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Time for an Adventure?
Hi Everybody!
How’s it going?
For the first time since I began the blog, I’m not sure exactly whom I’m addressing.
Since my birthday, (49 on March 4,) I haven’t looked at the blog stats.
Took this a minute ago. 49, and back at my high school weight. I haven’t looked once, after obsessively checking for the first month of Sunshine and Olly’s existence.
Why would I do such a thing?
Because I realized the beginning stage was proof of concept.
If I write regularly, and share it for free on a blog, will people turn up to read?
We’ve established the answer is yes.
An audience cohered, and I’m hoping over time we can figure out how to engage as a community more. There’s the comment section, obviously, and some of you chime in from time to time on FB, Twitter or IG.
That’s cool.
But I stopped checking where you’re coming from, and which articles you like best, because from the jump, I wanted this blog to be about what feels right.
(It’s art, not science.)
Targeting articles to a demographic, based upon market research, is about as anti-art as it gets.
Eventually, I’ll reengage with the analytics. But this felt like a precarious time, where creativity and business can become adversaries.
Since there is no business in a free blog, (beyond branding,) I figured we’d keep it pure for a while longer.
Offering advice, or sharing how I’m learning through life experience, has been a fun evolution here.
As I did something new and different on Saturday, to deal with the traumatic energy I acknowledged last week, let’s use it to spread some positive vibes.
Shall we?
In my lifetime, I’ve gotten stuck in ruts.
We all have.
It’s what actions we take to break unhealthy patterns that interest me.
If what you were doing, over and over, isn’t working, you have to shake up your process.
In my case, Taos is really far from everything. Seriously, the nearest big town, from my home, is over an hour away.
(Española.)
Santa Fe is an hour and 45 minutes by car, and ABQ is 2.5 hours away. (Without traffic.)
Not to mention, with a bunch of coked-up crazy drivers out there, going 95 mph on I-25, it’s dangerous as fuck on the roads in 2023.
(Not exactly enticing, when you’re stressed out, and need to get in the car and go.)
To the SouthEast, Las Vegas is also an hour and 45 minutes, except you have to go up and over the Rockies, in a ridiculous pass, so that is not the best way to exit either.
To the West is nothing.
Farmington is 3.5 hours away, (if you’re lucky,) and then it’s probably another 8 to Las Vegas.
(The American West is much bigger than you think, if you’ve never been.)
All told, with that much distance between us and anywhere else, you don’t leave town often.
Which leads to deep ruts.
On Saturday, needing desperately to shake things up, I realized I hadn’t been West of Tres Piedras in more than a decade.
I couldn’t remember anything, other than taking Theo to a fishing contest at Hopewell Lake, with his grandfather, when he was 4 or 5.
(The kid is now 15, and 5’11”.)
So that’s a decade.
Highway 64 goes up and over the Rockies, in the Brazos mountains, and is among the prettiest out there.
Going from nowhere to nowhere, it’s also empty.
I’ve got a really good car at the moment, (for the first time in ages,) so even though I saw clouds over the mountains, and had read that storms were approaching, I said,
“Fuck it! Let’s roll!”
After a “fake” winter of dry, dead, brown grass, slowly, I drove into “actual” winter.
First, it was warm-ish, and then ten minutes later, the rain started.
Up, and up I drove.
The temperature dropped.
I noticed a pickup truck, pulled over by the side of the road.
Up and up I drove.
Winter was here!
Huge pastures covered with snow, and endless trees to the horizon.
It was so fucking beautiful.
Winter, and only for me. No one else around.
Then, the temperature dropped again, down to 32 F.
The rain turned to snow, and the snow began sticking to the road. But still, up I drove. My car has AWD, and is high tech, so I wasn’t worried.
Until I felt the snow starting to hit the undercarriage. It was accruing on the road quickly, and I didn’t have much traction.
I started to get a bit scared.
No one knew where I was.
The cell service was spotty at best.
I looked for a place to turn around, but there was none. Just rapidly piling snow on the side of the highway, with no way to break into it.
Up, and up I drove, but now I had some anxiety in my stomach.
It had officially become an adventure.
Finally, lacking options, I said a quick prayer-thought, and slowed the car.
I had to do a full K-turn on a snowy mountain road, just hoping no truck would slide into me from above as I executed.
Or that I’d get stuck horizontally, and then T-boned by the next car that came down the mountain.
It was a dodgy moment, but nothing bad happened.
The car performed, I performed, and headed down the mountain, knowing I’d drive out of the storm soon enough.
And I did.
That’s when I remembered a hiking trail Jessie and I used once. Maybe 16 years ago? I recall the day we did it, but not the year.
It was forever ago.
I pulled the car over in that spot, and walked through hip-deep snow for a few minutes.
Until I found the perfect clear spot, under a Ponderosa Pine tree. (The wind had made the snow distribution uneven.)
It was so quiet.
I was so alone.
Just me, the trees, and the snow.
I noticed one tree, as I leaned on it, had a wet side, and a dry side.
The same tree.
But a completely different experience.
Just like me.
An hour before, I’d been stressed out of my mind, stuck in our little valley, obsessing about my (very real) problems.
But if you think I felt anything other than majestic, as I stood under that tree, looking out at the endless, empty American West, you haven’t had an adventure in too long.
Time to get out there and see something new!
(Or make something old new again.)
Either way, hope that’s helpful.
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Photo Book Review: Fallen Trees
Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact.
Springsteen said that, in “Atlantic City.”
(This wouldn’t be a Jersey-Boy-blog if I didn’t invoke Bruce’s name at least once a month.)
It’s true, though.
Planets die.
Stars die.
People die.Hell, birds dropped from the sky, dead, over Labor Day Weekend, 2020.
September 2020 (Worst. Year. Ever.)
It’s the cycle of life, and as has been said before, (by others,) Homo Sapiens are the lonely creatures aware of our finite existence.
Tough sledding, sometimes.
The ego gets in the way. We each believe we’re so important, because that’s baked into our brains. Having children bumps many people from the center of the Universe, but parenting isn’t for everyone.
Probably religion serves this purpose for many: making meaning out of our time here, and peace with ultimate demise.
Art can help us process our feelings towards death too.
I have a heaviness in my life right now.
Something I can’t share.
But you can trust I take the advice I dispense. Self-care has been prominent, and I’m even going to BJJ tonight, though I’m still not 100%.
We can’t slack, when it comes to mental health, especially when we have children who rely on us.
So today, not only did I plan to write, but I went to my famous book stack, to see if a slight volume might remove my mind from my troubles.
As always, the photo-book-gods provided, as I quickly found “Fallen Trees,” a ‘zine from 2022, sent in by Kevin O’Connell. He’s an artist I’d met once or twice before, and when he came through Taos last year, we met for a coffee.
Great dude.
Not a great book, but it’s perfect for today.
(And it’s a plenty fine, very nice book. Just not brilliant.)
The opening essay is terrific.
Clean, poetic, intelligent writing, setting the scene as dense, lush forests in the Pac Northwest.
(Oregon, if we’re being specific.)
Kevin writes of “the musk of decay,” so I assumed the book would make me cling to my melancholy.
As if!
Rather, what grabbed me was not the decaying, fallen trees, but the insanely lush, verdant, REALLY FUCKING GREEN surroundings.
I’ve previously shared it’s been a long, 4 month winter here in Taos.
News just dropped, TODAY, the 3 year La Niña has finally lifted. It was responsible for this year’s, cold, gray, brown mess.
Few blue skies. No snow remaining on the ground. Just lots of dead brown grass.
Depressing AF.
So looking at Kevin’s book, for a couple of minutes, reminded me that green exists.
Fresh, new, healthy, growing things exist in the world.
It’s easy to forget, when you’ve been cold for 1/3 of a year.
But Spring is coming.
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Danny Dimes Gets His Bag
Yesterday, I wrote about Kobe Bryant.
It was out of character, as Kobe was one of my least favorite athletes.
Having grown up in the Michael Jordan era, watching Kobe try so hard to emulate his idol was hard to take.
MJ was the most competitive asshole alive. (Image courtesy of The Sports Rush.com) I get that KB was über-competitive too, and it worked, as he ultimately won 5 NBA Championships, and is remembered as an all-time great.
Kobe’s “Mamba Mentality” outlived him, as evidenced by the Etsy poster I shared yesterday.
Idols who die young are often turned into symbols.
Like Bruce Lee. Marilyn Monroe. Kurt Cobain. Janis Joplin. Or Biggie Smalls. Tupac too. John Lennon.
You know the drill.
So now Kobe is remembered, and revered, but few people talk about what brought him down: The Helicopter Lifestyle.
I’ve been following sports, (or sport, as the English say,) my entire life.
And I never heard of another athlete who commuted exclusively by helicopter.
The idea alone made Kobe an outlier, much less the execution.
Few people discuss that when his copter crashed in 2020, Kobe took his daughter, and some friends and neighbors down with him.
The idea of living within driving distance of your job, and your activities, dominates everyone else.
Yet Kobe flew too close to the sun, (literally,) and it killed him.
Not to speak ill of the dead, but Kobe was known for arrogance, and also for ratting out Shaq, when KB was accused of alleged rape near Vail.
The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera, where the alleged rape happened. Now closed. (Image courtesy of The Colorado Sun) Kobe Bryant lived like a man who was never told no.
Who never faced failure.
As opposed to the other athlete we’ll discuss today.
Daniel Jones. (AKA Danny Dimes.)
(Image courtesy of NJ.com)
Rarely, in a lifetime of watching sports, do I remember a player who was never really given the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe there was a week or so, (when his nickname came out,) when fans were excited, but from the moment Dave Gettleman drafted Danny Dimes, everyone gave him shit.
Seems like DJ grew up with privilege, in Charlotte NC, before going to Duke, just East of his home turf.
I also went to Duke, and can assure you, the starting QB there lives a sweet life.
The team wasn’t great, but he did well enough to make it to the 1st round.
Then the wheels fell off the bus.
And a young man who perhaps didn’t face much adversity, was then thrust into a 3 year shit storm.
Doubted at every turn.
Beaten up. Physically. Mentally.
It’s all out there.
Things were awful for Daniel Jones, and the world made fun of him every day.
Still, he persevered.
A big white guy getting $160 million is not the kind of news that will typically hook the bougie/hipster folks who read this blog.
(Though I was chastised for the phrase “Republican Assholes” yesterday, so not all of you are of the same demo.)
I get that much of this audience doesn’t care about sports.
Can I help you?
Yesterday’s blog was all about personal growth and development. With professional sports, we have the opportunity to watch other people grow, in real time.
We acquire role models for what can happen when a person puts their/her/his head down, acquires new skills, and refuses to give up.
It happens all the time, in sports, and at the moment, my favorite teams, The NY Giants, Arsenal, and the Brooklyn Nets are fortunate to have such players, and coaches.
The Good-Guy era is fun, as I’m over watching assholes like Jose Mourinho and Bill Belichick win things, again and again, while displaying awful personalities, and questionable ethics.
Jose Mourinho, terrible person. (Image courtesy of AS Roma) Daniel Jones threw for 5 touchdowns once, and 4 twice, in his rookie year, but still, people say he has a bad arm.
He used to fumble a lot, and throw interceptions, but he learned how not to do that.
Just last year, the Giants chose not to extend his contract, (which will cost them A LOT of extra money for this season,) because they used his growth mentality to their advantage.
It provided extra motivation, for a certain type of person.
Because people can develop.
They can grow.
It’s why I was so impressed with Noam Chomsky’s OP ed in the NYT today.
Learning and context, he said, define humanity.
Otherwise, it’s all just noise.
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Advice Column: Be Better
I’m sick and tired.
(That’s the whole first sentence.)
I’m not sick and tired of anything, I’m just sick and tired.
I caught a cough my first week training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, (what with the massive exchange of bodily fluids,) but it held at bay.
It was surprising, just having a cough, without the attendant bother of a cold. (Stuffy/runny nose, body aches.)
Given the limited impact, I kept training.
And working.
Parenting.
Dog walking.
Olly, Sunshine and Haley. Last night. Pushing myself to the max, as always.
So Sunday, when it morphed into a full-blown cold, I wasn’t surprised.
No rest, no improvement.
Because the freelance life teaches you a valuable lesson, with respect to everyone’s experience here on Earth:
No one is coming to save you.
So you best save yourself.
Most people take that as a bad thing.
No White/Black/Brown/Red/Yellow/Blue knights are arriving shortly. They’re not currently steaming across the moors, on their fancy horses, intent on making your life better.
Yes, community is meant to support us.
But communities need to be built.
That takes strength, and energy, both of which get sapped, while people wait around for a savior who’s not coming.
Sounds bleak.
It’s not.
The idea that within each of us lies the capacity to improve his/her/their state in life, through internal work and personal growth, is a hard one to swallow.
This is not the Republican Party line of “Personal Responsibility.”
Those assholes use the term to deny some very, very obvious realities.
Such as, growing up in poverty, or in areas with shitty schools, has a massive impact on a person’s life trajectory.
Furthermore, every single American who has become “successful” has done so based upon the societal, governmental spending necessary to allow civilization to function.
No society, no Jeff Bezos.
(Image courtesy of the NY Post) It’s that simple.
Yet we’re living at a time when the bonds that hold society together are being tested as never before.
What’s the solution?
Be better.
I’ve written a bit about Taoism, here on Sunshine and Olly, but not much about Buddhism.
Obviously, both belief systems are interconnected, though the latter originated in India, before being exported to China. We’re talking about two societies, each more than 5000 years old, sharing some of the best wisdom they’ve been able to generate.
In this case, Buddhism posits that all things are connected. There is one big mass of Chi, or life force, that represents everything.
People. Dogs. Trees. Rocks. Water.
The more individual cells (which comprise the whole,) are damaged, the more the entire body suffers.
Between all the methods of self-care available to us these days, be it therapy, exercise, creativity, friendship, travel, what have you…
Once you know what you can do to be better, (through self-awareness,) invest in those things.
More art-making.
More exercise.
More nature walks. (Should you have access to nature.)
More friend chats.Whatever it takes to improve.
We’re talking about a growth mindset.
And though I did not like him as a basketball player, it’s also what Kobe Bryant was on about, with his “Mamba Mentality.” Relentless improvement, because it’s the best way to fight complacency, and entropy.
(Image courtesy of Etsy) It’s baked into things like Martial Arts, Golf, or cooking.
(Seriously.)
I’m laying here, sick and tired, but since I haven’t written since Friday, I knew I had to push through.
Express the emotions.
Share the thoughts.
So that’s where we’ll land today.
Life is insanely hard. But it’s also magically awesome, at times, and certainly, the only one we’ve got.
(Until proven otherwise.)
Hasta Mañana!
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Making Art Is Not A Choice
Making art isn’t always a choice.
People assume (incorrectly) that it is.
They think artists are slackers who don’t want to get a “real” job.
There may be the tiniest bit of truth there, but it’s not what the process is really about.
Art is self-expression.
And most artists express themselves because they must.
(Hence Kandinsky’s famous phrase, “Inner Necessity.”)
In fairness, as I’ve been blogging about this subject for the past 12 years, some of you may have heard a version of this refrain before.
All artists, (or certainly art professors) lean in to the depth and mystery of the process, because that’s where most of us get our satisfaction.
Sure, we occasionally get the accolades, or make a little money, but for the most part, being an artist is about developing your creativity, and creative strategies to feel OK in the world.
Or, if you’re very lucky, to actually feel good!
(Image courtesy of Michael Dill Action Coach)
One of the things I love about blogging is thoughts, in the form of articles, connect together over time.
Themes emerge.
Having taught art as long as I have, (including within traumatized communities,) I’ve seen first-hand how expressive outlets help people.
Expressive outlets?
What are we even talking about?
All people have feelings and emotions. They’re the body’s mechanism for communicating with itself. But if the “feeling” comes into the heart, or the chest, some people are automatically dubious, while if the “feeling” comes into the brain, via “thoughts,” they’ll trust implicitly.
It’s why artists are often called too “emotional” or “sensitive,” because certain people think the brain is better than the body.
As if the brain isn’t a part of an interconnected system, filled with fluids and energy transfers and neural pathways?
Most average Americans couldn’t tell you three parts of the brain, IF THEIR LIVES DEPENDED ON IT, but they’ll dismiss people for living too much in their feelings.
(Image courtesy of Wikipedia) Fucking idiots.
I started writing today because I had to.
My life is good, sure, but we all have stress and drama, and IMO, due to the pandemic, we all have some version of PTSD too.
But since I’m trained up, I knew that I HAD to write.
This blog is my art.
It helps me be OK.
And if, as a byproduct, it helps you feel OK too, that would be the best possible outcome.
Catch you next week!
Billy Bones says, “Hello!”
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Birth of the Dragon
Bruce Lee is a legend.
You don’t need me to tell you that.
He’s also been dead for 50 years, yet is the titular head of a commercial empire that sells merch, and develops programming, like the ESPN documentary “Be Water.”
I’m not saying it’s a lucky legacy though, because the wealth and fame still didn’t offer Bruce, or his son Brandon, long and healthy lives.
Both died tragically, young, in service of their film careers.
Brandon Lee in “The Crow,” (image courtesy of Cinemablend) In the brief time he was super-famous, making films, Bruce created enough impact that people still invoke his name, daily, all over the world.
Hell, I follow his account on IG and Twitter, and as I said, HE’S BEEN DEAD FOR 50 YEARS.
How is this possible?
As usual in America, it’s all about the money.
Today, though, we’re going to talk (briefly) about China.
Because that’s where funding originated for the martial arts film, “Birth of the Dragon,” from 2016, which I just watched on Netflix.
(Image courtesy of Movies Anywhere) It’s not a good movie, (in the traditional sense,) but like “Hero,” (one if the best films of all time,) this story had some serious PRC propaganda undertones.
Enough that it’s worth writing about.
To be clear, (my favorite phrase,) Hollywood has been promoting “American values” across the world for a century.
I’m not the type to think it’s cool if we do it, and awful if they do it, so it won’t be that kind of article.
Still, I find it fascinating.
While Jason Scott Lee did a great job playing Young Bruce in the 90’s flick, “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story,” that version of events was supported by the Lee family.
Jason Scott Lee in “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story,” (image courtesy of Letterboxd) This one was not, and it’s easy to see why: it casts him as a puppet of Mainland Chinese Taoist philosophy.
In reality, Bruce Lee was (slightly) Caucasian, and grew up a star in Hong Kong, before moving to America.
As the man who made Kung Fu globally famous, (mostly posthumously,) Bruce represented American values: flash, style, individuality, and arrogance.
He was such a cocky guy, Quentin Tarantino even satirized it in “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” for he was criticized for being culturally insensitive. (I happen to agree, though it was an electric scene.)
Cliff Booth fights Bruce Lee in Quentin Tarantino’s imagination (image courtesy of Variety)
In “Birth of the Dragon,” the story created a highly fictionalized version of a supposed true story, as it does not seem to match with recorded history.
(Hence my accusation of propaganda.)
The subtext is that only a properly modest, humble Shaolin monk, from Northern China, could teach Bruce Lee how to grow up enough, (maturity-wise,) to handle his burgeoning responsibility.
That’s the whole message.
The Mainland monk comes to San Francisco, and grinds some Chinese philosophical wisdom into Bruce, (without his knowledge, because the Monk is that smooth.)
Then once he’s done his job, he leaves.
The meta-message is encoded in a story in which they created a fictitious, handsome-blonde-white-guy character, (VERY loosely based on Steve McQueen,) to keep the American viewer sitting still, while they endure the lesson:
Brash America will not win!
China has spent thousands of years accruing wisdom, so, as usual, the young upstart is fucked.
Obviously, no American would sit through a film with that as the main theme, so they snuck it in the back door.
Rotten Tomatoes and all the critics hate this film.
It’s supposed to be awful.
But I enjoyed it.
Great fight choreography, and the Shaolin monk, played by Xia Yu, is so damn likable.
They did a great job shining up their values, but having studied Kung Fu for years, what they discuss in this film is real.
Martial arts are about personal development.
Even more than fighting, or being tough.
It’s a lesson my Kung Fu Big Brother, Dave Duran, tried to teach me, over and over, the last year before he died.
Dave, Summer 2021 It’s all about inner discipline.
If we can’t learn to handle our temper and our emotions, which reside in our body, how can we expect handle things in the wider world?
If we can’t keep our center, when stress builds in training, how will we expect to succeed when life throws its best punch?
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Life is Really Fucking Hard
Being honest is so hard.
It kind of sucks. (If I’m being honest.)
You know what else is hard?
Life in the 2020’s.
Most of the time, people just don’t want to hear it. That’s why we live with trigger warnings, and impossible communication chasms.
(Not that I haven’t appreciated, or given, trigger warnings in the past.)
It’s why we live in a world with terms like “post-truth” or “alternative facts.”
Man, for all the shit I gave Derrida back in grad school, the dude was spot on.
Courtesy of Prospect Magazine Jacque, I apologize!
Je regrette!
Lo siento!
You were right about almost everything.
Denial, or cognitive dissonance, is super-popular these days, as a life-coping strategy.
If something is too hard, rather than being honest, and trying to find a solution, just pretend the problem isn’t there.
Climate Change, Climate Schmange!
It’s a hoax!
You don’t want to wear a mask during a pandemic, just say they don’t work.
Or if your preferred Presidential candidate loses, just say he won.
Basically, Trumpism can be boiled down to a simple children’s game: I’m rubber, your glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks onto you!
Don’t like what someone thinks? Say it back to them. Deny it.
(Gaslight the fuck out of them, my dude.)
My Conservative brother, (from whom I am currently estranged,) once told me he learned the concept from his Frat buddies in Boulder.
If you’re ever challenged about something you did, that was really bad, just deny it to the death.
That was the phrase he used.
“Deny it to the Death.”
K9 Denying Death sticker, courtesy of Ready Warrior.com Doesn’t that sound like the refrain of the hundreds of thousands of people who perished, because they refused the Covid vaccine?
They literally denied it to death.
(Not a metaphor.)
All because “reality,” in the 2020’s, is too hard for almost everyone to take.
Addiction is another human response to unending stress trauma. So what did we do, as a society?
We criminalized it!
The whole world has PTSD, because it was a global pandemic.
Are we really surprised the bonds of polite society have frayed?
That everyday life now feels like a battle in il Colosseo?
il Colosseo, image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons Enough intellectual contortions.
Life is fucking hard!
And nobody is going to care about you, unless you cultivate the relationships.
I’m currently working on that part, because I realized I don’t have enough support, for how challenging life is.
It’s another one of those core lessons that’s too easy to forget:
If you want to receive, first you must give.
Looks like I just broke Klopp’s brain with my wisdom.
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Photobook Review: Liam Ricketts
Few signs (or symbols) have inherent meaning.
Off the top of my head, I can think of only the most basic shapes, and probably a star.
+ can be understood as a crossroads, or intersection point, because two lines literally cross.
o, if we view it as a circle, references continuity, or a complete whole.
Stars twinkle, but that’s about it.
Swastikas once represented the four directions, in multiple indigenous cultures, but were appropriated to mean something very different.
Himalayan Buddhist Swastika, courtesy of Tricycle Magazine For the most part, signs and symbols acquire meaning through human endeavor.
An elongated cross comes to represent The Crucifixion, and then Christianity itself.
$ would be meaningless, without the value of the US currency to make it important, and the list goes on.
But why am I on about this today?
Fair question.
This morning, I read a WaPo article about how screwed Adidas is, b/c they’re still sitting on $500 million worth of “worthless” Kanye West shoes.
I’m a fan of Adidas, as we wear a lot of 3 stripes in this house, but I’m also vaguely aware that maybe the company was once home to Nazis?
I totally understand how the Germans need to distance themselves, as much as possible, from the living spout of antisemitism that is the corporeal body once known as Kanye West.
Damn, man, we can’t even enjoy “Golddigger” anymore.
How about you keep my people’s name out of your motherf-cking mouth, and we call it a day?
What do you say, Kanye?
As to Adidas, any world in which those shoes don’t end up on the feet of shoeless people is not a world we’re going to live in.
Trust me.
They won’t burn them.
The good PR value of helping those who need it, or the quiet secondary market sale to TJ Maxx, will be too enticing.
But why am I on about Adidas today, beyond the fact that they make Arsenal’s kit?
Again, fair question.
We did some massive cleaning and decluttering, in the new year.
I’ve come to accept we must clear out the old, before anything new arrives, and boy, did burning old bills, and shredding old bank statements, feel good. It also helped me find a thing or two that had been lost. Including a photo book submission that arrived in 2017.
2017!
It slipped into a box in which it didn’t belong, and disappeared.
But that’s why Sunshine and Olly was created. (At first.) So I could honor the photo book submissions, after I left APE.
Obviously, I could rectify the situation, and emailed the photographer immediately.
Liam Ricketts seemed amused I’d reach out six years later, (via the internets,) but I was amused his newsletter was vacuum-sealed, included a sticker that says “TRUST ME DADDY,” and was addressed to Jonathan “Bossman” Blaustein.
My attention is yours now, sir!
Liam seems to have moved from England, when he sent this, to Amsterdam, and then on Los Angeles.
Anyway, this little yellow offering is cool, sleek, fun, and self-aware.
But it’s also kind of spon-con.
Or is it?
Liam is a commercial photographer, working with huge sportswear brands and music labels.
It opens with some funny commentary about shooting Emre Can, (who was then at Liverpool,) and Leroy Sane, (then at Manchester City,) while they’re repping Nike.
Cool hair indeed, Emre and Leroy!
We’ve got Nike, Adidas and New Balance here, the biggest brands there are.
But I didn’t feel like I was looking at ads, because they’ve been decontextualized.
Rather, (and I know photographers send out promos all the time,) the symbols could be read as corporate logos, when I looked through one eye, and just adornments to portraits and action shots, if I looked through the other.
Same with the Yankee hat the skater kid wears at the end.
I hate the Yankees.
(Or at least I used to, growing up.)
But I also met Reggie Jackson at Yankee Spring Training, when I was about 4, and got his autograph.
He was my favorite player, until my Dad told me our family would be Mets fans.
So then I hated the Yankees.
These signs and symbols are of our own making.
Which is why art is such a powerful profession, even if the pay is shit.
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Elon Musk is Not Your Friend
I took the weekend off from social media.
(And from checking the blog.)
That used to be my regular pattern, as I’d ditch email/ social media each evening at 5pm, and every weekend.
Before the pandemic.
It was another era, as we all know, but given how quickly life got back to its patterns, (when the masks came off,) I’m not sure how many of us even consider the difference anymore?
For a long while, it was normal to refer to the before times. As if everyone on Earth were playing by an accepted set of rules: there was a way of life, pre-Covid, and then what came next.
Given that it’s still a question in the media, TODAY, whether the entire planetary catastrophe originated in a Chinese bio-lab, I think it’s fair to say we’re not behind it yet. We’re still in it.
Which means it’s not yet possible to know what the after-times will be.
I know one thing though: I’m not going back to using Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on the weekends anymore.
Today’s WaPo. Elon Musk is NOT your friend.
Lately, I’ve been feeling distracted.
And I couldn’t figure out why.
Last Monday, I wrote a post here about how I felt lonely sometimes. Lonely in a way I didn’t enjoy. That felt wrong, and unsustainable.
What could I do?
At some point, late last week, the knowledge settled in my stomach. But then it jumped, like a kicking baby, and gave me a message I couldn’t miss.
On Friday, at 9:30pm, I saw a tweet, and even though it had nothing to do with me directly, I’m enough a member of the media that I had personal connections to the missive. It gave me a stress trigger, right then and there.
Ooof.
So I asked myself, why am I checking Twitter at 9:30 on a Friday night?
I never used to do that.
Why now?
And the answer was, I’d convinced myself the weak-tie bonds, the quick jolt of energy we get from a like, or a reply, had come to stand in for actual human relations.
Should I say it aloud?
When someone likes your IG post, or you trade comments with a stranger, or even someone you know, it’s simply not the equivalent of going for a walk with a mate.
Or having dinner with family.
I took that unfortunate, night-tweet-trigger as a sign, and decided, for certain, I’d cut out social media this weekend, to see how it felt.
So what happened?
Jessie and I went to town on Saturday, to see an art exhibit, and discover the Taos Winter Market. We walked around. Met some new people. She got a Frito pie, for $7, which was all the cash I had on me.
Then yesterday, we went in again for errands.
We talked to each other.
It was lovely. (Even errands!)
This morning, I picked up one of the all-time great books, “The Hero with a Thousands Faces,” by Joseph Campbell, and found some inspiration. Reading genius on paper is so pleasurable! And it gave me the juice to write this positive post.
Marvel’s Black Panther culturally appropriated from the Sioux?
Distraction sucks.
Scrolling on social media, with all the flashing light, and video movement, is inherently distracting. It leaves us a husk, instead of the tamale filling.
So I stopped scrolling.
Instead, I googled the word Dignity, as it came up in an article I read about Jonathan Majors, in the Guardian, and then again in some show I was watching with Helen Mirren.
Apparently, dignity is different from respect, as the latter has to be earned, and the former is bestowed at birth.
Who knew there was even a difference?
I do.
I know now.
Because I finally accepted that social media is not a positive influence, (in the main,) and we need to be very careful when we play with fire.
(Shout out to Lily Allen!)
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What Do You Want?
What do you want?
Out of life?
Out of yourself?
Out of this blog?
Are you asking these questions?
If not, I’d recommend you start.
Call it manifesting, or visualizing.
The first photo on a Google Image search for “Manifesting.” (Courtesy of Vox.com and Getty.) Call it asking for help for the Universe, prayer, or self-actualization.
Call it what you like.
But if there’s one thing you’ve learned from Sunshine and Olly so far, (I’d hope,) it’s that I keep it real.
(Which means I live by the advice I dispense.)
That’s the root of authenticity, so I’m told.
I wasn’t even sure I wanted to start this blog, until I decided to do it.
But when I’m in, I’m all in.
And what have I noticed so far?
My greatest wish has already come true.
I hoped that by starting to write three, four, and five times a week, I’d build stronger brain-muscles.
It seems to be happening.
Though I used to think my weekly APE column kept me in creative shape, this is so much better.
Shorter posts.
No need to be discursive, because I don’t have to always circle back to photography.
Sunshine and Olly is my art, right now. (Along with writing my first novel.)
I’m doing it for me, but since a global audience has mushroomed in the past three weeks, it’s not just about me.
Is it?
It’s also about you.
Like it or not, a readership is a community.
But not one that often has opportunities to connect with itself.
Some creators enable an audience to learn about other members. To cross-pollinate, or allow tentacle formation.
Maybe that will happen here?
Maybe it won’t.
But I’d like to get to the point today, so here it is.
You came here of your own free will.
Nobody’s making you listen to me.
If I have any previously developed street-cred with you, or if you’re a new reader, I’ll still ask the same thing.
Please use this blog launch as inspiration.
Doing hard, scary things, is hard and scary.
Sunshine, breaking through the frozen ice, to see what was underneath. The payoff to challenging ourselves, though, is immense.
In my (nearly) 49 years on Earth, I’ve learned that nothing that comes easy has the same value.
We all wish for easy, sometimes, but it doesn’t get the job done.
Growth requires bravery and risk.
(Would that it were different, but it’s not.)
Catch you next time, and please subscribe to the blog, if you’d like to receive it directly in your email inbox.
Ciao!
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