookie, which it kinda is, but mostly isn’t.

So what IS it about?

I guess it’s about caring. Which may seem like an odd thing for a detective story to be about, but there it is. Caring for the community, caring for the past, caring for the future, caring for your work, caring for people.

But that sounds awfully sappy, doesn’t it. And it sounds so very sincere. Even serious. But how serious can a story be if it involves Kool-Aid collecting and a character named Dookie?

Anyway, the story is out there. Now if anybody asks me what it’s about, I’ll can just point them to this blog post. It may not answer their question, but it’ll save me some time.

yes, I watched civil war and have thoughts

Posted on by
5

Okay, first? There be SPOILERS here. If you want to see the Alex Garland film Civil War with innocent eyes, then DON’T READ THIS.

Second, Civil War is NOT a movie about how the United States split up into various factions. In fact, you can basically ignore the underlying premise of the story. It’s just not very important. Well, it’s not important to the story. Sure, it’s weird as fuck that California and Texas have somehow joined together to overthrow the fascist government of the United States (and even weirder that–and I swear I’m NOT making this up–they are supported by the armed forces of Florida), but none of that really matters. It could have been Wakanda and Ruritania teaming up to fight against Fredonia and the story would be the same.

Because this is a movie about two journalists and two news photographers covering a story. That’s basically it. They don’t take any moral or political stance; they’re simply documenting and reporting what they see. And what they see is pretty fucking awful.

It’s also a sort of road movie. Instead of a traditional plot, this movie is a series of related vignettes. As the four make their way from New York City to Washington, DC, they encounter a series of deeply localized situations. Here’s a gas station controlled by a few guys who maybe belong to some sort of community militia, there’s a town where life goes on without any apparent awareness that a civil war is taking place (until you notice the snipers on a rooftop), and over there are some uniformed sociopaths quietly filling a mass grave.

Obviously, the four characters are affected by these scenarios. The two journalists–one a sort of adrenaline junkie, the other an older obese man at the end of his career–are an important part of the story, but they’re essentially supporting roles. The ‘stars’ of the movie are the photographers. The journalists just have to observe and report; the photographers have to get the photos, which requires them to expose themselves to the action.

This was the aspect of the film I was most interested in. Unlike a lot of movies in which an actor pretends to be a photographer, Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny clearly knew how to hold a camera. While I’m skeptical that a photographer–even a rookie–would rely on a 1980s-era Nikon FE2 film camera (without a motor drive, no less) in a modern combat situation, I wasn’t particularly troubled by it. After all, the FE2 was Don McCullin’s camera of choice in Vietnam, so I assume that choice was no accident. Kirsten Dunst’s more modern Sony A7 camera bodies made a lot more sense, although I’m not convinced an experienced conflict photographer would be running around during close quarters combat toting a camera with a massive and highly visible 70-200mm zoom lens.

But overall, both actors looked natural using their cameras. There was no sense that the cameras were just being treated as props. And I have to say, I got a kick out of the fact that Kirsten Dunst (like me) has a dominant left eye–which is sort of inconvenient for a photographer.

I was especially pleased when the film referenced Lee Miller, one of the pioneering women photojournalists during World War 2. And doubly pleased by a brief early scene that was (intentionally, I hope) a callback to Miller. The scene shows Kirsten Dunst in a bathtub, which I found was reminiscent of the famous photograph of Lee Miller sitting in Hitler’s bathtub on the day he committed suicide.

My only real complaint about the film is that the climactic scene was predictable–and frankly, that’s a pretty small complaint. Fairly early in the story, Jessie (the rookie) asks Lee (the veteran) if she’d photograph Jessie’s body if she was killed in action. Lee responds, “What do you think?” (or words to that effect). At that point, it was clear that one of them would be killed and the other would shoot the photograph. It could have played out either way, but it seemed more likely there’d be a sort of ‘passing the torch’ moment in which the rookie becomes the veteran. It’s a seriously stupid scene. Jessie exposes herself to gunfire and Lee, instead of tackling her and removing both of them as a target, stands in front of Jessie, facing her (her back to the gunfire). It makes for a nice photo of Lee’s face as she’s being killed, but is still stupid.

However, the final shot of the film–the shot on the screen as the credits roll–is perfect. In the final scene, Jessie photographs some troops summarily executing the president. It’s a very matter-of-fact scene, not particularly dramatic. As the credits roll, though, we see the shot taken after the execution. It’s depicted as if the image is very slowly being developed in a darkroom–the gradual revealing of the scene. It’s a classic military trophy photo, similar to every awful trophy photo shot in every war. Soldiers standing over a body, smiling proudly.

That final image is disgusting. It’s brilliant. It’s horrible. It’s perfect in that it says everything that needs to be said about war and violence. THAT is the shot that people need to think about and discuss. It reminds us that violence is the worst form of seduction.

surrendered

Posted on by
Reply

Confederates: Okay, okay, you “won” the war. We give up.
Union: About time.
C: So basically you’re saying we can’t own black people anymore.
U: You can’t own ANY people.
C: What about Indians?
U: No, you can’t own native people.
C: Mexic…
U: No.
C: …
U: …


C: How about if we just keep them poor?
U: Why would you do that?
C: Somebody has to do all the shit jobs, right?
U: Well…
C: And we can provide them with alcohol and drugs.
U: Again, why would you…
C: For their own good. Look, they’re going to be doing shit jobs all day for little or no money. You don’t want to give them a little something to ease their pain?
U: Well, when you put it…
C: C’mon, it’ll give them something to sing about.
U: I dunno. I guess it would…
C: Good. We’re agreed.
U: If it’ll stop all the fighting, sure.
C: We’re not going to let those fuckers vote, though.
U: sigh

it’s not a ‘hush money’ trial

Posted on by
Reply

Jury selection for Comrade Donald Trump’s first criminal trial is scheduled to begin on the 15th. People and the news media (you’d think the ‘news media’ would be populated by ‘people’ but I swear, it’s more a collection of rabid ferrets tied up in a gunny sack) keep referring to it as “the hush money trial.”

There’s a good reason for that, of course. Trump did actually pay money to hush up a sleazy sexual episode. Three sleazy sexual episodes, in fact (the one-night stand with Stormy Daniels, the 9-month affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal, and Trump Tower doorman Dino Sajudin who claimed Trump fathered a child with a former employee). Hell, Trump’s probably paid hush money on multiple occasions to multiple people. This is a thing rich assholes do. Nobody is ever really surprised when rich assholes pay money to suppress their disreputable behavior.

But here’s the thing: the hush money isn’t the issue. The issues are: 1) how Trump paid the hush money and 2) how his attempts to hush up the way the hush money payments were made.

Does that sound confusing? Well, it kinda is. Here’s what happened (according to the prosecution, anyway). The various hush money payments were listed in Trump’s business records as a ‘legal expense’ payable to Michael Cohen (who, by the way, pled guilty to violating campaign finance laws, tax fraud, and bank fraud; he picked up a three year sentence in federal prison, fined US$50,000 fine, and was eventually disbarred from practicing law in the state of New York.). Shuffling the money through Cohen involved falsifying business records, which is only a misdemeanor UNLESS that falsifying is done to cover up another crime. That turns the misdemeanor into a felony. The other crime, in this case, is violating campaign finance laws. Trump is facing 34 felony counts in this trial.

It’s one thing for a rich asshole to dip into his pockets to pay a person money in order to hide his disreputable behavior. It’s one thing to pony up some of your own coin so your family and/or business acquaintances won’t find out that you’re a despicable creep. That’s just ordinary everyday sleazy rich asshole behavior.

It’s another thing altogether to dip into campaign pockets to pay a person money in order to suppress a story that would lead voters to believe you’re a despicable creep, which might make them decide not to vote for you.

Trump is being prosecuted for falsifying business records in order to disguise the fact that he used campaign money to suppress ugly stories that might hurt his chance of being elected to the highest political office in the United States.

Maybe the most horrible part of this trial is that Trump probably didn’t need to…well, do anything at all to hush up his bad behavior. His attorneys could argue that Trump’s supporters would vote for him even if he publicly admitted he’d cheated on his wife with a porn actor. I mean, this is the guy who bragged he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue in New York City and not lose any votes. This is a guy who is EXPECTED to behave like a total asshole, and who regularly lives up to that expectation.

Trump: Yeah, that’s right, I cheated on my first wife with my second wife, and I cheated on my second wife with my third wife, and I cheated on my third wife with a porn star. I’ve cheated on everybody at every chance I got in every aspect of my life. Why shouldn’t I? You’d do it too if you thought you could get away with it. Vote for me!
MAGAverse: Hell yeah! We love his honesty! He’s just like us! We’d be total assholes too if we thought we could get away with it! Vote Trump! He’ll make America great for total assholes again!

That may be true, but it’s not a legit defense in a criminal matter. The victims in this case aren’t Stormy Daniels or Karen McDougal or the many voters Trump were lied to. The true victim is the electoral system itself, not the voters who use it.

The total asshole in question.

This isn’t a case of a rich total asshole paying hush money to salvage his reputation. It’s a case of a rich total asshole paying hush money to gank the electoral system—to gank it so he could gain access to power and influence. And hey, it worked. The motherfucker actually got himself elected (with the aid of a hostile foreign nation, Russia). And to nobody’s surprise, when he was faced with losing a second election, he tried to gank the system again. And almost succeeded.

Trump is still trying to gank the electoral system. The upcoming trial is the first real attempt to hold the motherfucker accountable.

EDITORIAL NOTE: I have a baseball cap with ITMFA on the front. It originally stood for Impeach the Motherfucker Already. And hey, they did impeach him. But it didn’t take. So then ITMFA stood for Impeach the Motherfucker Again. And they did. And it didn’t take. Then it stood for Indict the Motherfucker Already. And they did. Now ITMFA stands for Incarcerate the Motherfucker Already. (I reserve the right for the I to eventually stand for ‘incinerate’.)

the bull goose loony of asshole culture

Posted on by
2

The Trump re-election campaign is basically a defense of Asshole Culture. It’s clearly NOT a traditional presidential campaign. It consists almost entirely of Trump shouting various iterations of the Asshole Culture credo (if ‘credo’ means what I think it means).

The Asshole Credo? I’m glad you asked.

I do/do not want to do this thing. I don’t care if it helps/hurts other people. You can’t make me do or not do this thing. I will go way the fuck out of my way to create a disturbance sufficient to make others miserable in order to do/not do/stop other people from doing this thing. I am Asshole, hear me roar.

I wrote about Asshole Culture back in 2021, detailing how my understanding of the Republican Party shifted from seeing them as a Fuckwit Collective to advocates of Asshole Culture. I used to believe they did cruel stupid shit because they were too stupid to grasp that what they were doing was cruel. It became clear to me that many of them did cruel stupid shit because they’re cruel. Not just cruel, but performatively cruel. In your face cruel. Visibly and vocally cruel, without any fear of consequence.

Trump is campaigning on the theme of A Celebration of Asshole Culture. His claim of Absolute Immunity is grounded in Asshole Culture. His mockery of Joe Biden’s stutter, his deliberately insulting language about judges and prosecutors, his honoring of the January 6th Insurrectionists, his racist comments about immigrants, his contention that he’s the victim of reverse racism, his hateful depiction of E.Jean Carroll, his absurd gestures toward Christianity, all of his blatant lies — these are all manifestations of Asshole Culture.

And Trump? He’s the bull goose loony of Asshole Culture.

Trump’s entire presidential campaign is, down at the cellular level, based on the idea that he should be able to fart in church and enjoy the discomfort of other churchgoers without any consequence. Own the libs, insult eggheads, denigrate experts, mock the disabled, taunt minorities, malign women, intimidate those who disagree with you, fuck your feelings — these are the centerpieces of Asshole Culture.

Policies? Trump doesn’t need them. He doesn’t want them. He doesn’t understand them. He just wants to do whatever the fuck he wants to do at any particular moment. He insists on his right to be the supreme asshole.

That’s the open secret of his political success. Trump’s followers wish they could be as much an asshole as Trump is. They wish they could be as openly objectionable, as blatantly abhorrent as Trump is, and escape responsibility for it as much as he has. They don’t care that he’s a liar, a crook, a cheat, a hypocrite, an asshole; they just want him to be able to get away with it. Because then maybe they can do the same. Did he cheat on his taxes? Did he cheat on his wives? Did he pay hush money to porn stars? Did he try to steal an election? Fuck yeah!

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Asshole Culture is rooted in patriarchy.

EDITORIAL NOTE: We must burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, gather the ashes, piss on them, douse them in oil and set them on fire again. Burn the patriarchy, then drive a stake directly through the ashes where its heart used to be, and then set fire to the stake. Burn the fucker one more time. And keep burning it, over and over. Burn it for generations. Nuke it from orbit. Then have tea and pastries.

trump’s maltese collateral

Posted on by
1

First, let me say very clearly and categorically that I personally believe it’s morally wrong to take pleasure in another person’s pain or humiliation. Then let me admit that I’m enjoying the hell out of the admission by Comrade Trump’s lawyers that he can’t find anybody or any institution willing to trust him enough to pony up US$464 million for his bond in the New York State fraud case.

There’s an excellent chance Trump will be forced to sell some of his properties, which will be even more humiliating (and I’ll enjoy the hell out of that too). Well, to be more accurate, he might be forced to TRY to sell some of his properties. It may be difficult to find buyers. Trump’s attorneys, in their most recent court filing, admitted they tried to use Trump’s real estate as collateral for the bond. And hey, guess what. Nobody would agree to accept it.

Why? Because…and this just makes the pain and humiliation all the more piquant…the very reason Trump has to post a bond is that he fraudulently misrepresented the value of those properties.

Remember The Maltese Falcon? The movie or the novel, doesn’t matter which, the story is the same. The plot hinges on the supposed existence of a 16th century statue of falcon made of gold and jewels, crafted by the Knight of Malta as tribute to the King of Spain. There’s a lot of intrigue and betrayal, but in the end (SPOILER ALERT) the falcon turns out to be a fraud.

In your mind, replace the falcon with Trump Tower.

What we’re talking about here is Trump’s version of the Maltese Falcon. The court determined that he lied about the value of his properties, and now he’s trying to use those properties as collateral. Nobody wants to buy this corrupt motherfucker’s fake falcon.

This has to be humiliating and painful for Trump. Incredibly humiliating and deeply painful. Soul-crushing humiliation, gut-wrenchingly painful. We’re talking humiliating and painful at the cellular level.

Damn, I’m enjoying this.

it’s been a year

Posted on by
8

One year ago today I made the following comment on Facebook:

So…what do you think? When will Comrade Trump be indicted? I’m inclined to think middle of next week. Say a week from tomorrow.

That claim was met with some understandable skepticism. A lot of people believed he’d escape any indictment, that he’d never be held accountable for any of the horrendous shit he’s done. But I was confident he’d at least be indicted. Not absolutely confident; just sort of pretty almost sure. I argued:

I think he’ll be indicted in Manhattan and also probably by the Georgia grand jury. I think there’s a fair chance he’ll also be indicted at the federal level.

And hey, I was right. Well, off by a week, but on March 30, Trump was indicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. His trial is scheduled to begin in 11 days. Three months later, Trump was indicted in the Southern District of Florida on 37 federal criminal charges related to his handling of classified government documents (three more criminal charges were added a month later). Two months after that, Trump was indicted in the US District Court for the District of Columbia on four federal criminal charges related to election interference. And two weeks later, the Fulton County, Georgia Superior Court finally indicted Trump on 13 criminal counts related to interference in the 2020 election in Georgia (six of those charges have been dismissed for being vague BUT the judge has stated they can be refiled if they’re worded differently; the underlying RICO case is still solid).

That was a year ago. Today I’m going to predict Trump will almost certainly be convicted in Manhattan and Georgia. I’ll also predict that unless SCOTUS interferes, Trump will go down in both federal jurisdictions—DC and Florida. In each case, the publicly available evidence against Trump is overwhelming. In each case, the arguments presented (so far) by the defense are awfully weak.

Let me just remind folks that I’m basically a criminal defense guy; my first instincts are almost always to support the defense. I firmly believe in forcing the State to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, even in cases in which the accused is blatantly guilty. And although I fucking hate Trump, I reluctantly appreciate the ridiculous arguments his lawyers have used to delay his various criminal trials. It pisses me off and frustrates me, but that’s their job. That said, it’s bullshit that courts cooperate with Trump’s lawyers to delay his trials.

Anyway, that’s where I stand. I firmly believe Trump will be convicted in both State courts and probably in both Federal courts. I could be wrong, of course. Weird shit happens in criminal trials.

For me, the big question now is this: will he serve any time behind bars? I’d love to say “Yes, he absolutely will.” But I’m pretty skeptical about it. He deserves to be in prison, but people rarely get what they deserve. And to be honest, that’s worked out pretty well for me.

Putting Trump in prison would be socially cataclysmic. But I believe, in the long run, it would be healthy for US politics.