March 2008

I Hate Beaurocracy

"We are considering several possibilities that could play out in the next month or could take up to a year and may or may not become something viable that we'd choose to consider at this present juncture in our understanding of the facts that have been presented."

So... can you just tell me if I'm still going to have a job next month?

MySpace Music Tour

Last Thursday night I went to see Justice as part of the MySpace Music Tour in the Concourse of the SFDesign Center. The concourse is basically one gigantic warehouse/barn and wasn't the ideal setting for a concert. Nevertheless, Justice was amazing and I want all twelve of their love children. Their unique sound was great as was the light show that accompanied them.

The best part of the evening was the guy who, tweaking on something, decided he needed to scale the railing and up the support beams. With amazing spiderman-like abilities he pulled himself up to the cross beams of this barn-like building some 10 feet above us. He danced while flipping off the security guards below who couldn't figure out how to get him down without hurting him and everyone around him. He finally came down of his own accord, was kicked out of the building and immediately started texting 20 of his closest friends.

Crowd Control

Tough Loving

I've been doing phone therapy on and off with a therapist I saw in Homer before my grand move to California. I love her to pieces and our phone sessions have seemed to work well. Still, I thought it might be better to see someone local fully equipped with eye contact, hand gestures and office visits.

A close friend of mine is a therapist and recommended someone that I've now seen a few times. This guy is good or rather he's good for me in the same way that triathlons and brussel sprouts are good for me: a miserable and unpleasant road to health that makes Damon a grumpy boy. If I can survive the painful blows that our counseling sessions have been so far I might actually grow from the experience.

Of course, I'd have to actually still be seeing him for that to find out if that would be the case.

Our therapy conversations went something like this (liberally paraphrased by yours truly):

me: I've been really depressed lately.

him: That's cuz you're fucked up in the head.

me: Um, okay. I guess I can see that...

him: No, really. I mean it.
him: We gotta fix that shit.

me: But, there seems to be so much difficult stuff to deal with right now.

him: Well the whole world is messed up. There are recessions, wars, conflicts, lost loves...
him: And children?
him: They die.

me: So I should stop hoping for things to get better?

him: Yep.

Departure

I'm Just a Seven

Has anyone else seen The Nines? What'd you think? I saw it recently and loved it. Besides being a cool 'wtf is going on?' movie, each little story within a story was brilliant on it's own. And I love, love, loved Melissa McCarthy in this. Damn funny actress.

Well Then

Just last weekend a deaf guy dressed in the latest leather fashion accessories asked me to beat him with the pain implement of my choice. I don't know much sign language, but this guy made his point horrifyingly clear through a series of well placed hand gestures. There was something indescribably disturbing and surreal about having a flogging scenario mimicked in front of me when I didn't know this person and didn't even want to know he liked that sort of scene let alone picture him in the throws of it. I tried to play it cool, but I'm sure my horror was evident when I turned him down with the uncontrollable epileptic-like shaking of my head.

Welcome to the Lobby

Rust Buckets

Michael, Mike and I went on a photo location scouting expedition this past weekend. We found two amazing locations. One is an abandoned furnace building complete with rusty pipes, grated walkways suspended 30 feet off the ground, and lots of great dials, gauges, levers and handles. The other location is a junk yard with years of rusted metal, peeling paint, storage bins and all kinds of discarded treasures. One of my favorite parts of this junk yard were piles of rusted paint cans just waiting to be photographed.

Cage Sphere

Birthday Bears

Yesterday would have been Melissa's 24th birthday. As a gift to her I did a photo shoot with some of my favorite bears. Happy Birthday Melissa. Your wacky sense of humor and love for life continues on in me. I will love you always.

Yellow Submarine

I'm apparently working on a sinking ship. The biotech company I work at was doing three drug studies for prostate cancer. One of the studies, the biggest one, was shut down due to a little thing like people dying. With over a third of our company's efforts gone, the word is the company will be bought out within the next 6 months or otherwise cease to exist. People are quitting on a near daily basis and I find myself wondering exactly what it would feel like to drown with a biotech company. Due to the terms of my hire last September I can't feasible start looking for other work now. Besides, there's a potential that I could get a nice severance package if I stay till the bitter end. Here's hoping for that. Meanwhile, I think I'm going to start coming to work in a life vest.

The Sensitive Type

Me: Well, I do have to say that I'm 300% ga-ga over a tough, hard-edge, ultra-masculine guy that shows a hint of sensitivity. A lot of my photography tries to capture that duality.

Sam: like a big hulking dude holding a kitten?
Sam: awww

Me: No. That's just freaky hallmark shit. First he's gotta crush the kitten then show some sign of remorse.

Sam: now that's just plain hot

On a Starbucks Cup

"Childhood is a strange country. It's a place you come from or go to - at least in your mind. For me it has an endless, spellbound something in it that feels remote. It's like a little sealed-vault country of cake breath and grass stains where what you do instead of work is spin until you're dizzy."
-Lyall Bush

Up In Her Business

A good friend of mine is an E.R. doctor. She copied this from a patient's chart...

"Patient states there is a 'spirit' in her vagina since 10pm. Denies foreign body. They came straight from church. Patient can't sit still."