Print Matters

This year, I sought refuge from the madness that was 2017 in familiar places. Whether it was books, art, food, drink, music, or good company, I was soothed from the hyperactive panic that swirled around, shots fired in electronic bursts that sent tremors through the society at large. As exhausting as it all was, I found ways of shutting it off, if only for a little while. I pursued knowledge, while the idiot winds blew strong and steady, much like Hurricane Harvey, devouring our civilization with false ideas and twisted facts. If those last few words sound familiar, it’s because they’ve been said before and will be repeated again, as long as humanity walks this earth.

These days we are overwhelmed with information, and weeding through the multitude of printed matter, or sources of sound is challenging. Fortunately, I’ve had a pretty good track record this year, and I thought I would provide a year in review. I don’t know if it would be a helpful guide, because everyone’s tastes are different, and that is as it should be. I should also note, that I can drift into dark territory from time to time, seeking answers that often turn into more questions. I’ll try to keep it nice and neat so I don’t lose anybody in the weeds.

I started the year like most of the rest of the people in this country, wondering what the hell happened and where do we go from here? That led me to check out Hillbilly Ellegy by J.D. Vance. It was a good primer on the experience of a kid from Appalachia and his struggles to make something of his life, despite facing poverty, family drama, and the ubiquity of drug addiction in his environment. It also describes some of the anger, and desperation that led some in that region to turn to our generation’s greatest snake oil salesman. Marc Maron’s podcast hipped me to Sam Quinones book, Dreamland, which is a fascinating exploration of the connection between the homegrown opioid scourge that has been perpetuated by the pharmaceutical companies and a small village in Mexico, whose residents tapped into this built in market of addicts. It was terrifying and illuminating, like when you’re in a dark room and your flashlight hits an obscured corner and eyes flash back at you.

Next I read, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg, which chronicles the disturbing roots of our current condition as a nation, and how the pursuit of a classless society in which equality is guaranteed to all, has rarely ever been the intention of the powers that be.

Veering away from the problems most associated with white Americans, I delved into the work of Ta-Nahesi Coates. I have followed his writing in The Atlantic Monthly, including his wrap up of the Obama years titled, My President was Black, and his take on the election of Donald Trump, The First White President; finding them both compelling, I read The Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir, in which Coates explores his relationship with his father and growing up in 90’s era Baltimore, and then Between the World and Me, which delves deep into the subject of race. Coates is a treasure, and his writing style is succinct and his opinions well researched.

I continued with the heavy subject matter by diving into Joan Didion’s books, The Year of Magical Thinking, and Blue Nights, which deal with the process of grieving, first, her husband’s death, and then her daughter’s. They are both heart-achingly beautiful and agonizing, but perhaps the best books I’ve ever read dealing with the subject of grief.

I was so enamored with her writing that I picked up Slouching Towards Bethlehem, which is a book of essays on the 60’s era, seen through the lens of woman who wandered Haight-Asbury with the hippies, and hung out in the rollicking Hollywood movie scene, when it was pregnant with young talent.

I checked out Jim Harrison’s, A Really Big Lunch, at CALS, which was full of humor and wit, and a welcome escape into poetry and gastronomy, that inspired me to buy a few bottles of fine wine and contemplate how to live a fuller life before we all get wasted in a nuclear holocaust, environmental catastrophe, or AI decides we're too stupid to share a planet with.

I came back down from the highs of food, drink and poetry with  The Wasting of Borneo: Dispatches from a Vanishing World by Alex Shoumatoff, which describes the complicated world of politics, development and the destruction of the natural world as told by a man whose spent a good portion of his life exploring the subject matter.  As with most books on grim topics, it does offer a lifeline at the end, and it's damn fine writing.

Throughout the year, I kept up with Harper’s, and The Atlantic, for good insight into politics and current events, and The Arkansas Times, which is my go to source for local news and entertainment. I perused other publications, but not religiously.  Cooking magazines and books tended to be my favorite, as I love to cook a good meal and enjoy it with family and friends.  I've learned to whip up a nice curry, and a passable version of bibimbap.  I finally found a good recipe for naan that brought curry night up to a standard of respectability.  I was heavy into what is known as Asian cuisine, although it seems impossibly broad to describe it that way, but it is what it is.  I recently found out that Lucky Peach, a great quarterly on the subject is folding, but fortunately, you can find back issues and cookbooks floating around out there in the wild world web.

I read Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World, a coming of age graphic novel that was adapted into a movie, but naturally, the book was better.  I also picked up Wilson, the plot of which revolves around a sad, miserable, middle aged man who bitches and complains about the vapid nature of modern life. It sounds pretty familiar, and like some guy you probably know. It seems like it would be boring, but, trust me, it’s funny.

I read Nelson Algren’s A Walk on the Wild Side, which is a classic work of fiction, so classic that Lou Reed ripped off the title for a song that is more famous than the book. It follows a young tramp through a series of raunchy adventures, the majority of which take place in New Orleans in the early 20th century. To some, it might be difficult, as it is from a bygone era, and the slang and references can be challenging, but believe me, there is gravy to be sopped up in those pages.

Sticking with fiction, I also read Thus Bad Begins, by Javier Marias. It is a potboiler filled with mystery and suspense, unfolding at a slow but steady pace, to be savored like a fine wine. It is filled with insightful history regarding the Franco era in Spain, which still reverberates to this day.

Chester Himes, If He Hollers Let Him Go, follows Bob Jones, a black man living in Los Angeles in the 1940’s who can’t catch a break as he is battered and beaten down by the everyday racism he faces. I’d heard about Himes and he was an interesting character in his own right. It is amazing that his books were published at all considering how he pulled no punches.  It might not suit all readers, especially those who can't take a punch.

I then read from James Baldwin’s Collected Essays, which, although it was written about another era, will always seem current. His lucid telling of life in Jim Crow’s America, his exile in Europe, and his remembrances of the great personages of the Civil Rights’ era, is transcendent, and it is almost as if you can hear his voice in the back of your head as the words unfold on the page.

Domonique Goblet’s Pretending is Lying, is a lush graphic novel I stumbled onto, that is both beautifully drawn, and wonderfully written.  She recounts her life with an alcoholic father, her distant mother, and her distracted lover in a full spectrum of penciled pages.

As the days grew long, and perhaps the longest year of our lives was coming to a close, I decided to pick up a couple of autobiographical works from a couple of my punk rock mentors. The first was The Portable Henry Rollins, which, if you know Henry, you know to expect that it will be loud, vicious, and a bit grating and obnoxious, but if you were a fan of Black Flag, you’ll get over it. I wasn’t impressed with the writing at all, but, it helped to explain where all the rage came from.

I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, by Richard Hell, was also full of juvenile immaturity and macho bluster, but along the way, you can catch a glimpse of some interesting characters from what had to have been the best time to have lived in New York City, the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. I honestly don’t know why he is considered a serious writer, hopefully his poetry is better.

Larry Brown’s Big Bad Love, was one of my favorites of the year. I don’t know why it had taken me this long to read this one, I guess it just didn’t come around. This collection of short stories goes down like a smooth whiskey, leaving you with a warm tummy and a bit of a sour aftertaste, that invites you to have one more.

Scream, by Tama Janowitz was a book that I happened upon at the library and decided to give a go. It turned out to be a surprisingly entertaining story of a girl whose family is as dysfunctional as it gets. Janowitz also was an associate of Warhol, Lou Reed and various other interesting personalities, which made for some cool detours along the way.

I read John Fante, based on the recommendation of Bukowski, whose opinion I will always consider solid, at least when it comes to betting horses, and books. Fante’s Ask the Dust, is the tale of a down and out writer in 1930’s Los Angeles that delves into love and madness.

I also packed in a couple of random Bukowski tomes this year including Love is a Dog from Hell, but if you know his work and like it, I’d be wasting space recommending it, because you’re probably already halfway through, or have it on your list. I’ve never read one I didn’t like.

Evicted, by Matthew Desmond, lived up to all of the hype. It is an exhaustive account of families bouncing around from one fraught low rent dump to the next, and it’s great tragedy lies in the fact that many of the people who need to read this book, won’t, or either it likely won’t sway their opinion. It should undoubtedly be required reading, especially for anyone wanting to hold public office.

Eveningland was a great little book of stories set in Alabama. Written by Michael Knight, it was sheer coincidence that I finished it before the most recent election. It wasn’t political in the least, and that was fine with me. Knight is punchy and efficient, good for any fan of short fiction.

The last book I’ve read this year, and maybe the last one I’ll finish before we ring in the new year was Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House. It reminded me how much I miss his voice and his insight on the world of human affairs.  His combination of black humor, brevity and razor sharp instinct for cutting straight to the bone is a rare gift.  I can imagine him floating through the ether out there, a residual cloud of cigarette smoke hovering about his protoplasmic essence, pondering the absurdity of it all while having laughing fits at the great cosmic gag.

This year hung around like a two day hangover.  We vowed to stop drinking as we retched into the porcelain bowl, but I hope you had a good stack of reading material there to peer at through bleary eyes, I know I did.  So in light of that, raise your glasses high and prepare to stumble through another weird one.  Cheers!

Larry's Legacy

I recently listened to the episode of WTF where Marc interviewed Larry Clark.  For those who know little about photography, Larry Clark wouldn’t ring any bells, but for those who do, he looms pretty large in the modern lexicon.  I had always assumed that Clark had started shooting in the 70’s.  After all, it makes sense when you look at the material in his seminal work, “Tulsa”.  It is a stark, brutal and honest work that peeked behind the curtain at an America that few people knew existed, except for those that lived it.  The images were shot by Larry in Tulsa, where he worked assisting his mom in door to door baby portraiture.  In the Maron podcast, he revealed that he had shot most of the material while he hung out doing drugs with his friends after work.  He always had his camera with him and so nobody thought much of him snapping pictures as they lay around with syringes sticking from their arms, or engaged in casual sexual contact.

Among the surprising elements for me, was that he said that he began shooting in 1959.  To put that in perspective, Eisenhower was President, the Vietnam War had not begun, and people still weren’t sure if rock and roll was going to be around in five years.  

While it’s true that literature had begun to peel back the layers that shielded “decent society” from the underlying vice that was a fixture of the American experience, there is something about seeing it displayed in the stark contrast of Kodak Tri-X 400 that makes it much more real than the accounts of some Cambridge educated beatnik from Manhattan.

Yes, there has been since it’s inception, an element of photography that had documented the seedier side of life, but what Clark captured was different.  It was everything that the powers that be railed against in the halls of Congress and from the pulpit, laid bare for all to see.  It showed the poverty and desperation of small town life that often leads to experimentation with drugs and laissez faire sexuality that has been the blight of the heartland for generations.  It is a noir-tinged work of photojournalism that was instantly recognized as an enduring statement on fringe culture, and served as a vehicle for Clark himself to escape the stifling suffocation of rural Oklahoma, and pursue a career in film and the arts.

Unsurprisingly, Clark himself was unsure of it’s value and had no real intention of releasing the work until he spent time outside of his hometown and upon viewing the work of Truffaut and other avant garde filmmakers, he found out there was a market for the outsider point of view.

Following the success of “Tulsa”, Clark released the seminal work, “Teenage Lust” and continued for the decades that followed to document those who live on the margins of society, as well as releasing a slew of films that are highly regarded and have had a lasting impact.

Larry said that he had never intended to be a photographer, and that he only took it up as a function of it being one of the few tools he had on hand.  When asked to give lectures to emerging photographers, his advice is for them to stop wasting time studying, and spend more time out documenting your reality.  What sticks with me about this advice, and his work, is it’s honesty.  It is something that is often overlooked in photography today.  We are inundated with images that portray life, but rarely are we shown the truth.  Oversaturated sunsets and sickly sweet photos of babies and pets dominate social media platforms, and we all strive to appear as if we are thriving and happy, and even Larry Clark’s current work often appears as a stylized version of his original work.  As photographers, we take our share of pretty pictures (it would be hard to be employed in the field if we didn't), but often the most powerful images are the ones that show a different side of life, and usually it is not very pretty.

My Last Ride

(This is a piece that I wrote last year, a story about some adventures I had hitchhiking, a lifetime ago.)

It is cold, and the wind fans the dry patches of grass in the ditch where I am laying.  I am still and quiet, trying to keep myself warm by thinking of the Thanksgiving dinner that I would have had if I had stayed home, and not gone off to try and shed my skin again.  The stars above me are brilliant and bright, I welcome their company.  I am trying to stay awake, although there is nothing more that I want in this world than sleep.  I hear the occasional hum of tires on asphalt in the distance, and every so often, the rustling of some creature of the night.  I hope it is not the man who is out there, looking for me.  By now, the fear has bled out, and I am spent.  If I am found, I wonder if there is enough strength left in my limbs to strike out in my own defense, because until I felt my legs give way, I ran.  

I ran and did not look back until I could no longer hear his cursing, as he fumbled around for a flashlight and pursued me through the red dirt somewhere in Western Oklahoma.  If I am killed, I will disappear into the landscape, my ghost cut loose to roam these lonely roads that are the guts of America.  In the long hours that pass, from the dark of midnight until the sun begins to lighten the Eastern sky, I dream my death.  It is not at all what I expected when I set out from Fayetteville, a few short weeks ago. 

I did not hesitate when Poppy asked me to walk away from my job,  It was warm, for November, and we were out back sharing a joint while Carolyn, my co-worker covered the register.   Poppy said that if we left in the morning, we could make Albuquerque by the weekend.  He told me that Albuquerque is a good place to spend the winter, and he knew a few people out there that wouldn’t mind if we crashed on the couch.  When we walked back inside, I told Carolyn that I was leaving.  

I left her with my uniform shirt, and told her to hang on to my last paycheck.  We pilfered some snacks and cigarettes from the shelves and went to collect my things from the place where I had stashed them.  That night we had a party in the way that kids do, as if we were setting out on an expedition to Mars, and that we would never see our friends gathered in a room like this one again.  

In the morning we untangled ourselves from the bodies splayed out amongst flooded ashtrays and crushed cans.  We tossed our packs on our backs and marched like soldiers off to fight a war.  By noon we had made it as far as Van Buren, and feeling the wind in our sails, we decided to find a place to have a cup of coffee and sit down to eat.  We made it to the parking lot of a convenience store before we encountered our first sign of trouble, a police cruiser that followed slowly behind us and flashed lights.  

We sat on the hood of his squad car while townspeople slowed down and leered at me, a Manson family reject, and Poppy, a punk rock version of Jimi Hendrix.  When the cop felt satisfied, that we had been made to feel unwelcome in this small place that he protected from those whose only threat was their disregard for the things he held sacred, he drove us out past the limits of his control, and set us free.  We pieced together one short ride after the next until we crossed the border and it was the evening of the first day.  We spent that night under an overpass outside of Oklahoma City, as the wind came roaring in from the north and we struggled to sleep in our thin Army surplus jackets and quilted blankets. 

Another day passed and the grass thinned and the land looked empty as we drifted in a sea of dirt.  We felt the first pangs of hunger and our lips chapped and bled from the grit that constantly whipped our faces.  

A lifetime of experience was compressed into the span of five days as we watched one car after another drive by and told each other truths and fictions, to pass the time.  Every so often, a pickup truck would slow down and we would hop in the back as we inched our way a little further down the road.   We crossed into Texas, our heads hung low and our bellies empty, but we talked about Albuquerque like it was the promised land and there was no turning back.

In the afternoon of our last day in the wilderness, we saw the familiar silhouette of a Volkswagen van crest a hill and gear down, throwing up a cloud of debris as we ran to meet it.  The smiling face of asaint with eyes bloodshot, beamed down on us and we knew that we were delivered.  As the miles ticked by on the odometer, we filled the cabin up with a thick heavy smoke and watched it drift out the windows, until we spilled out onto the sidewalks of Albuquerque at long last.  

We beat a path towards the University, picking up a bottle on our way to find a cozy spot on the flat roof of a building on campus, where our driver told us no one would bother us, if we kept to ourselves.

The two weeks that I spent in that fabled city was a tale not worth telling.  True, the weather was mild, and we found spaces in the corners where we could crash.  But, for me, there was a point when things began to turn.  The easy life got to be just as monotonous as standing behind a register collecting someone else’s money, and when Poppy told me he was taking off with a girl to California, I knew I’d better go home while I still had a few dollars in my pocket.

I don’t remember saying goodbye, I just remember walking away and sitting on my backpack looking to the West at the painted sky, and the sun glinting off the chrome on the cab of a Peterbilt.  I climbed in and looked across at the driver, a great beast of a man, his face hidden behind a cloud of cigarette smoke. 

The first words the trucker said as we took on speed were, “You ain’t one of them goddamn queers, are you?  Because I will kill a faggot.”  I considered the circumstances, and knew that there was no right answer.  I felt the pressure of the folding knife so far out of reach in my pocket.  I answered, “No.”, and saw him glare at me.  He began to rant, and the hate that was covered by pale, scabby flesh made my stomach churn and I began to feel sick.  He would pause, and wait, playing a game to see if I would crack, if he would find his reason, his excuse.  For hours the game continued and the tension made me tired.  I leaned on the door, pretending to drift off to sleep, with one hand searching for the handle.  Through slitted eyes I watched him, wondering what the end of all of this would be.  By the time we crossed into Oklahoma, it was late, and the world was dark.  He didn’t slow down when he hit the off ramp and it wasn’t until we were well out of sight that he began to brake.  

I waited for my chance and I pulled the handle and launched myself out the cab, tumbling ass over elbows as the truck lurched to a stop in the gravel.  I fell face first over a barbed wire fence, and felt it pull at me.  I let it take my flesh, but I did not stop.

That night in my fitful sleep, I dreamed my death, and I flew up and over the spiteful land until I reached the shore of a distant sea.  When I woke to the dawn of a new day, I was hungry and alone, but it didn’t matter.  I got a ride from a kind man who had been a traveler too.  He said that he picked up everyone that he passed on the side of the road, because he’d been there.   He let me make a call to Carolyn’s mom who lived in Norman.  He bought me eggs and hash browns, and we talked until she arrived.  Carolyn’s mom took me as far as she could, but when I saw the look on her face as the gas gauge slipped over into the red, I gave her the last of my money and waved goodbye.  

When the rain started to fall, cold and hard I began to walk, and I let the cars pass by me without a gesture.  I walked back into town, bedeviled by the wind and the water.  I went straight over to Carolyn’s, took the key from under the mat and let myself in.  I peeled away the clothing so heavy and wet, and lay down on the warm rug to take my rest. 

Footwork

It was one of those days that you wake up and you can either think it’s crummy weather, or you can look out and think, “It’s a good day to take some pictures.”  I knew where I was going to go with it.  I grabbed a bag full of cameras and some extra film and headed south.  On the way, I took some shots of a taxi cab smashed up in the middle of the street; drivers giving their accounts of the crash to concerned policemen, and a firetruck weaving in and out of traffic.  It was a good thing I had my point and shoot in the seat beside me, or I would have missed it all.  

I parked in Argenta so I could walk from one side of the bridge to the other.  It was cold, and damp, but I knew once I was moving, the blood would start pumping and the gears would start to turn.  The north side of the river is full of traffic, backed up by accidents on two of the three main thoroughfares into the city.  I look in the big plate glass windows, where every building used to be occupied and this was prime real estate.  Some guy in a pickup yells at me, but I can’t tell what he’s saying and I probably wouldn’t care.

I stop in the Greyhound station, with all the folks huddled around the TV, laughing at some real life tragedy while two men mopped the floor in the dim fluorescent light.  It’s the set of a sad movie that will only play in the art house theaters to mixed reviews.  In the daytime, the place still has a whiff of menace, like a county rec room.

I walk around the building and head over to the Junction Bridge.  It’s slick as a greased pole and I take it inch by inch.  Three kids pass me on the way over to the Little Rock side and one says, “This is that bi-polar weather.”  I thought how appropriate the term was for what this winter has been like.  A thick shroud hung over the buildings, the few solitary towers in an otherwise low altitude city.   The bridges are one of my favorite things around here, and I think of all the things in this little town, the river is one of the few things that I never get tired of.Going up the steps I felt like I was going to fall into the muddy water, and once had that feeling that you get in your gut, just before you take a big plunge.  Fortunately, it was all in my head.  Two men with matted beards, smoking rollie’s asked me to take their picture.  They looked like brother’s and made wild faces.  They asked me for coffee, to help them warm up, but I didn’t have any cash, so we left it at that.  

I ran into Phil, sweeping the parking lot, with his arm in a cast with a paper bag over it.  I’ve know Phil for years.  He used to come into the library bookstore and talk to me in the afternoon’s, when I used to work there.  He’d be termed something out of the ordinary I suppose because of his kind, simple demeanor, and the way that he sometimes loses control when he gets frustrated.  He gets kicked out of places, including the library, because people have a hard time understanding how to treat those who need a little more attention.  We don’t do a good job of helping people in America, but in that sense, we’re not unique.  The difference is, that we have the resources, but not the will.  He put down his broom, and we went to get some breakfast.  He says he’s doing well, living in a new place, but they don’t allow overnight visitors.  He says he doesn’t like it when people steal, that people are always trying to steal his stuff.

At the restaurant, he orders two eggs, “hard”, and a Coke.  Phil doesn’t have many teeth left, and I know the soda can’t be good for the ones that are left.  Phil tells me he’s going to quit his job, because he made a promise to God.  Phil keeps his promises to God because God’s always watching.

He says, “People tell me that God ain’t up there looking at us…can you believe that?”

I tell him I can’t, and that it’s good to keep your word, no matter what anybody says.

When he finishes, I take my leave.  I’m heading in the opposite direction.  I move toward the towers, thinking about seeing how high up I can get to take a shot of downtown from above.  I stop at the Wig Shop, the last remaining sniff of the real left on the renovated strip of Main Street.  For no good reason, I turn around.

Some guy in a fancy truck asks me, “What kind of camera is that?”

He’s a photographer; shoots architecture.

“Yeah I don’t do any personal stuff anymore.”  He says, between vapes.

He’s gotten so good at taking pictures, he doesn’t bother.  He just flies around the country, collecting big checks.

“Yeah, I don’t really do portraits…except for clients.  You know…lights, studio stuff.”

I start backing away hoping that it isn’t contagious.  On my way back across the bridge, I think, “…that poor S.O.B.”  And I imagine he was leaning back in his leather seat, thinking the exact same thing about me.