Balancing Act

Balancing Act
Originally uploaded by bodhi47.

Vine and Shadow

Vine and Shadow
Originally uploaded by bodhi47/Mitch Eaton.

Hot muggy summer. 95f and 95% humidity. Like swimming in air. An old English teacher of mine had a theory about southern summers and southern writers. He broke it down into two "epochs". Pre-AC and Post-AC. With the ones who were Pre-AC having a firm knowledge of how crazy the weather can make you. With all of the impending heaviness of a summer storm.

Cat Tail

Cat Tail
Originally uploaded by bodhi47/Mitch Eaton.

Ok, new film camera. And instead of being methodical and organized I'm shooting off every kind of film I can get my hands on. This one for landscapes/noonday sun. That one for the early evening or the well lit indoors shot. And the other one for low light/early evening stuff. And then I go and try out all the popular developers. Tmax, Rodinal, and ID-11. How do keep track of all this and what works best together? You start an excel spreadsheet with one, yep one, entry and then blow it off the rest of the time. It will change on the type of shot eventually I think.

old skool

old skool
Originally uploaded by kimprobable.

Underdog at CBGB's. Photographer unknown.

Hope I Die Before I Get Old.

A friend of mine just saw her first CBGB's show. I've never been. I've only known the Ramones, the Dolls, etc. by the records. Those bands didn't come to where I lived. I started going to punk shows in the early 80's when it was dying out. being replaced by Blondie and the other New Wave Trash Bands. A dilution of everything I liked about the punk scene. Rage, nihilism, and physicality. When I first heard the Sex Pistols I just didn't get it. It was antithetical to everything I liked about music. I was a musical snob from an early age. These guys were a bunch of out-of-work assholes who barely knew which end of the guitar to play. But see that kind of stuff live? It was incredible. The smell gets me still. And I didn't look anything at all like the mohawked wristband wearin' stomp your ass punks. I was a "hippy". Flannel shirt and jeans in the middle of the southern summer. I was a target in a mosh pit. One look at me and it gave the punks a target for everything they felt betrayed by. Didn't mosh much. But sometimes...i felt that belligerent. Give me a target. This takes a little explaining. I'm about as much of a pacifist as you will ever come across. Seriously. A softy. But there's a part me that reveled in the mosh. Shedding your rage and frustration in a morass of smelly, beer drenched, posers. In that time and place they were all little rich kids bused in from the burbs. Comforming noncomformists.

Flash forward a lot of years. This friend has just seen her first show at CBGB's and has run into the first sign of getting old. One of her favorite lead singers got old and fat on her. I almost took it personally when she blogged this. I'm old and I feel fat. Inside I still think I'm that 23 year old kid. My joints prove me wrong. Every morning.