Can't Sing...?

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...it doesn't matter.

Bar is closing and everyone's leaving?
No problem.

Sound system is off and being unplugged?
Go right ahead, make a fool of yourself.

What is it with some women?
Get a few beers in them and:
"Everyone pay attention to me!!"

We're paying attention, honey.
But not in the way you want.
Personally, I'm thinking: "Great, now I have to wash the dick-breath out of that mic's windscreen."

Deception

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It's pretty obvious what's about to happen here.
Doesn't take a genius to figure it out.
Evidence like this might not hold up in court but
it would easily convince a woman that her man was
a rotten bastard who deserves to sleep in his car.

And she would be wrong.
I was there, and all he was
guilty of is reaching out to grab his mic stand
so he could pack up his shit and hurry home.

Looks can be deceiving, and photographs lie.
And while I'm spouting cliches: Don't trust whitey.

Film Is Dead

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This is a good friend's 35mm SLR.
Because there are solar-cells on top for keeping the batteries charged, it's a good idea to leave it under the desk lamp.
But after he went digital a few years ago, I don't think this camera has been used or even moved until I visited and decided to take this photo of it.
I'm not making fun of you, ML.
Just making the point that when you have a digital camera within reach it's awfully hard to bother picking up the old 35mm again.
Why bother?
Why wait for results?

I decided I wanted to be a good photographer right after I got my first camera at age seven.
34 years later, digital made learning about photography and doing it a hundred times easier, and I don't regret any of the photos I missed during the interim years.

While I didn't invent the phrase 'Fuck Film' it's been a part of my vocabulary for decades.
Glad to see the rest of the world finally agrees with me.

Being A Good Neighbor

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This is our next-door neighbor's back yard.
All of the stonework and gardens are new, having been
completed just today.
It's a big improvement, as there was nothing but grass
before. We're happy for her, and a little jealous
because our backyard looks kinda plain by comparison.

This is the space between our houses.
Note the tarp with dirt on it, which has been there
for over two months. To get an idea of what our lawns
look like underneath it, consider that the patch of ruined
grass next to our driveway was covered by a stray pile of
dirt for only one week.
Because her workers only spend two days out of every seven
on this job, cleanup probably won't start until Tuesday.
And when you combine this project with the one from last
fall, which included the building of an addition and a complete
paintjob on her house and fence, there have been trucks
parking and driving on my grass for
longer than I can remember.
What I'm saying is our lawn on this side of the driveway
is well and truly fucked all the way out to the street,
and may never fully recover. It looks like shit.

Let's pile it on thicker: Because the previous tenants of
our home (and the neighbor) neglected the space between
the houses there isn't much more than dirt there, making
it the biggest cat-poop depository on the street.
I had planned to buy a pallet of sod in May to remedy this,
and finish my three-year project of making our lawn perfect.
This will have to wait another year, of course, and will
probably require three times the sod to get the job done.
That's a couple hundred dollars worth of grass, and seeding
is out of the question because we have St.Augustine (carpet
grass) and seeds are simply not available. This species of
grass just doesn't work that way.
You have to till the soil, pay a grass farm to deliver stacks
of sod squares, space them a few inches apart (because full
coverage is simply too expensive), then water them daily for
six months until they grow together.
(A smaller section I planted last summer proves that the system
works very well. St.Augustine sends out 'runners' that take over
nearby dirt, and will even dominate inferior grasses and weeds.)

Now, let's discuss the thousands of pounds of spare gravel
that her crew piled up against the side of our house!
I can't believe anyone thought I would be OK with this.
I'm not even going to tell you how tall that bush was before
her son chopped it down without permission.
(Oh hell, why not? It was over 8 feet tall, but he cut it down
to 3 inches! WTF is up with that?)

Lord, please give me the strength to continue being
a good neighbor, even though I'm the only one who's
actually trying here.

I wonder what's next?
An apology for all of this bullshit would be nice but I'll
settle for an end to these projects that cause my blood to boil
every single time I walk outside and see my fucked-up yard.
Think happy thoughts...
Think happy thoughts...
Think happy thoughts...

Medina, Damn

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It's been at least ten years since I last visited
Medina Dam, the concrete structure on the Medina
River (in Medina County) that created Medina Lake.
I wanted photos for Views Of Texas, and
remembered that you could walk across the top of
the dam and down the spillway to the very bottom,
where there's water shooting out and a pristine
section of river. A great location for photography.

Imagine my disgust at finding razor wire and not one
but six locks on the gate.
From what I've been told this was done long before 9-11,
probably as a result of the stupidity of my fellow man.
Got to keep the morons from hurting themselves in public
I suppose, even if it ruins things for the rest of us.

I think the dam was built in the
1920s, and held some kind of size record or something.
Sorry my facts are fuzzy, but the Historical Marker is
that triangular thing near the center of photo #3, and I'll
be damned if I'm going to Google the info after getting
screwed out of the pictures I wanted.
During the flooding of July 2002 the water flowed freely over
the spillway, maybe 3 feet below the top of the dam, and wreaked
havoc on several towns.
As you can just make out, the level has fallen considerably
since then.
This drought's a total bitch.

Hot Rockin'

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Friday night on break after the first set, we were
standing around shooting the shit when I noticed the
lights on the drums were getting brighter somehow.
I moved to get a better look, then told the lead
guitarist in a matter-of-fact tone:
"The drums are on fire".

After the singer poured a liter of water on the
kickdrum, we figured out that a stage light fell
over and heated the finish to the point of ignition.
Flames were about three feet high before the fire
was put out. No major damage, and we were lucky to
be playing outdoors so the smoke wasn't a big deal
either.

On Saturday night, a buffalo wandered onstage.
Things are getting weird around here.

What's In Your Front Yard?

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Besides the drought-damaged grass (St. Augustine)
we have two big oak trees.
And a mailbox with a rock at the base of it's
pole that's used to keep newspapers from blowing
out of our recycling bin at night.
Sometimes there's a cat in the yard (just visiting).
And when I'm lazy the hose and sprinkler.

What's in your front yard?