New Beginnings

"Corner Gas" on WGN is the single greatest show ever to air on television. It's my happy place.

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Shutterbug: Yeah, that last post was a first impression reaction. Plus, it's a television show. I got suckered into the act and riled myself up, just like I catch myself doing to Rush Limbaugh. "It's just an act" I occasionally have to remind myself. Hell, for all I know they probably have outtakes where everybody busts up laughing. So, yeah, shame on me there for being gullible... and yes, fairly ignorant. Your rant is mostly justified.

I've been through boot camp. I've had some guy with breath like rancid bleu cheese bellowing his diaphragm out an inch from my nose which left my ears ringing and olfactory nerves scalded. Hell, early on as a greenhorn at Tim Hortons my supervisor barked at me many times "Get it together or get out!" during rushes.

I understand the parallel... it's all about over-the-top whigging out at the trainees to induce sensory overload, and to teach continued functioning within stressful conditions. Chef Ramsay is being a drill sergeant, but there is a form and discipline missing from what I saw of his technique. I just wish he could have handled himself in a less verbally sloppy, more professional manner, that's all.

You ask:

What the fuck pressure do you face with nabbing the perfect shot that even comes close to cooking orders to perfection every 20 minutes non-stop on your feet for 8+ hours? On top of that, you must create new ideas constantly to keep up with food trends and stay in the game or you're fucked.

I'd venture to say that in a high end portrait studio, the pressure is nearly equal. Most days last far longer than 8 hours. You have a steady stream of 30 to 60 minute appointments in which you must nab at least twenty to forty "keepers" to perfection or else risk demands for a refund. If you stagnate, you lose your elite customer base and die. Seniors (especially) demand cutting edge photographic style to match what they see in their fashion magazines. Adaptation is constant.

So, yeah. For the kneejerk reaction, mea culpa. It was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but just came out pig headed. Maybe if I actually watched a few episodes, I'd gain a little insight into the method behind the madness. I was just so turned off by my first impression, I really don't want to.

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My friend Heather invited me to a Memorial Day picnic at her place to hang out and meet her fiance. He's the most amazing guy, and everything that she deserves. To make a long story short, after having the most amazing hamburger that was damn near 3/4 inch thick, cooked all the way through, and yet juicy and not burnt one little bit on the outside, I went over to give him my compliments. He took me aside and said "Actually, I have you to thank."

"Me? Why?"
"I met Heather because of the pictures you took of her last year."

He went on to tell me that she posted them on her MySpace page (which I knew), and that he saw the photo under the "Cool New People" window. He thought she was cute so he clicked on it to see her profile, but expected (as is all too often the case) that she would be from California or a foreign country or something. He said he was shocked when she was nearby! They got to emailing back and forth, and the rest is history. Now they're getting married.

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Heard back from the guy I interviewed with last week. He said that one of the applicants had a death in their family, so he wasn't done with the interviews as he'd hoped to be, but he wanted to let me know that I was in the front running for the position. He said they were very impressed by the quality of the portraiture in my portfolio, and that everybody in the office simply liked me. You run into a lot of the ol' black-turtlenecked "I'm an ahhh-tist..." egos. We photographers can be a prickly bunch at times, so it's a real leg-up to be not only good what what you do, but also just plain personable and quick to laugh.

Anyway, I asked about Cleveland since they mentioned it in the ad, but I interviewed in Toledo. He seemed surprised at my enthusiasm about living in Cleveland, and I mentioned that my dad used to live there and I absolutely loved visiting. He said that looked very good for me. He then (hypothetically, of course) started describing their hiring process, what kind of relocation help they have, and told me that I may want to start saving up for a move.

I may get to keep my New Year's resolution after all. I may just get a job where I make a decent living... a real living. Right now isn't living, I'm in a suspended adolescence. Folks, it looks like I may have just landed myself a career.

...and I'll try not to get riled up at the bad days.

The other night, I happened to watch a promo for the show "Hell's Kitchen". It involved this painfully unbearable man in a chef getup screaming in other chefs' faces to the point of his voice squeaking, his tirades liberally peppered beep-censored expletives.

Yeah, that's real professional. What a poser.

I don't care what his credentials are, and I'm not a chef myself, so I can't speak for members of the culinary community, or say anything as to his status. What I can say is this: if he were a photographer acting as such, I would look down upon him without a single gram of respect. I would consider him only as a shameful self-righteous panderer for attention (Everybody, look at me! Aren't I so cool??), and an utterly pathetic disgrace to the profession.



And If I were one of the idiots who thought signing up for his show would advance my culinary career, I'd end up stabbing his eyeballs with fondue forks.
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I'm feeling a little salty tonight. Can you tell?

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Working at Timmy Ho's, I can't help but wonder... order after order after order at the drive through, if some of these customers have any idea just how dumb they sound over the intercom. 99% of my customer base are total sweethearts, and I love them to pieces. They make my job enjoyable... but I just have to cringe when those certain special individuals come through and mispronounce our menu items: Iced Cappuccino (ice cappacheenah), Honey Cruller (french crawler), Turkey Bacon Club (turken bacon sammich), either the Ham & Swiss or the B.L.T. (I'll take one-a them ham and swiss blt's) or my favorite: the toasted beggle with sour cream.

Oh, and let's not forget the Amurrican cheese. That one is pretty rare, but no less irritating.

My favorite is when non francophones come through and order a "cwosson'h". You pronounced absolutely everything else in our midwestern Ohio drawl. Why suddenly drape such a thick French accent over 'croissant'?

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Bah. Now I'm just being bitchy. Things aren't bad at all here. I'm just in weird headspace.

The interview in Toledo went well. I was nervous as hell, but I think my answers were what they wanted to hear. They kept me there over an hour, so it wasn't like "Oh, this guy's a jackass, get him outta here." or anything. I hear back by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Been shooting a lot of junior baseball with BossMan. Today was only a pick-up day, so I figured, two games... done by noon.

Wrong!
The game I shot (and they're only six innings) must have lasted about three hours. It was soooooo sllllloooooowwwwww. Two games started simultaneously, BossMan shot one, and I the other. By the time we were finishing the top half of the first inning, his game was getting ready to go into the third.

Needless to say, I was out in the sun for a lot longer than expected, and I got a little crispy. I was shooting a band at the B tonight, and Dark Haired Girl came along to have a few drinks. She took my picture on the patio after running her fingers through my hair, damp with sweat (It was hot in there), to make it stick up:



And that was without any drinks. I'm that big a cheeseball stone cold sober.

I have an interview with a studio up in Toledo tuesday at 11am up. I've seen their site, and they put out some real quality photography. Now, I'm sure that between their offices in Cleveland, Toledo, and Columbus, there are God's-a-plenty qualified photographers, but they want to interview a guy from the Dayton area. I'm hoping that the likelihood of employment is at least above a 50/50 shot... to the Andy side of 'maybe'. This job would take me to Northern Ohio.

My mom was lamenting the hypothetical situation of my relocation a million miles away (in her eyes), and asking me if I really would want to move away from all my friends and family. I told her that I need to begin my life as an adult, and the best possible way to do that is with a completely fresh start with a blank slate.

I relayed this this to Dark Haired Girl... because I have absolutely no common sense as to what about and when to shut up. She proceeded to have a very tragic dream that night about her and I. It involved a not possible pregnancy with our multiples, and the implied loss of one the babies. We were together that night, and I recall that shortly after she got up to the restroom in the middle of night and laid back down, she began to whimper in her sleep.

My sister is in town, and I spent the night with the fam watching the movie "Juno". I love and hate that movie... loving it for every last little detail. Every single word of dialogue written with razor-sharp precision. Every camera movement, and angle, and way in which it was lit. I hate it for two reasons: 1) The tear-jerker of a scene in which Jennifer Garner first cradles her newborn child in the hospital nursery. 2) The following dialogue, delivered by Juno's dad:

"Look, in my opinion the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what-have-you. The right person is still going to think the sun shines out of your ass. That's the kind of person that's worth sticking with."

That's Dark Haired Girl.

Call me Al.

Well, it has been brought to my attention that Grandma and Grandpa are, as I type this, en route to South Carolina. No farewell dinner, but I honestly don't mind. Grandpa is, if nothing else, a consummate observer of the human condition. He's not an outwardly sentimental guy, but I feel without doubt that he knew full well our short portrait session was a shared solemn goodbye. I didn't get to tell him outright that I love him, but he's keenly perceptive. While he's notoriously photo shy he didn't hesitate one second to sit for me and my camera.

He knows.

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I went to buy Dark Haired Girl a surprise mother's day gift a couple of days ago. She'd casually mentioned that she wanted tanning minutes. I went to the local tanning parlour (spelling it with a 'u' makes it sound lewd in a vaguely Victorian sense, doesn't it?) to buy a gift card, and was listening to an NPR story on WYSO on the way. It was a segment in a series about children who believe and insist they truly were born the wrong gender, and about the parents' struggles and a controversial medical treatment.

Anyway, I sat in the car in the parking lot outside the tanning salon to finish listening to the quite riveting story and wait for a break in the cats-and-dogs downpour that was going on. I got to thinking: hey, I'm definitely in touch with my feminine side... hypothetically could I ever consider life as a female? Intriguing food for thought. Well, a break in the deluge came, so I went inside.

Oh. My. God.

Everything was pink. pink pink pink.

This crazy catwalk music was playing; I half expected runway models to start emerging from the rooms and start strutting through the lobby. The clerk was this prissy little late teen "hot chick" bitch that treated me like I was the biggest irritation of her work week. The fragrance of coconut and pineapple permeated the air, and the wall behind the counter was shelved with dozens upon dozens of different dazzlingly colored $30 bottles of lotion bearing names sounding more like trendy frou-frou drinks than dermal treatments: "Mind Bender", "Exotic Rainbow", "Tropical Passion", etc.

No. I could never ever ever be a girl. Question answered. I am most assuredly effeminate at times, but damn, I had to go to Lowe's and walk through the tool section while fantasizing about giving the Mirthmobile an oil change and tune-up just to wash all the hot pink residue off my brain.

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I think my cat just sneezed, but I'm not sure. Whenever I listen to music with headphones (as I am now. Coldplay.), I think I hear all these weird background noises and get all paranoid.

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Speaking of Dark Haired Girl, you know how I showed you the almost-picture of her a while back? Well, I was taking pictures of her and a her friend at a party a week or so ago, and she looked at one of the pictures and said it would go great on the blog. I puzzled at her and she said it's been long enough since I mentioned anything about the crazy monkey sex she and I have that it's safe to post it. I'm still not mentioning her name for professional reasons, but here's the great photo that I took of her, popping her in the face with a flash just as she was diving in for a kiss:

(Isn't that perfectly placed "beauty mark" mole just adorable??)

And, of course, this photo comes without any comment of our freaky-deaky getting-jiggy-with-it sweet-love-down-by-the-fire. No mention whatsoever. Nope. None.

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Between jotting down thoughts and ideas in this post, I am poking around my media folder in Winamp. I was just watching Paul Simon's 1986 music video "Call Me Al". I just now realized, here in this ripe ol' modern year of 2008, twenty two years (God damn.) after first seeing it on MTV as a kid, that he's singing "I can call you Betty" instead of "I can call you Eddie".

Totally changes the flavor of the song. You learn something new every damned day.