I like cars! (or) More proof that I'm an American. (American cars edition.)

I really do like cars.  I find so much charming and excellent about them that I easily overlook their most egregious faults.  You know the ones, the killing the environment and negatively impacting our quality of life in a real and visceral sense.  I'm gonna ignore those faults.  Not to mention that driving them, the cars not the faults, can be dangerous, aggravating and promotes laziness, a lack of exercise and helps cement our place in the world as fat, over-privileged, natural resource hoarding assholes.

It's 1972 again! Somerville, MA 5/12.

But dude, tell me you can look at that car and not get all misty eyed and irrational!  So what if I can't can't tell a spanner from a spaniel!  I just know that if I found a sweet fixer-upper I could learn to become a crackerjack mechanic in no time at all!  And after I was done getting the engine and suspension squared away I'd make a temporary paint-shop in my driveway like this guy did and finish the job right!

Mass Ave Matchbox, Cambridge, MA 5/12.

Ok.  Maybe I am delusional.  After all I really don't know much about the inner workings of an automobile, simple or complex.  Just ask my girl-friend who thought I was lying to her when she asked me what kind of oil her car took and I said, "Uh...huh?  I dunno."  Beyond, push right pedal down go fast, push other pedal down go slow, all I really know is what colors I like and that American cars have sucked for, like, ever.  

These American cars do not suck.  At least they don't suck to look at.  And I bet they don't suck to drive as long as you don't have to turn very much.  And I know they sound damn hot.

Sharing the Sidewalk, Chelsea, NY 1/12.  

For me cars represent potential (I, too, could be mechanically talented!)and fantasy (Race-car drivers are so dreamy and macho!  I drive cars too.  Am I dreamy and macho?)and a connection to a glorious past that I struggle to find true connection with.  My dad *Madmen alert!* used to work on his cars in the driveway in his jeans (for weekends only) a white t-shirt (called an undershirt back then) with a beer close-by and a working knowledge of all the tools in the box.  There was probably a transistor radio mumbling the play-by-play of some game in the background competing with the drone of a few lawn mowers being piloted by dads in distant yards.  I was like an electron circling the whatever an electron circles, bouncing around the driveway, the garage, the backyard, with excitement until that magic moment when he pulled himself out from under the car and while wiping his hands off on a dingy towel he'd survey his work as if he could see through metal.  He'd take a long pull from his can of Budweiser (the KING(!) of beers) like a performer cranking up the drama before settling into the groan of the drivers seat to turn the key and prove yet again that he was a wizard.  

The suspense was delicious and safe.  I knew that darn car was going to not only start but after the back-fires settled and the exhaust cleared it would purr like it had the day it rolled off the assembly line.  

Jacked Nova, Los Angeles, CA 3/12.

And it usually did.  Try telling an 8 year old kid that's not magic, and not powerful, and not proof that his dad has some kind of super-powers.

So yes, cars are a powerful image holder for me and as such I take a lot of pictures of cars of all types and in all conditions.  I've had fun driving and admiring the ugliest shit-boxes to the swankiest of the swanky and honestly I've found fun and personality in all of them. 

California Convertible, La Jolla, CA 3/12.

Some are easier to love than others of course but as long as they don't strand you on the side of some forsaken highway in the rain they all have their charms.  Plus all of them, no matter how humble, go vroom-vroom if you roll up the windows and make the noise with your mouth as you step on the gas.  And that sounds frickin' awesome.

Sad Face, Somerville, MA 1/12

I say goodbye for now with one last photo of a car so damn hot that it melts many parts of me simultaneously.  My eyes, my heart and my brain all succumb to it's automotive charms, not to mention my loins.  Speaking of, as always, touching the photos makes them bigger.  If only everything reacted thusly.

Too Darn Hot, Somerville, MA 10/11.

Yummy!

Moving pictures or Planes, Train (Boats) and Automobiles.

Ok.  This is bordering on ridiculous.  Here it is 3 months after my last post and I'm wondering where-oh-where has the last quarter year gone?  Two posts a week?  More like 2 a year.  Sigh.  Self-discipline thy name sure as shite ain't Wham Art.  Oh well.  Nuthin' fer it but to git back on that horse and ride it hard until its shoes fall off and it need to be put down due to exhaustion and dehydration.  Or sumthin' like that.  I'll be right back.  I need to find my 6-shooter just in case.


Certain themes in my work come to my attention as I comb through the archives.  Sometimes I realize things like, "Huh. I take a lot of pictures out of the windows of moving things."  So then I gather them all together and look at what I've got.  This entry showcases some of a group of pics I'm working on recently.


I'm not always piloting these machines, in fact, I really do try and be as safe as possible while still being true to the artists' creedo, "Nothing, not even the safety of innocent bystanders, is more important than expressing my personal vision that teeters on that sublime edge between genius and, uh, super-genius."


I love that creedo.  Also, no horses were hurt in the creation of this blog entry.

"Bridges of Whatever County Philadelphia is in"

4/2012

I shot this, obviously, while hanging on to the fuselage of a plane as it was about to abort it's first landing attempt in Philadelphia (the second attempt was successful!  Yay!).  I do like shooting out of an airplane's window for a couple of reasons.  One of course is that I like to use my unapproved electronic device at times when I'm not supposed to be using it.  It helps me tap into my inner rebel to not follow the rules on purpose.  Hey, I'm smashing the state from the inside one tiny little brick at a time.  The second reason is that it still tickles me to be hurtling through the sky in an aluminum tube with a few jets strapped to it hoping to arrive alive.  In that last sentence feel free to replace "tickles" with "scares the ever-lovin' crap out of".  Taking pictures out of the window helps to distract me from being terrified.

Red Boathouse, Lake Julia.

4/2012

I went to Minnesota last month to see some dear friends.  As we tend to do as a group we had a very aggressive good time which had a profound effect on both my mental and physical state.  This pic was snapped (pressed?) from a moving boat.  As in the case of shooting from the airplane window to keep myself from freaking out, I was shooting from the boat to keep myself from throwing up and befouling the pristine waters of Lake Julia one of 10,000 or so lakes/ponds that clutter the otherwise lovely landscape of this most friendly state.  It worked.

Another Motherscratchin' Water Tower, MN.

4/2012

Looking back at my photos from Minnesota I realized I had a zillion lot of shots of water towers.  It got me thinking: does Minnesota have more than it's fair share or can you just see them all at the same time because it's so darn flat out there?  It would seem to me that a state that claims to have so many damn lakes and other waterways should have less need of water towers.  This, however, was not the case.  Oh Minnesota!  You have confounded me yet again!  This one was shot out of the right-hand (passenger) side of the car I was traveling in at what I conservatively estimate to be 70mph.  Sometimes you compose a shot for minutes at a time and you are still left wanting.  Sometimes you stick your camera up and press the shutter release button and you get lucky.

Red Light Motorcycle Man, Cambridge, MA.

5/2012

Ok.  I was driving, or at least in the driving position, when I took this picture.  I just liked how everything lined up so I felt compelled to not deny the world yet another slice of my vision.  My motorcycle riding friends had a lot of constructive criticism for this guy ranging from the practical and helpful (Riding in the rain can be fun but keep it under 55...) to the snarky and catty (He's not in gear at a red-light...he looks like a shlub.)  It did take him a beat or two to get going once the light turned green.  I appreciated his gear-finding pause more than the guy behind me, Mr. Quick Horn, because it allowed me more time to gaze lovingly at the beautiful work I had just created using only my brain and my phone.  I'm heavily into simplicity.

Gas station. Night. Rain.  Somerville, MA.

5/2012

Again from the passenger side, this is another example of press and pray.  Sometimes you get a blur that looks like a blur.  At other times you get a blur that, once you tell people what it is, it becomes clear that you are not only a genius but something of an expert in blur-analysis.  This is also an example of a work of art with an obtuse title that may have nothing at all to do with what the subject of the image is.  That always drove me crazy until I started giving my images titles.  Now it makes me smile smugly.  

I'll end with another rainy, night shot yet again taken as a passenger in a moving car.  Many thanks to my drivers, my camera and my big, beautiful brain...and of course you dear reader without whom this would be a big exercise in self uh congratulation.  You are out there right?  RIGHT?!?

Rainy Night Tunnel, Boston.

5/2012

The fact that this one looks like a painting of the Leroy Neiman school really tickles me to no end.  And really, thanks for reading/looking.  As always clicking on the pics makes them bigger.  Go on, no one's looking.  Do it.