(See what I am saying?)

Danny's New Nickname:

He walked into my office with a plastic tupperware bowl covered with saran wrap, secured with a red rubber band. In his other hand was a 1 1/2" paint brush.

"Hey man." he said happily in his mild hispanic accent. "bet you don't remember my name."

"Sure I do, Danny. How's it going?" i answered.

It is common knowledge that the most important person at any corporate, private, or academic establishment is the maintenance man. In my family, it is a rule, almost a tradition, to get to know- and work with- the janitors and maintenance people quite closley. Some of my fondest memories and most important education of my youth took place waxing high school hallway floors and power washing locker rooms with Prescott Sanders and the legendary custodial staff of my high school.

"Oh, you're good. but i forget your name." he replied.

"It's Todd." I said.

"Oh yeah, you are getting your office name plate for your door today." he said back.

"This is a big day for me danny." I said, quite seriously.

"Well," he said drastically as he set down his tupperware bowl covered with saran wrap, secured with a red rubber band. "Today is a real bad day for me." he continued.

Danny walked up to the front of my desk and leaned down on it and looked at me close. "Did you hear what happened to me?" he asked.

"No." I replied.

"Oh man. I was in the women's restroom this morning." he began.

"Uh-huh." i said. i quit typing.

He bent over and began pantomiming what i thought was a lumberjack using a crosscut saw.

"And i was plunging out the toilet. It was all backed up."

"Uh-huh." i said. i closed the lid on my computer.

"It was a real bad mess. and just as this girl walked in, the plunger sucked it loose, and it splashed up shit all over my face." remarkably, Danny, strangely, was almost smiling as he told me this.

"Oh man. She screamed and laughed and ran out." he said. "It was embarrassing man. and it was all over my face." He was still bent over the imaginary toilet and wiping his hands all over his face and neck.

Maybe there is some unwritten code of confidentiality that janitors have with someone they sense a common connection with. Regardless, there was Danny in my office replaying the events that took place in the women's restroom that morning, to great detail.

"Uh-huh." i said as i leaned back in my chair.

"and the worst part, she went and told everybody here. and now i am probably gonna have a new name." he stated rather complacently. Then, without a pause nor complaint, his eyes widened and he said, "probably, something like..... Danny....... Danny Shit Face or something."

"This is a real bad day for you, Danny." i finally said.

"Yeah." he replied as the picked up the plastic tupperware bowl covered with saran wrap, secured with a red rubber band, took his 1 1/2" paintbrush and went back out in the hallway to paint the wall where my new name plate was going to be.

Just Because

have you ever been awe-struck by the sight of someone?" she asked.

"yeah." i said.

"when?" she went on.

"one day when a girl knocked on my grad office door 20 minutes early." i replied. {See: Word of the Day.}

"what was she wearing?" she asked.

I remembered everything. I remembered the color of the hallway and waxed sheen from the academic lighting under the the puma shoes with the tongues carefully sticking out at me from the bottoms of her flared bottom jeans, very much like her attitude towards me. i remembered the safety pins in holding her pants together and her t-shirt that read "Good Things Come In Small Packages." in a condensed Garamound across the chest. She hangs in the gallery of my memory, framed in the hardwood door frame. she spoke 1000 words with saying a thing. she just stood there. standing at the threshold like she was waiting at the starting line on the track, ready to enter the door and begin a great and long race with me.

"...she had belt on made from the bottom of a cut off wife beater." i said, recollecting out loud.

"I looked good, but I didn't understand it." i continued.

"Well, if it looked good, who cares if you don't understand it." she said. Then she smiled contently, as if surprised and proud of herself for what she had said.

I smiled too. i smiled because she was right, and maybe, because she wasn't. and because, she had just hit a nail in my head so squarely, it sunk straight into my mind.

There isn't a day that goes by, or a calorie burned, that some part of me isn't trying to understand what i see. I have been asked to explain what makes something look good and what makes something look bad, and what the difference is. hundreds of times people have asked me why what i do looks the way it does.

and seldom, do i ever have the luxury of answering, "because." in a career of sharing and learning, challenging and defending, and educating about what people see, i need a much more definitive answer than 'because'.

but in truth, it is the only honest answer.

there are frequencies for sound, and gamuts for colors. words too, i feel, have their boundaries for what they can be used for, and even intellectual comprehension has it's limits when competing with your emotions. i have spent the better part of my life thus far learning what makes the things i see look the way they do, and how to make what i do look the way it does.

there is a science behind what i see, and what i make.
there are rules and methods and numbers and ratios.

there is nature too.
there are proportions and symmetries and patterns.

but there is also art.
and art cannot always be understood. but it is always known.

it is outside the range of written words or conscious understanding. it is the belt hung around the girl standing in the hallway. it is the rings around saturn. it is love. and old license plates. it is the radiating shadows of your friends around the campfire. it is the handles of your grandfather's tools, and the pattern left by your dog when it sleeps in tall grass and it is in your little sisters signature.

It is everything i study and try hard to understand and try harder to make. and usually, the better it is, the less i understand it. and the no matter how much I learn, the only way to truly explain it, is to look at it.

"well,what i saw, i liked." i said.

and, like all great art, i don't think i will ever completely understand it.

at best, i can only hope to get to know it.

What the railroad can teach you.

The back edge of my yard is a concrete wall about 5 feet high. i would like to say it is stone, but is really just cinder block and mortar. on the other side are railroad tracks. and beyond that, acres of celery and strawberry fields planted in perfect parallel lines that corduroy the earth. The train tracks have been replaced in recent years with longer half mile sections of track, to reduce the seams between segments, thus, quieting and the rail cars because the track seams are fewer and father between. the longer segments all but eliminate the usual and repeated clunk-clunk sound made when the train wheels hit the gaps in the tracks as it rolls through the area.

When the Amtrak goes by, it is only a subtle tremble and a low gust of grumbling wind, blowing the curtains softly. it makes for great sleeping, and pleasant living, but i am told that the number of automobiles getting hit at railroad intersections is much greater now that the new half mile tracks have quieted the trains so much.

The metaphor, I think, is as plain as day.

Life is give and take. Examples are everywhere. I think the railroad behind the fence is an easy way to explain some of it's essence:

Things that make life in your own backyard comfortable, convienent, or allow you to sleep easy, may be the same thing that hurts you or someone else farther down the tracks.

Backseat riding

vin diesel was drop kicking a ninja riding a motorcycle on a 24" letterbox plasma screen. it was shining bright in-between an H2 and a Lincoln navigator limousine. above it was the stop light, dangling down over sunset blvd. like a worm on a hook in a pool piranhas, treading water and waiting for it to turn green. i tried to watch the movie through her hair, and when she shifted uncomfortably on my lap, i shifted my vision to one of the other screens, on the back of either headrest and on the passenger seat visor. when the light turned green the mercedes sedan and it's plasma screens sped ahead and out of sight and i was left sitting still like a worm in the bottom of a tequila bottle in the back seat of a black lexus with leanne, zack -- who was 21 and 45 min. old, a woman in a black bra and fishnet shirt, and her tag along boy toy in a suede driving cap.

we drove through the labyrinth of hollywood, to the whisky a go-go. soon after we went looking for more. we passed up the viper room and i sat under the red lights dangling down from the dark in back seat bass and car exhaust fumes. we went careening past the girls sitting cross legged in the donut shop parking lot and men with hot dog carts in the middle of the habitat of pretty people with plastic parts. we played the standard games with the doormen and their private parties, clipboards, and guest lists and bounced from one velvet rope to the next like prize fighters in the ring, trying to find a joint that would allow 5 men and only 2 women inside the door. past cover charges and weapons checks for the men, we found one last whisky on the rocks before the lights came on, sending everyone to the street curb where one by one they ducked inside shiny black cars and drove off to house parties in the canyon, beverly hills or some other place that kept themselves visible and available to each other.

it was on such a curb that i said goodbye to leanne for the night, and watched her squeeze into a back seat with buttoned down boys and speed off down the blvd. i stood there and watched the smooth and waxy cars slide down the street in both directions, wondering where everyone was going. they were stopping and starting again under the traffic lights. the motion pulsed in both directions in an odd rhythm like a heart murmur in some giant vascular system made of concrete, chrome and leather. and for a minute, i felt like a kid at the county fair watching the carousel of shiny plastic horses going around and around while i waited cash in my ticket for ride that would take me exactly back to where i started.

and like my hollywood carosel ride, i got in the back seat again. and left hollywood in a blur of neon at 50 mph up sunset blvd. i sat alone in the back seat. zack was now 21 and 3 hours old. his head was bobbing back and forth as we curved through beverly hills and up the on ramp to the interstate. welling was asleep in the front seat. carlos pushed the black needle farther around the white panel of the speedometer and set me back in the seat as he entered the darkness on the freeway.

On the way home i slid down low in the leather seat and watched the headlights of the cars on the 405 weave down the hill sides like a lava flow with a halogen glow in the darkness north of Los Angeles. we drove home in silence like four troubadours with our pockets empty and our ears ringing. and like so many nights in so many cities and towns, i scratched and clawed my way though another night, and ended up the same: swapping cash for liquor in plastic glasses, time for experience, sleep for sights, and youth for a better understanding of the business of loneliness and the yearning for excitement that can only be fulfilled by the thought of what other people see when they see you.

i was a backseat rider in the grand and fragile promenade that keeps us from staying at home and out all night on all the boulevards back alleys backseats barstools and late night freeway rides that there are in the world.

as i stared off into the darkness of Los angeles county, i felt like another chip was falling off the heavy block in my mind, leaving a little more of the sculpture to see; a little more of the plan drawn out. a little more of the book read. and there in the dark traveling twice the speed limit the PCH allows, for the first time all night, i finally felt like i was getting somewhere.

Reality Check:

Sam Abell asked the waitress for another margarita. again with herradura. again with no salt. and this time, he asked for it to be made without pouring one with salt into another glass, like the first time.

i felt bad that he couldn't get a drink the way he wanted it. i felt bad the waitress had to keep taking it out of the back room where we were eating and across the restaurant to the bartender. but i was about to feel a lot worse all the way around.

I was sitting beside sam. around the table were faculty and other national geographic photographers. between us were plates of italian food, candles, and the expected conversation on the state of photojournalism, photography, and the integrity and sanctitiy of real and unposed photographs.

The table sat still and the candles flickered. for the most part, sam abell sat silent and, like he is so well practiced, patiently observed the scene.

when he did speak, everyone listened. this is what he said:

"Nobody cares about what we do. outside of our little church of documentary photographers, nobody cares about unposed images of this world."

Sam Abell has photographed for the National Geographic Society for 30 years. He has seen more sun rises in more countries then i have ATM receipts from inside of bars. He has published more books than i have figures on my credit card bill. he arguably is the most qualified person in this country to make this statement. and unfortunately, everyone knew it.

"I will never be remembered after i die."

there were expressions of discord among his geographic colleagues, but everyone remained still and silent and listened to what he said.

"because nobody deems my kind of photography as high as the created and posed image. what is worse is that we are not part of the image makers whose work is being recorded in the history of photography. this dinner started with the common conversation about the integrity of real and unposed images. I'm telling you here that we are the only people who care about it."

the worst part about hearing him say this, was that I agreed with him.

"we are not being anthologized. our work is not being included in the museums. the work being added to the legacy of photography is not the unposed, it is the set up, dramatized, and posed images that are held so high in the art world. and as for us, we are a little church who works and seeks the recognition and the appreciation within our own little cult like congregation. no one outside the geographic and its band of followers cares whether a photo is real as is happened in the world or if it was set up."

"i have dedicated my life to this art. i have made sacrifices in my personal life, now my legacy will be my photography. i just want people to see it. and no one is looking anymore."

the conversation erupted. i sat at the corner of the table and the talk droned out like a movie soundtrack over the civil war battle scene. i sat there with my ears ringing like a drummer boy watching the soldiers and their bayonets charge at the ranks.

for a minute a saw my photo history book with the green "Used Book" sticker on the spine i have kept since my first class in college. i saw the black and white images on every page. i saw clearly Henri Cartier-Bresson. i saw Robert Capa. I saw all the images i take to be true and real. they are visions that I use as bookmarks of entire decades of the world that happened before i was alive. they are what i use to understand how this world and all that is in it came to be.

and most importantly, i began to realize it is those real and un-posed images that the rest of the world uses as their sketchbooks for fantasy. those real images are what is used by to create the staged worlds that we so love to devour in the glossy, product placed pages of rolling stone, of artforum, of surface, of communication arts. when the desks at MTV, or Mirimax, or Paramount call for a cowboy scene, they rely on the images taken by the likes of Sam Abell. it is those pictures that the interns research to story-board the pretty and perfect scenes we love to see. the art directors and producers themselves doubtedly ever hiked the pacific rim trail, or walked the imperial gardens in tokyo. and if they did, they didn't take as good of pictures as sam abell did.

i sat there at the corner of the table and i began to understand how much we are able to see. in both still and motion pictures. we are now able to see everything from wars on the other side of the world to strangers brushing their teeth in their own home. and somehow, during the act of being recorded and published, broadcast, or displayed, the reality becomes dulled. it the experience becomes secondhand. and all too often, suspect as to is authenticity. but there are still a few places to look where the visual experience is direct, and real, and unposed.

and i love them because there is no motive behind them. the people and places i see in genuine documentary photographs are not being paid to sell me anything. i am not trying to be convinced that a t-shirt will give me a different lifestyle. i am not trying to be convinced that a celebrity just happened to look that beautiful on that particular day. those contrived pictures are creative and clever and take a great skill and i like them. but if i am seeing them, it is because someone is hiding right behind the beauty with a motive other than the simple sake of sharing the photographic medium. that is fine too. but if no one was using a camera to photograph real and imperfect (but perfectly real) life, a certain essence photography would be bastarized, and the medium would not be all that it should be.

i own every national geographic since 1931. except for 14 issues. i use them both as a resource and archive for reality. i also use them as a guide to creative recreation. within a the photographic images of that publication, unposed and uncontrolled, sits a visual vault of fashions, hairstyles, interior design, and industrial design. and they are real. they are not product placements. they are not part of any PR campaign. and while they cannot hold any artistic expression through a creative process. the art is there, in a very different sense. a sad and lonely sense. it is the art of seeing, capturing, and understanding reality, in all of it's anti-climatic, mundane, bizarre, brutal and unexpected ways.

walking out of the restaurant that night, another thought dawned on me: a fish is the last to recognize water. sam abell has worked hard and dedicated himself to being a big fish.

the sun had set in ventura. as i walked across california street, i looked to my left. the ocean sat flat like a black block on the horizon against the night, like Rothko had painted a backdrop to the town. The air tasted like salt and i wondered if sam's margarita came back tasting alright.

i wondered if seeing what was real mattered.

i wondered if being very good and true to what you do resulted in a realization that, in the end, it all only matters to yourself.

i looked out past the end of the street into the black block on the horizon against the night, and decided that --in reality -- that might be all that matters anyway.

New Kids on the Block

THE OHIO FACTOR #3:

Picnic table in front of Arby's, Beaver, Utah: I walk out side with my food towards Prada, waiting under the table in the shade. there is a little girl playing with her. The girls parents are standing a few feet away.

"Our daughter likes your dog." the woman said.

"we are driving east, and will be in the car a long time, i hope this wears her out." she continued.

"where are you coming from?" i asked.

"We are moving back home from Hawaii. We shipped our car in Los Angles and are driving the rest of the way."

"How far do you have to go?" i asked as i unwrapped my roast beef sandwich.

"All the way to ohio." she said. "My husband here is from Sidney, and I grew up in a town called Troy. Well, actually I am from a little place called Casstown, You've probably never heard of it."