Floating on the Moon

I came across an old note I'd written back when I first started thinking about the whole Why Your Life Sucks concept. It mentions, among other BRILLIANT adolescent thoughts, that the characters would "see the beauty in the everday". That's what this post is about, albeit I had to travel to Iceland to see it.
I'd read about Iceland in a magazine and had been intrigued. Back in 2000, my family was going to London for Christmas, so I took off a few days early and did a stop-over in Reykjavik. It was absolutely wonderful. However, as everyone probably knows, Winter is not the best tourist season for Iceland. For one, it's damn cold. But most importantly to me, the tourist, it is dark most of the day. There was no light in the sky until about 11 am, and then it set insanely early, like 4 pm. So any touring had to be done quickly. Here is some poor video (I needed a tripod) I shot while I was there:



That music is from Iceland's own Sigur Ros who recently released a new EP and a live DVD that would be well worth checking out if you're into that sort of thing.
The frozen volcanic landscape made it seem like you were visiting the moon. The best part was going to this place called "Blue Lagoon" where hot thermal sea water had filled in the volcanic rock and made a natural, therapeutic spa.
Floating there amidst the snow covered rock in a warm, soothing pool with the steam rising and being backlit by the low lying sun was one of the most peaceful, beautiful moments I've known. It's just one of those moments that hit you and make you aware and you know you are in it and of it and connected to all around it. What the great Spalding Gray called a "perfect moment". I truly saw the beauty in the everyday at that moment.
There was one benefit to going to Iceland in Winter, and I always think about this as our own Southern days grow darker ever earlier and when, as we approach the holiday season, people start putting up their Christmas lights outside of their homes. Look at the picture at the beginning of this blog. That is a cemetery in Iceland. I can't tell you how many of these we past out in the vast countryside. The crazy thing was--they outlined and decorated their cemeteries with lights! The big fat bulb kind, not the small, skinny bulb kind. It was really beautiful. I asked about it, and again, it was due to the lack of daylight and was seen as a hopeful way of fighting the darkness--in this case that means a lot more than you'd think. I'll be putting up my own lights soon. I hope they'll shine through the darkness to reach you, and you too will find them beautiful.

Who Still Believes in a Place Called Hope?

Back in 1996 when Bill Clinton was President and the United States was held in higher regard around the world, I made a documentary about the Whitewater investigation/witch hunt that was being conducted in Arkansas by Kenneth Starr and his Republican cohorts. At the time, Mike Huckabee, a Republican, was Lieutenant Governor of the State of Arkansas. I admit to having been pretty skeptical about Huckabee, a former Baptist minister whom I had seen speak at Boy's State a few years earlier. He had the whole audience of high school juniors in the palm of his hands, laughing at his jokes, and buying his right-wing agenda. It was frightening and unthinkable that this man could become Governor one day.
But that was exactly what happened. The Whitewater trial (the original investigation being about business dealings with Jim McDougal, not about Whitehouse interns) brought about the removal of office of Jim Guy Tucker, thus allowing Mike Huckabee to become Governor. And there he remained for the next ten years.
I must say I'm very grateful that former Governor Huckabee agreed to sit down with my friend Stephen and I over ten years ago and let us question him for the afternoon. I found him to be very personable and generous with his time and answers. And, surprisingly, I found that much of what he said was hard to disagree with on a fundamental level. I think part of this was the fact that he is good at reading the room and saying the right thing to the right audience. The point being, he wasn't as scary as the figure I first encountered at Boy's State. Later, once he became Governor, I had other opportunities to work with him and again found him to be pleasant and down-to-earth.
Now, Huckabee is running for President as a Republican. It is a pathetic group of individuals to be sure, which no doubt has led to Huckabee's surprising underdog rise despite his paltry fundraising effort. Just last week the New York Times did a special video profile on him. So far his campaign highlights have included denying the theory of evolution and calling abortion a "holocaust" that has led to our need for immigrant workers. I don't think he has a chance of winning the Presidency. But then again, just over ten years ago, I never would have believed he would be the Governor for the following ten years.
Like President Clinton, Mike Huckabee also grew up in a town called Hope.
While we asked several serious questions, we also asked a few fun questions in between to try and catch our subjects off guard and keep them from giving boring political speeches. For example, we asked Mr. Huckabee who was his favorite Beatle. His answer, fellow bass player Paul. For this question, we asked him, "If you were to become President, and the U.S. was attacked by aliens from another planet, what would you do?" This was his answer:

So, you heard it here first, friends. If you vote for Huckabee you may end up being turned into "liquid paper" (?) and he will immediately roll over and surrender. For a Republican, that's a pretty wimpy answer, considering they like to start wars without cause or planning. But it also raises another question for me. Did he think, back in 1996, that one day he might run for President? Or was that only something he thought about later? I bet Bill Clinton knew he would run for President back when he was a little boy. I don't think you run for the presidency on a lark. Unless you're a billionaire. Or Stephen Colbert.

Happy Birthday, iPod

Last week, that beautiful little life-changing device turned all of six years old. Sadly, like poor Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles, nobody paid much attention. We all took it for granted that we could carry an immense personal library of music in our pockets, flicking or scrolling our way through the thousands of songs that have become the soundtracks to a life, whether it sucks or not.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I did not own a first generation iPod--the 5GB model. I know it seems shocking coming from someone who spent this past Saturday installing the new Mac OS onto their computer the day after it was released. Not to mention the fact that a mere couple of months ago I stood in line to be the 20th person to purchase an iPhone at the AT&T store in West Little Rock (for $200 more than it could be acquired today). But it's true. However, I already HAD an MP3 player, lest you think I was woefully behind the times. It was a 128MB piece of shit manufactured by Rio. At the time I was self-employed and the hefty price of the iPod seemed an extravagance I couldn't afford. A few months later I was visiting my friend Chope in Santa Monica and he was proudly showing off his 10GB iPod. In fact, at that time, Chope was more of a poster boy for Apple than I was, what with his brand new iMac and his mastering of the iLife suite of applications (I still can't use iMovie--it seems contrary to my theories of editing, whereas I look at it as putting pieces together, iMovie is more about removing what you don't want). On that visit, Chope shamed me into purchasing my first iPod--I splurged on the 20GB. It was one of the best purchases I ever made. A few months later that iPod provided the soundtrack to my road trip back to L.A. for my second life in Southern California, 10 blocks down California Avenue from Chope and his iMac (and of course, his lovely wife Ali). I'd go running with that iPod, but I had to learn when to slow down and hold it steady so the buffer could reload, otherwise it would crash.
By the time they came out with the 60GB iPod, I was back living in Little Rock. And then fast-forward to the introduction of the iPod Nano--I got the 4GB which was the biggest at the time, and I got it in black, to contrast my traditional white iPod. That was on January 11, 2006. I know because I had the date engraved on the back, along with Apple's stock price at the time, a high of $83.90.
That was really the big news last week, when Apple released their quarterly report and the stock shot up over $186. The continued sales of the iPhone, the release of Leopard, and iMacs newer and sexier than that one Chope had on California Avenue, along with all of the other Apple computers had sent profits soaring. As a long time stock holder and Apple user, that is a good thing. At six years old, the company itself has already renamed it iPod Classic to distinguish it from the all of the other incarnations. Just six and it's a classic--it took Coca-Cola a hundred years to achieve that.
But that's not what is important or what is to be celebrated on the iPod's birthday. It's the music that fills each individual iPod, and the way that music influences our lives, comforts, and lifts us. There is nothing like a song to trigger a memory for me--a full-fledged three dimensional memory where I can literally look around and what was going on in 360 degrees.  It is as if I was there, present again at the moment, hearing THAT song in THAT place. Old photos don't do that for me. The only thing I remember is what is there in the frame. Video is worse--it replaces the reality, the tape becomes the only memories I have of the moment. But a song can sneak up on me and trigger a memory or remember where I was at a certain time. But those memories are for a future posting.
I would like to bring your attention to a new addition to the links. Mr. Coco Suave himself, Jeff Baines is doing a weekly music blog, complete with a song of the week that you should not miss. I doubt anyone has influenced my musical taste or turned me on to new bands in the past 15 years more than Baines. I can still remember the exact moment he told me to check out Belle & Sebastian. I hadn't even gotten home, listening to "The Boy With the Arab Strap" (on CD), before I had to turn around and return to buy their previous CD "If You're Feeling Sinister". I needed that more than you could possibly imagine. In fact, there must have been strains of "Get me away from here, I'm dying" fading into the night as I drove West five years ago.

Boo!

I've never been a big fan of Halloween, I'll admit. I've never liked dressing up in costumes, especially using face paint or dried blood or other such devices. Thinking back, I was Spiderman as a child--I don't remember this myself but there is a picture somewhere. It was a cheap plastic costume. With red and white face paint (why there wasn't just a mask I don't know). Then of course I remember being dracula with the fake plastic teeth and the black cape. And of course the white face paint with dried blood on the corners of my lips. And I was a clown one year (I'll let you argue the validity of that statement to this day, dear reader). Again with the face paint. So you can see, I finally had enough and began seeking out costumes which didn't require make-up.
I was crazy about Indiana Jones. For Christmas one year I wanted the whole Indiana Jones outfit--the hat, the leather jacket, and the bull whip. My dad got many strange looks as he went around town inquiring about purchasing a whip. But he found one, and it was a beauty. I still have it and can still crack it. How safe it was to give a ten year old a full-sized bull whip seems questionable today, but those were different times. Anyway, I wore that ensemble any chance I could, so of course it became my Halloween costume for a few years. I always hated having blonde hair as a kid, so I jumped at the chance to spray it black--turning it into a crusty, toxic helmet once a year.
It was around my early teenage years that I became very interested in film, thanks to my infatuation with the aforementioned Raiders of the Lost Ark. I would conduct my own film education courses, thanks to the surge in videotape rental stores at the time. I would choose a director, read everything about them and rent all of their films. An early favorite was, of course, Alfred Hitchcock. I recently watched a wonderful interview Dick Cavett conducted with the master of suspense back in the early 70s.

DC: "How did you acquire this turn of mind. You look like such a pussycat."
AH: "I think my mother scared me when I was three months old. You see, she said Boo! It gave me the hick-ups and she was apparently very satisfied. All mothers do it you know, that's how fear starts in everyone."

Cavett was a ground-breaking interviewer with his TV show. Several episodes are available on DVD and feature in-depth interviews with stars long gone. I highly recommend them.
But back to Mr. Hitchcock. Here is the incomparable trailer for "Psycho".

That trailer is probably one of the best ever created for a film. Nobody else could have pulled that off.
So, I became a fan of Mr. Hitchcock and his films in my formative years. Unfortunately, this admiration and adoration led to a particularly unforgettable Halloween costume when I was about thirteen.
If you're thinking I stuffed a pillow in my shirt and wore a dark suit with a black tie then you're sorely mistaken. No, for some reason I thought--and more importantly was not stopped (where were my older brothers? already in college? too busy wreaking havoc with eggs and shaving cream on the High School crowd?)--that it would be a good idea to be Norman Bates from Psycho. But not just Norman Bates. Norman Bates as his knife-wielding, blood-thirsty mother. So, yes, I wore an old gray wig and a dress and I'm pretty sure carried a REAL butcher's knife (see earlier mention of real bull whip and you'll start to see a trend in my upbringing).
Well, for an already unpopular, late-developing teenager, the idea of dressing up as a woman (albeit a man dressed up as his dead mother) was not the smartest thing I've ever done. I'm sure you can imagine the dismay of my fellow peers, especially since they'd never seen this 1960 film that was some 13 years older than them--and in black and white for god's sake!
The good news is I didn't wear the wig for too long because it itched. So most of the evening I walked around in the dress and somehow managed not to harm myself or anyone else with the large knife. However, I think I can point to this one particular costume as the origin for my distaste of Halloween and costume parties in general. I'm starting to get over it, slowly. But I still don't care for the candy that much.

Written in Light, But Not Worth Reading

Sweet 16. I'm guessing that's what this is. I saw this photo outside the men's bathroom of a mall in Northwest Arkansas. It's a nice mall. And in the food court some photographer was advertising his services with a "gallery" of his work. I found this image arresting--for one it's placement directly outside of the men's bathroom. But it also seemed to sum up conservative Northwest Arkansas and George W. Bush's America. Are we to assume that this young lady has been given this Hummer for her birthday, thus warranting the happy occasion to be recorded in a professional photograph? And I'm not faulting the photographer--I dig the soft focus on the urban assault vehicle. I just question the thought process that went into composing this picture. Perhaps, with our nation at war, it was a way to show support for the troops? I doubt that, I'd guess she will be piling her friends in and driving to Sephora after school (it's in the same mall, so they could grab a slice of pizza and see her photo there too).
I had shown this photo to my friend Joy a while back. For some reason, she was moved enough by it to recreate her own "Corporate Sponsorship" version with the Alltel hummer.

I'm not sure what this proves other than that BOTH photos are pretty ridiculous. However, I would like to introduce this as a new feature of Why Your Life Sucks: Any loyal readers that wish to recreate a photograph, either one I publish here or a famous or infamous photo you possess, then please send both to me and I will add them to this very important gallery. Who knows, future generations may look back on this and learn much about our culture.
And I've been thinking about that--what does it say about a culture and what they choose to photograph, to record in light. In the early days, it was a special occasion for sure to gather the entire family around and have a family portrait photographed by a person not much removed from our friend displaying his work at the Rogers foodcourt. Here is a photograph taken many, many years ago of my father's family. My grandmother is on the far left.

I think with the decrease in cost and the rise of digital photography, we'll take pictures of just about anything now, yielding hard drives full of images that don't mean much, but we're reluctant to delete. I have a friend whose family asks non-relations to please stand in the crop-able position (on the sides of the frame) thus maintaining an image's relevance long after bitter break-ups. I think that's probably not a bad idea, especially after seeing so many disembodied arms on other people's myspace pages.
I'm not saying we should stop taking pictures. If anything, we should be taking more. I just hope they are worth looking at, say, a hundred years down the line.

P.S. My friend Joe Adams is back posting to his blog, check him out, he's hysterical. Also, Hudson finally finished that cup of tea and has written about a new book he's reading. And amazingly enough, Justin has figured out a way to post from all the way over in France. Here's hoping he can keep it up. Looks like fun.

Lurking, Still Lost

I googled an old acquaintance the other day. I had known her when I was living in New York City. I wasn't stalking, if that's what you're thinking. I was curious what had happened to her over the years. I originally met Andy in another "New" city, New Orleans, while shooting an episode of Haunted History. She was working as a P.A. and local contact for the production company out of L.A. We'd kept in touch over the years--poorly--thanks to our shared affection for David Letterman. After I'd been in New York for a few months, I got a letter? a call? perhaps an email, I can't remember now--but she was moving to New York with her young daughter. We met up for lunch down in Soho while she was staying with friends in Brooklyn. She was enthralled by my story of getting evicted from my first sub-let. We went to a few art galleries--in New Orleans she'd had a photography show in a gallery. I remember looking at snow globes--I think she had a collection. Anyway, once I decided to move back to Little Rock, I told her she and her daughter could stay in my apartment rent free until my lease was up. There were a few times I came back to the city and they would vacate back to Brooklyn, leaving my small studio apartment littered with Barbie dolls, snow globes, and feminine products. It was my apartment, but I was only visiting.
There was a guy I used to work with. He was from New York, family lived in the Village, and he had attended NYU. But he'd met a girl from Little Rock and ended up married to her and working there. So he drove up to New York in the mini-van so we could shoot a job for a New York producer, then load up my few furnishings and drive back non-stop to Little Rock through the night. For some reason, the last image I have of Andy is from across 62nd Street, loading a box into the van. She was with her daughter and she looked scared, or confused. Honestly, I was a little mad. She was looking at me like I'd done something wrong, yet I didn't know what. After that I didn't give much thought to her, until the other day.

"Everyone's unhappy, everyone's ashamed. Well we all just got caught looking at somebody else's page"
--Already Missed the Boat by Modest Mouse

I was curious what had become of her. Had she succeeded in big bad New York? I decided to use that wonderful sage of the internet age, Google, and see just what she'd been up to. Fortunately, her last name was pretty unique, so the search only yielded four pages of options. Through the posted results of a race in Chicago in 2005 I saw a 34 year old female with the same name. Then, through the published new members of an art gallery newsletter, also in Chicago, her name turned up. I figured this had to be the same person. But then all of sudden, no more Chicago. She moves to Iowa and is the editor of a newspaper. It is here that I stumble upon her blog. Now the little details start to get filled in. It was the same Andy I knew. There are references to her life in New Orleans. Living in New York. Moving to Chicago. And then finally, like me, moving home. Iowa was home. Central City, Iowa. She wrote about her daughter, who was now grown up and in High School, attending prom. The writing showed a great sense of humor. And then a heartbreaking vulnerability. She was sick. She lost her job. She was feeling better and was starting to run again. Then she is diagnosed with MS. There are references to a fiance, but never followed up by a husband. There are reprinted come-ons she received from some online dating service by men she must have felt were sad or sleazy. There is a link to an interview with a Chicago newspaper that interviewed her about presidential primaries in Iowa. But then there is a gap in time. The newspaper no longer lists her as editor on its website. Then there is a post on her blog about her new job. She is a librarian. It sounds like a good job. She sounds comfortable, peaceful. There is a reference on her blog to the fact that she is starting a MySpace page and her daughter is mortified. I try to find it but nothing turns up. There is a link to email. I want to contact her, say hello. Tell her I too am an accident of geography, having bounced around here and there only to end up back where I started. I want to know if she's OK. But I keep digging through her blog, looking to fill in the pieces I don't know, and then, all of a sudden, the blog is gone. I'm directed to a page asking me to log in. It says the account I want is "not currently available". I think perhaps I've been busted in my lurking. I've been locked out. I was learning too much, solving the mystery. I hoped maybe it was a temporary thing, maybe she was posting a new entry and that's why it was locked out. But now it's gone. I can't get back to the email link, I have now way of contacting her. Maybe the account had been inactive for awhile, unpaid bills, and my lurking on it triggered a computer to finally shut down the account and take it offline. I don't know where it went. I was so close, then nothing. So I'm forced to leave her there as a librarian in a small Iowa town, lost in time and memory, but it's a better image than that look I got across East 62nd that cold winter's day seven years ago.

"I believe that man will not merely endure: He will prevail"

He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

--William Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

Today is September 25, 2007. Fifty years ago today, nine black students integrated my alma mater, Little Rock Central High. It was not an easy task. They faced racist mobs and ignorant bigots. The governor tried to keep them out with the National Guard, so the President sent the Army in to secure their entrance. Today, the current governor and a former President honored them and their historic deed. I listened to all of the speeches on the radio--it was quite moving. This celebration has been a long time coming. In honor of this historic event, the Clinton Presidential Library hosted the original document of the Emancipation Proclamation. I went down to the library and viewed it on Sunday evening. Apparently, they only display the document once a year for 48 hours. That was one of the Fun Facts listed on the handout about the Emancipation Proclamation. You'd think a document that essentially set a people free from slavery would be more dignified than to have "Fun Facts" listed about it.
But there were a few enlightening things about the actual document, printed in full on the reverse of the aforementioned handout. Most people are aware that when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation it was only effective for those slave states that had seceded from the Union (ie. they weren't under his control, and the border slave states that were friendly to the Union were exempted from the Emancipation--politics was full of special interests and hypocrisy even under Lincoln). But reading on even further, Arkansas, my state, is the first to be declared free. Then Texas. Then Louisiana (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson. . . ) What? That's right, the ugly truth. Even the city of New Orleans was exempted. Certain counties in Virginia were exempted. I was shocked. Things have always been screwed up when it comes to politics and doing what is right.
I guess that is why it takes so long for change to occur. The exhibit went on to outline the Civil Rights struggle over the years. It is a fortunate thing, in a way, that the white people were so ugly and horrible in Little Rock in 1957. By showing their grotesqueries to the world, they made others so ashamed that, slowly, a change could occur. On a personal note, many of those iconic images of hatred, including the one above, were photographed by my father's friend and college roommate, Will Counts. Also, I'd like to point out the fact that I've now done TWO posts about important milestones from 1957. The other being the publishing of On the Road, in case you missed it.
I then noticed, thanks to a blurb in the New York Times, that William Faulkner was born on this day 110 years ago. See how history makes it easy for you to connect the dots? The subject of racism and the evil that man is capable of were familiar territory for the South's most famous novelist. Seven years before the Central High crisis, Faulkner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He used the occasion to deliver a particularly powerful message you can read here. He had also made a statement a year before the Central High crisis in Harper's Magazine, June of 1956, stating that:

"We cannot choose freedom
established on a hierarchy of degrees of freedom,
on a caste system of equality like military rank.
We must be free not because we claim freedom,
but because we practice it."

Several years ago I had the privilege to film a documentary with William Faulkner's nephew, Jimmy Faulkner. I remember Jimmy saying that when he congratulated his uncle on the Nobel Prize win, Faulkner simply shrugged it off saying, "Fine. Let's go hunting." Upon further research I found that Faulkner used the money he won from the Nobel Prize to fund a prize for aspiring writers (resulting in the Pen/Faulkner award) and also established a scholarship for African-American education majors at Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi. So, file that with your Fun Facts about William Faulkner. A great novelist and a remarkable Southerner.
In 1991 I graduated from Little Rock Central High. I was able to dig this up for your amusement:
One thing I hope you will notice from this yearbook page is the diversity of color, not to mention hairstyles. Going through my yearbook I saw a lot of faces that I miss, a lot that I don't miss, and not a few I wish I'd never met--not that many of them ever knew I existed. But this is neither the time or place for my own High School disappointments.

"George Bush doesn't care about black people"--Kanye West after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans

"I find it hard to believe that George Bush cares about anyone."--Kanye West on Nightline after being asked if he regrets the previous statement.

At this 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine, much has been made of the continuing progress that needs to be made, and I agree, their is still far too much prejudice in the world, not just between white and black, but between that which we know and understand and that which we don't. However, I feel I must defend one point that has come under constant scrutiny by the media and that is the Advanced Placement classes at Central High. They are crying that this is just another form of racism. I disagree. I took the Advanced Placement classes. I had incredible teachers. And there were black students in those classes with me. Those classes allowed me to test out of an entire year of college courses. The AP classes are not at fault here, nor are the students in them. At fault is our education system overall that is failing to educate students up to that point. At fault is a society that devalues intelligence and hard work. At fault is apathy and easy answers to complex problems. Despite the fact that I never learned the words to Central's alma mater--I simply hummed "Smile Darn You Smile"--I am proud that I graduated from a school with such an important place in history. Today, I applaud that place, and those nine courageous souls.

Twenty Films in Five Days

I just recently returned from the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival in Canada. I basically averaged four films a day and saw a total of 20 films. By the third day I felt like I needed the Ludovico technique just to keep my eyes open. But I persevered, and fortunately was rewarded for my effort with several fine screenings.
I could tell you about the cab driver, Bobby, who picked us up at the airport and must have repeated the phrase, "I know my sports" twenty times. It was oddly impressive that he knew the name of Arkansas's baseball team, the Travelers. But I could neither repeat or corroborate most of his facts, as I am not a sports fan. Film is my mistress, that's why I was in Toronto. Not for hockey, or football, or anything else. I leave that to those better suited. I did realize that for me, Hell would certainly consist of a lot of one-sided conversations about sports.
Here are the films I saw, with a one-word review:
Control-stark
Lust, Caution-pelvic
Fugitive Pieces-engaging
No Country for Old Men-wonderful
Juno-funny
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford-boring
Starting Out in the Evening-wasteful
Reservation Road-bad
Eastern Promises-good
The Visitor-best
Encounters at the End of the World-penguins!
The Man from Plains-Carter!
It's a Free World-downer
Lars and the Real Girl-predictable
Sleuth-remake
Margot at the Wedding-wicked
Breakfast with Scot-Canadian
Le Scaphandre et le Papillon-powerful
Cassandra's Dream-Woody!
I'm Not There-Dylan!

While I was there, my friend Renee got to talk with Viggo Mortensen and David Cronenberg about their film, Eastern Promises. Here is that interview:


By the way, if you are ever in Toronto and need a taxi driver with a vast knowledge of sports trivia, be sure to give Bobby a call at 418-444-1827. That's his home number. He doesn't have a cell. But he knows his sports.

Windows on the World: 9/11 and the View from Here

There are some things we just can never quite comprehend--things that just make no sense--like W. winning a second term. 9/11 is one of those things that I think about from time to time. A fragment here, a place, a memory. And sometimes the oddest little details, thrown-away, discarded moments of time get sculpted into a greater piece and scare us in how well they fit together. This picture is one of those fragments of time. It's of me and my friend Hudson at Windows on the World--the restaurant/bar that was on the top floor of the WTC. Hudson had this old busted camera he found in a drawer at work (a film camera, the days before digital). He didn't realize it at the time, but it was all screwed up, and it would create these crazy double images. So here you have us chopped off in reality, but reflected in a ghostly image over our heads. And how odd that FIRE alarm over my head.
A few months ago I picked up Don DeLillo's recent novel Falling Man which deals with 9/11 and the aftermath of one man and his family. I'd been on a Don DeLillo kick recently, reading all of his old stuff, so I was glad to see this new book was coming out. And it didn't disappoint. It's quite a powerful read and he does an incredible job putting you there in those towers and describing what it must have been like when it happened--the chaos--and the long journey down.
It made me think of my own experiences at the World Trade Center. As I've mentioned before, I lived in New York City back in 1999. At the time, I felt disenchanted with The City, as if it wasn't what I expected from the movies I loved; Manhattan, Annie Hall. It was right as the Dow was crossing 10,000 for the first time--I can remember the headline. I had a small black and white TV set that only picked up one channel--Bloomberg. So if I wasn't working, I'd watch the stocks crawl across the bottom throughout the day.
As I mentioned, Hudson came to visit for a Neil Young show at Madison Square Garden. I took him down to Windows on the World for a cocktail--it seemed like a good touristy thing to do, and you couldn't beat the view. Here's another one of those ghostly images his busted camera kept taking.

Shortly after I had moved to New York, when it was still Winter and quite cold, I went out on the town with some new friends I'd met. One of the places we went one night was Windows on the World. I remember there was a really cute girl who worked as a fact checker for People magazine. I got a big kick out of that because we always had People magazine around the house (my dad loved the crossword puzzle in the back because it was full of easy pop culture clues). She was wearing the smartest looking hat, like something out of "Breakfast at Tiffany's". There was another girl with us whose mother was in the Daughters of the American Revolution and she felt it was important we know that. She also kept her dog in her purse--but he wasn't with us this particular evening. I also remember a young Egyptian doctor--a dentist--and he was dancing and quite taken with the daughter of the Daughter of the American Revolution. And I remember he was full of advice for me about making it in New York. I can't remember it now and I obviously didn't then.
As we were leaving, I took the claim checks for all of the girls coats so I could pick them up and pay for them downstairs. That was not a cheap gesture for a free-lancing-recently-evicted-young-man, but I'm afraid it made no impression on my hat wearing friend. But she did share the taxi fare to a night club we visited next. The club was very modern, circa 1999, and you had to go through an alley, there was no sign. And I remember the coat check was through a door and all of a sudden you were in an 1960s diner with old men drinking coffee. A world removed from the techno and black lights on the other side of the door. The reason I mention this is because there was another piece of the crazy puzzle that, in hindsight, all starts to add up to something. I remember seeing Bill Maher at that nightclub that evening. He was hosting his popular "Politically Incorrect" TV show on ABC at the time. It was right after 9/11 that he made his famous comment about the terrorists not being "cowards" which cost him his job and that show. Fortunately, he was able to start a new show with HBO which is usually pretty damn funny--especially when he "kids" the president.

So, looking back on it, the New York I knew in 1999 was a quite different place from the one I seeked in images from the '70s. But the time between those decades seems brief and small compared to the distance between 1999 and the New York (or America for that matter) of today, post 9/11. And when you really look at it, there were these little incidents, clues, of time weaving itself through our lives and creating moments of continuity. One last thought--going back to that little black and white TV that only picked up Bloomberg. On 9/11/2001 I was back living in Little Rock. The place where I worked, despite being in television production, had no working television to watch the news (they hadn't paid the cable bill apparently). So a co-worker ran home and picked up a small, portable TV set, no different from that one I had in New York. And that's how I watched those planes fly through the windows on the world.

Hey Jack Kerouac, Crazy Dumbsaint of the Mind

But I end up going anyway because I want to see what they're all going to do next.
After all, the only reason for life or a story is "What Happened Next?"
--Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels

Jack Kerouac ruined my life. Up until I read Kerouac I had a pretty active imagination and enjoyed writing, what I thought, was some pretty outrageous stuff. But he changed all of that. I was in High School, probably eleventh grade, when I read On the Road which was published fifty years ago today. I don't think it was assigned text. That would be a bit too edgy for the Little Rock Public School District. We did have a substitute teacher in our twelfth grade English class devote a day's lesson to Ginsberg's Howl. I almost suspect our real teacher of faking her illness and putting the substitute--a former student--up to the job.
Anyway, reading Kerouac, I felt it was so authentic, so real, that everything I wrote was fake and phony. So, I tried writing like Kerouac, from my life's experiences. And shortly after that, I stopped writing. But I didn't stop reading Kerouac. I consumed it all--Vanity of Dulouz, Big Sur, The Dharma Bums, Book of Blues, Visions of Cody (an early version of On the Road), Maggie Cassidy, Lonesome Traveler, The Subterraneans, both volumes of published letters and various works in odd compilations like Good Blonde and Others. But I think my favorite of them all is Desolation Angels.
So I say he ruined my life. But that's not true. Something in what he was saying spoke to me and I just needed to keep hearing it. He certainly gave me a sense of wanderlust. Although I never lived in San Francisco, I had several friends live there over the years and I often visit, always with a stop at City Lights Books. I did manage to live in New York City for a brief time--imagining my tiny walk-up apartment as some garret akin to a Beat's pad down in the Village--which by 1999 a real Beat couldn't even afford. In fact, while I was waiting to take possession of my Manhattan sub-let (from which I would be evicted shortly for reasons beyond my control--but it's a good story--and true!) I took the train to Boston to visit Chope and Ali for a few days. Chope loaned me his car to make the day trip over to Lowell, Kerouac's hometown. Lowell was an old mill town. The mills were all vacant. But you could still see the High School Kerouac attended looking much the same. There was also a nice memorial for the hometown boy who had created a literary and cultural sensation--large marbe slabs with long quotes from his work. 
After looking around the town, I headed out to the cemetery where the lonesome traveler was laid to rest. I had a map from the helpful people at the visitor's center, but the ground was covered with snow and ice which can make locating a headstone not only difficult but treacherous. Once I got in the general vicinity, I could tell I was getting warm by the empty wine bottles and tributes left by previous pilgrims. Still, I couldn't SEE anything that said Here Lies Jack Kerouac. I paced around a little bit on the ice and was beginning to feel pretty bummed when all of a sudden--Snap! The ice cracked below my feet and my foot sank through right on top of the marker. I knelt down and began to clear away the ice so I could read it. This was it. JOHN L KEROUAC. HE HONORED LIFE.
That's what it said there on the marker. Still speaking to me, after I'd exhausted all of his other writings. For the 50th anniversary of On the Road they've published the original scroll he wrote initially in 1951. That's what I'm reading right now. It's good to hear from Jack again.  
"Don't you know God is Pooh Bear?"

Your Princess, She is Dead

You may be sensing a trend that all my posts are going to be about dead people and their anniversaries. But they're not, I promise. But death is part of life so I'm not going to hide the eventual outcome from you. And you may be saying to yourself--what does Princess Di have to do with my life? Well, I felt the same way ten years ago. That's when she died in a car crash in Paris. The photo is one I took in Paris right outside of the tunnel where it happened. It was maybe a week after and the impromptu shrine was still up but the flowers were wilting. I had just come from Rome where my good camera had been stolen while I was waiting at the train station, so my photos from Paris were all taken on a disposable piece of crap. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I spent the summer of 1997 travelling through Europe. I had been to England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Prague, Austria, Italy and Switzerland. I had finally slowed down my pace and settled in on the Cote d'Azur--visiting Cannes, Monte Carlo, and taking a room for several days at a pension in Nice, France.
I came in from one of my day trips over to Monte Carlo or Cannes, and as I was walking up the stairs to my room, the owner of the pension yelled to me, somewhat in hysterics.
"The princess, she is dead!"
I didn't know what he said. I figured it was his French accent mauling whatever he was trying to say in English.
"Excuse me?"
"Your princess, yes, she is dead!"
What in the world--my princess? Dead? This made no sense to me. I had no princess but even if I did, how would this guy know? I explained to him I had no idea what he was saying. Now it was his turn to be confused.
"You don't know your princess? Princess Diana? English, yes?"
Eventually we figured out that he thought I was British, not American. He filled me in on the tragic events of the day and let me go on my way. I don't know why, but it kind of hit me. It was one of those big moments, like I had longed for with Elvis's return.
It seemed like everyone was united for a moment, and all focus was on this one thing. I had a Walkman cassette player that had been wearing out a copy of Radiohead's "OK Computer" all summer--that's right, "OK Computer" was released ten years ago, go ahead and dial it up on your iPod, do you feel old now?. The Walkman also had a radio tuner on it. So I went down to the beach and listened to the BBC's ongoing report. The events leading up to the accident. The moving of the body back to England. I don't know why I was so wrapped up in it. She wasn't my princess.

By Popular Demand--Elvis is Still Dead

This is the clip referenced from CNN that clearly shows John, Justin, and part of Walt looking very solemn (when in actuality we were really drunk) standing in the middle of Elvis Presley Boulevard with our impromptu shrine. Justin requested I add this to the post.

Dead Elvis

You might have missed it last week. I nearly did. But Elvis is still dead, 30  years later. The week of August 17th in Memphis is known as "Dead Elvis Week".  I've been over twice to pay respects and view the spectacle.  One year, after lots of beer and BBQ, my friends put a painting that my brother did out in the middle of Elvis Presley Boulevard and invited all the mourners to put their candles around it.  It became a huge shrine right in the middle of the street, with a growing ring of wax slowly flowing from the painting.  We even got coverage on CNN.  My favorite moment had to be talking to some locals who lived around the corner from Graceland.  It went something like this:

"What do you think about having the King practically buried in your backyard?"

"Well, we know he's back there."

I know a lot of people use Elvis as a punchline.  Let me make it clear, that is not my intention. In fact, back in 1988, I was convinced he was "coming back".  It was something I believed in, and wanted to be true.  I needed it.  And I felt like the world needed it.  Badly.

It all came about because I read this book and listened to the accompanying cassette.  It was written by Gail Brewer-Giorgio and documented several reasons--including taped late night phone calls from a man claiming to be Elvis--why she felt Elvis was not only still alive but was planning a comeback!

Well, this was great news. Especially to a kid who was finishing up what he thought were the worst years of his life (aka Junior High School) and was looking for SOMETHING BIG to happen. Something that would shake up the world. Change everything.

It was not lost on me then or now that what I was craving was a religious experience not unlike the Second Coming. Now, this hope and desire to see Elvis Presley return to TV and radio and shock the world falls a bit short of the bloodshed and hellfire wished for by those who desire to bring about the Apocalypse in their lifetime. But if you could hear the audio tape I think you would understand what faith means--because there is no way listening to that tape that you could believe without a doubt what this bad Elvis impersonator was even saying. I pressed my ear up to the speaker of my jambox. I strained to hear his words. I wanted him to speak to me. I wanted to believe.

That was almost twenty years ago. And perhaps Elvis, like God, works in mysterious ways.  As for me, I'm of a suspicious mind. My original copy of the book and tape were sold in a garage sale several years ago when I lost the faith. But I still find myself thinking about it now and again. And when I saw a copy for sale in a used book store a few months ago I had to buy it. The problem is, I no longer have a cassette deck. My Elvis songs are all MP3s. So if he wants to talk to me, he'll have to call my iPhone.

Joe's Chicken Room

I recently spent a few days in the hills of North Carolina visiting my friend Joe Adams who is a folk art aficionado and a hilarious storyteller. Last year I had set up a blog for him, but he had lapsed in his postings (not unlike someone else I know). He had read in the New York Times about an older guy on YouTube who was doing video blogs. So I told him I would bring my camera and we'd shoot some short clips about his folk art collection. This is the first one I've put together for him.