Pictures Sound Better with You

My friend Kevin has taken to naming my photos on Instagram .  His method is simply taking the name of the song he is currently listening to and then posting it into the comments when a photograph of mine catches his attention . I had never given my photographs names in the past - they are generally titled after the models that appear in them or simply "untitled" when a name is forgotten (for better or for worse). My reason for never giving them more then that is I did not want to influence anyone viewing my work into seeing something definitive . Knowing only what I was seeing when I looked through the lens it surprises me that the titles he gives them are generally so spot-on ;  Amy's blonde curls illuminating yellow in foggy sunlight ("Conjure") ,  Brandy's mind is somewhere else while her head lies resting in an angel's lap ("We Knew Him Well") , and Everett's ability to open one eye as the water pulses down on his naked body ("Teach The Blind To See").
     

  More uncannily, these descriptions are made by a man who I have known for only a year , and one that I am limited to only having brief conversations with . The main things we discuss are music, art and Cacey, the incredible woman we both love .  Knowing full well that these are three subjects that can be endlessly discussed we avoid getting off track with other subjects .We undoubtedly have other passions like books , movies and television but we both know there is not enough time in this life to even begin those subjects. When we talk , I can feel like a child  who just came home from a trip to Disney World  .
       ".. And I saw Mickey , Goofy and Donald and I rode Splash Mountain and Teacups and I ate candy and saw Stitch and rode on Haunted Mansion and I wasn't scared and......." I say without catching my breath even once.
         To be fair , this is what I sound like as an adult who just came home from Disney World but , my enthusiasm is met by his own.It is likely that enthusiasm that allows me to do exactly what I was preventing others from doing , letting a verbal passage guide my thoughts to see something that may or may not be there. Kevin marrying my images to music resulted in an inspired image I created that could probably pass as an album sleeve for a new wave act from the nineteen -eighties. Written in Japanese , it roughly translates to "I want my pictures to sound like music", which is to say, hear what you want to hear but feel every beat.

The Golden Age

I hate to sound like an old man but things were just better when cereal came with prizes, McDonald's fries were cooked in animal grease and the sex scenes in porn had a thin plot line to tie them together. The last time I watched a new adult film , there was no plot at all, just a series of woman with shaved vaginas pouting their lips for the camera. In the eighties , pouting was generally reserved for pretty boys wearing make-up in music videos not pretty girls wearing whore make-up in porn videos.  The film was a huge departure from what I consider to be the "golden" era of porn - there was beautiful lighting, ambient music , gorgeous cinematography and everyone pouting appeared to have escaped any previous physical scarring, cesarean or otherwise. The thing is, I don't want to see, let alone pay for, an adult film with high production standards. The way I see it there should never be high standards of any kind  in an adult film. 

        After a few years of watching scrambled porn for hours for a chance at the sight of a boob,  God took pity on me and my family got Showtime . Suddenly,  I was blessed to be able to watch "Lady Chatterly's stories" with the sound off in the middle of the night with my door locked.  The best I could hope for  back then was to see a breast , ass or on a better 3 a.m. viewing a mound of pubes. This was of course, during the dark ages, years before genitals were ever shown on television, especially men's genitals. Sure , you could see Christopher Atkin's cock in "A Night In Heaven" for 2 seconds but , you paid for it by having to watch "A Night In Heaven" with Christopher Atkins. I think I was twenty when I was at my parent's house watching television late one night with my dad  when "Prospero's Books" , a cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare's"The Tempest" came on. My father was asleep on his couch , loudly snoring and my mother and baby brother were asleep in their rooms . I will be first to admit that the only movie had previously seen with John Gielgud was "Arthur" and the only Shakespeare I ever attempted to watch before was on an unbearable episode of "The Cosby Show" , but neither of those had gratuitous nudity in them.   I must have been so mesmerized  by all the penises on the screen that I didn't hear my father's snoring stop . 

        "Well, you don't normally see those on television!" He said, knocking me out of my trance and causing me to instinctively flip the channel to a rerun of "Cheers" .      
         "Look! Shelly Long's on!" I squealed , realizing too late that I sounded way more excited about that then maybe I should have been.

          Sometime during the years between Shelly Long and Christopher Atkin's long cock , I set out on a mission to get my hands on some hardcore  gay pornography . My grandfather's basement was filled with straight pornography thanks to one fateful day when he actually dumpster dived to rescue a generous collection of skin magazines , so I had that angle already covered. A gay classmate of mine let me use him as a reference to get some videos from an older gay boy at my high school  who we will call "O".  Arriving at his home , "O" greeted me at the door wearing only a white bathrobe.  Because "O" was a darkly complected black teenager , and for whatever reason I was choosing to ignore he was keeping his house unlit, the white robe flitted around the living room like some sort of gay ghost . When asked by "O" what sort of gay films I was interested in borrowing , I asked him to explain what choices I had. 

          "Large black bottoms , black and white swirl, blonde bubble-butted boys......" He said , nearly moaning as he spoke.
          "Blonde bubble butt boys !" I interrupted , as though I had an opportunity to watch Shelly Long in something. 

           The movies were something of legend to me for years to come. I remembered everyone in these movies being blonde , even the few black people.  I was astonished that all the men in the film considered themselves straight , mentioning girlfriends and even sometimes being seen with them before participating in deviant gay sex acts with other men. There was even what might have been considered product placement for it's day  with a pair of fundies ( underwear built for two) that was used in a key plot line where a soldier carrying the fundies home on furlough with two of his army buddies wind up trying them out ahead of time on a dare. I won't spoil what happens next for you because hearing this much of the plot is what has you interested. Watching the events that lead up to the big moment is just like eating that cereal  you don't really care for to get to that prize you really want  - to sit through scrambled porn to see that second of boob or to sit through "A Night In Heaven" to see 2 seconds of Christopher Atkin's cock. The one thing it is not like is Shelly Long , who I always find delightful.

Refoccussing

   I asked my brother this morning over the phone "Have you ever stood in the shower so long you actually peed twice?"

   "Oooh exactly how bored are you staying at home everyday?" he replied.

   Unfortunately, he was completely right -I am bored. When I had first received severance from my job of 18 years , I looked at as a restart on my life. In my mind, I would eventually find another full-time job but for now I would only have my part-time one, and this would allow me the time to focus on far more important projects . First I finished the book of "Nancy" comic strips I was reading completely too soon, but how could you not? I then managed to see every show on Hulu , and Netflix that I was ever either completely interested in watching , or not at all interested in watching ,in their entirety . Finally I removed all the photographs, maps and souvenirs from the huge bag it had been stored in to finally make that Disney-themed scrapbook I decided to make years ago , right before gathering all that shit right back up into the same bag and tucking it away for the next time I become so depressed that I turn to scrap-booking.

   Putting the scissors down and stepping away from them I picked up my cell phone instead. I can remember a time where I was repulsed by the idea that I could own a device that allowed people to actually get a hold of me , but of course this was years before the inventions of texting and social media where people would only want to know your whereabouts so they could actually avoid those personal interactions with you in a much more civilized way.  These days I treat my smart phone like a little boy who just discovered he has a penis , and am constantly pulling it out to play with it. My habit is to check Facebook, lock my phone , put it away, then immediately pull it back out as soon as it hits the bottom lining of my pocket. I am always reminded what I have done as soon as I see the most current post in my news feed is the same one I saw a second earlier but it still is likely to be the one I see again a second from now. By chance I check Instagram instead of Facebook , I can be thrown into a surreal loop where images seem both familiar and strange.'Wait - why can't I make this picture bigger?!? " I gasp , while staring at the Instagram picture that I had previously seen on FB . "I swear I was able to see a bra laying on the floor in the background of their selfie a minute ago , but now I can't ?!? What the hell is happening??!!?" .

   I actually saw a friend's nipple exposed in her profile picture , and like a good friend I was sure to tell her immediately after I saved the picture to my computer. I am not sure how details like this get overlooked. I was a photographer long before digital came along, so I always knew to really choose my shots carefully - not so much because of the expense of using film but because I knew in the end I would be presenting the models with a contact sheet that documented the shoot in detail , and I wanted it to read like a beautiful story. Nowadays , I  try less to create a moment then to simply just capture one , and this means taking several shots at a time and editing later. This is why I will have fifty-seven pictures of my cat sleeping and I manage to find each one individually adorable despite the fact that they are completely identical to one another.

   Maybe I am confused about all this and I should just enjoy this moment in time before a new job changes everything. Maybe, this is the time to look at the details closer then before. Maybe I should just enjoy watching my cat sleep and my friend's nipple hang out. But right now I could use another shower -  just a quick one this time.