Zip a dee doo da

I have a fucking digital camera. A nice one too, goddammit.
Not some piece of shit digital camera you can purchase
from one of those guys that sells tennis shoes and
alien-shaped balloons in the parking lots of closed
gas stations. Man, am I broke now.

I spent yesterday photographing my co-workers. I
am a little surprised I didn't get a email from the
boss lady that contained a message ordering me
to leave my digital camera at home from now on.
I need to do some kind of photography project.
Since I work downtown I can do a gallery of
homeless guys but then I would have to interact
with them and I don't know if I'm ready for that.

I think I'll put together a little photo album of
people I know and see, photos from my walks
during lunch and just whatever else catches my
eye during the day. It'll give me something to do
with all that space going to waste at Roadrunner.

Memory Lane

Around five years ago or so my friend Jeff called me up and
said, "Let's go to Georgia and buy some lottery tickets." I
don't remember if I was on vacation and lazing around the
apartment or if I just had a three-day weekend but I was
free and said, "Sure, I ain't doin' nothin.'"

He came by my place and we hopped in my dearly departed
1986 gray-silver Honda Accord and got on I-85 and headed
toward the Georgia border.

We made it to the Georgia border in a few hours and
purchased the lottery tickets. Jeff then noticed that
Royston, GA was just 30 miles down the road. Located
in Royston is Ty Cobb's tomb. What the hell, we thought,
it's not that far away. So we depart for Royston, GA.

Finding Ty Cobb's tomb in Royston was easy since there
were signs directing you to the graveyard which housed
the tomb. The tomb it self was anticlimatic.
What struck me most about the whole experience was
the town. The graveyard was bordered on one side
by a railroad track. On one side of the tracks the town
was mostly white and middle class. On the side of the tracks
the graveyard was on the residents were mostly black
and definately not middle class. I had heard of the phrase
"wrong side of the tracks" but I had never seen it displayed
so before.

While driving around Royston we noticed that Athens was
only about 30 miles away and we had heard that Athens
was a good place to go and get drunk. We figured, what
the hell, it's not that far away...

Take a giant step

Over the pass few months I've actually saved some money.
I have mentioned several times to many people of my
intentions of taking a trip to New York City during my
upcoming vacation. After taking stock of my work
clothes, underwear, casual clothing and my lack of
a digital camera I am considering not going New
York City and spending all that money that could
go towards the aforementioned items.

Comrades

After posting that picture of me the other day I naturally looked
through all the photographs I took when we did that month of
training in Honduras. I shot a total of 4 rolls of film with a cheap
point and shoot camera that a buddy of mine stole from a
colonel's wife during the drunken debauchery that is a ball
for the Marine Corps birthday. Not only did he steal but the
son of a bitch sold it to me instead of just making a gift of it
like I would have. Still, I got it for less than fifty percent
retail so I can't complain too much.

The group photo I am posting today is a shot of the
communications platoon of the headquarters company
of battalion 2/9 of the Fifth Marines Regiment which
is in the First Marines Division. In other words it's a
photo of about 30 hungover Marine radio operators
and wiremen.

Every time I look at this photograph I laugh or smile
quietly to myself. In the center of the picture you
will see a Marine wearing his helmet and flak jacket
and standing at rigid attention while everyone around
him appears dishevelled and anything but gung-ho.
I've talked about him before, his name is Cale Johnson
and I haven't seen him since we both got out of the
service in 1990.

The reason he is doing what he is doing is that the
day before we had returned from spending three
weeks in the field in Honduras. The whole time we
were there it was over a hundred degrees every
day and no one had had a touch of alcohol and
we had hot food maybe twice. Spend three weeks
in the service sober and eathing nothing but MRE's
and you'll go a little nutso. Naturally when we got
back we all went out and got shnockered.

Everyone was hungover and the way Cale and I
dealt with playing Marine while miserable was to
turn the sarcasm knob up to 11. In charge during
that holidy in Honduras was the Regimental commander
who was a colonel bucking for general that had this
thing for making us wear our flak jackets all the time.
Cale and I countered that by wearing our helmets
also and extorting our comrades to "tighten it up"
and act like Marines. This only went on for about
half and hour because our hangovers were too
oppressive for continuous jocularity. Nevetheless
every time I see Cale standing at attention with
his helmet and flack jacket while those around
him lollygag the incongruity of his pose slays me.

You go, Hal!

"I believe from the bottom of my non-partisan heart that the George Bush wolfpack is the most dangerous, least honorable, least sensible gang of thugs and cynics that ever aimed America's Big Gun at a trembling planet."

Thanks to Tom Tomorrow for this link.

Marine picture again

Ok, now you can see the picture from 1989.
I am 21 years old and in Honduras here.

A short list of candidates for the presidency that are more qualified that the current president

Clenis

One of those kids not left behind

Richard Nixon’s re-animated corpse

An infinite number of monkeys

A finite number of sea cucumbers

A magic 8-ball

The cast of “Friends”

Nora Dunn

My left testicle

A cabal of houseplants

A bible concordance

A three-legged poodle called Socrates

Bob Dole

Homogenization, not completely Satanic

All those chain stores in your neighborhood may be
unsightly, they may be threatening local businesses
but they are making my job easier.

Let's say some business sleaze ball opens up a much
needed Palm Beach Tan in your town and you can't
find it in the phone book because the book hasn't
been updated yet. Heck, call your library! The
librarian, being an expert at searching, will go to
the franchise's webpage and see if they have a
store locator. They do and voila! I can find the Palm
Beach Tan closest to my home.

And he asks for a rope and a pen that will write

Hmmmm...does this sound like fun or torture?

Daily Show

Last night Wendell and I watched the
Daily Show for the first time in a couple
of weeks last night. For those of you
that don't know this show is hosted
by John Stewart and is broadcast
Monday through Thursday on Comedy
Central.

In my opinion it is consistantly the funniest
show on television right now. Last night
they covered the press conference by Bush
and just ripped him a new asshole on national
TV. It was brilliant, biting and laugh-out-loud
funny. I was on the couch howling. I know
the public speaking ability of our embarrassing
president is pretty easy material but, dang, it
sure was funny.

I don't have a lot to say about this show, I am
not a media critic and don't have the vocabulary
to articulate the particulars of good comedy but
if by some happenstance anyone who is associated
with the show comes across this blog let me say
that there is nothing on television right now that
makes me laugh non-stop for ten minutes. You
guys are brilliant.