Fire Drill

The Pick of Pickle Day!
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

Fire Drill

That day
Fire raged in the Hills of McHone
And the men all said, "Ain't nothin' can be done...
Them hills are too steep; that slope, She's just too slippery!
Desire or not, "Ain't nothin' gonna be done...there
in the steep Red Hills of McHone."

And so, after all was said and done,
the men sat on a bench
beside themselves;
half-hurt, half-hopeless, yet still hoping,
for hope never dies,
and they sighed,
as they ate big tubs of ice cream.

ice cream....

*

For the curious, that piece of verse is written in a special Morse code, so unless you know this special Morse code, you may not understand it.

By the way, out of 500 of so photos I took this day, this is my favorite. It is exactly the effect I was shooting for.

The horizontal lines are those of the subway train pulling into the station. Just like The Speed of Light phenomena, I am utterly astounded by how this happens - the shutter opens; the light from the girl acorss the way, standing languidly on the other platform bounces and burns on to the digital processor; the solid train comes into view and leaves traces of light instead of blocking the girl across the way - my mind still has trouble comprehending the complexity of this occurence.

Anyone care to offer an explanation?

Arnold, One Hot-Blooded, Blue Eyed American

Arnold, One Hot-Blooded, Blue Eyed American
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

Hot-Blooded, Blue-Eyed, but not All-American

September 14, 2006, California:
“California police are looking to find out whether hackers broke into the governor's computer and downloaded a recording of a private conversation in which he said African-Americans and Latinos are ‘hot-blooded.’” - Information Week

Good for Arnold.

I don’t know about African-Americans, but I agree with the Governator—a lot Latinos are hot-blooded.

I’m a “Latino,” a Mexican-American born and bred in Northern California and I am very proud of my Latin-American heritage and the passion I inherited because of it: the passion for photography, the passion for writing, the passion for my family and friends, the passion for experiencing love and all its splendor, and most of all, my ardent passion for this wonderful life!

There is a beautiful Spanish saying which I like to use whenever I’m out drinking with my friends: ¡Al amor, el dinero, y el salud; y el tiempo para gastar lo todo!

To love, money and health; and the time to spend it all!

People waste so much time these days over these frivolous issues. This is not Watergate again, as some pundits are saying. Get a grip, get a life.

Like I’ve said before, let’s not make a mountain out of a mole hill, una tormenta en un vaso de agua, زوبعة في فنجان (zawba3atun fii finjaanin), Sääsest elevanti tegema, Делать из мухи слона,Van een mug een olifant maken, tehdä kärpäsestä härkänen, Fare d'una mosca un elefante—an elephant out of a mosquito.

Let me tell you a secret: Arnold Schwarzenegger is really not a cyborg.

Believe it or not, he is actually a human who is apt to, and in my low-brow opinion—allowed to, make off-color remarks from time to time. Cut the guy a break, he’s got the equivalent of a third-world country to manage.

And you know, regardless of what a lot of people may believe, the world is not flat, men and women are not equal (we are very different), people of different cultural heritages have different preferences, different tastes, different traditions and different ways of engaging this wonderful life.

So, as the French might say, Vive le Difference!

Because the truth is, as the philosophizing fool, the comedic genius, Steve Martin, once said, “It's like those French have a different word for everything!” As do Mexicans and Germans and Vietnamese and Turks and Ethiopians and New Yorkers. Yo! Get the fuck out of my way!

Language translates into so many things: how we see the world, our values, our pastimes, what we pay attention to, what matters to us most, and how we feel about the world and this wonderful life.

Have I ever mentioned that I think that life is wonderful?

If anything, I truly believe Arnold may have underhandedly meant it as a compliment. For I have always admired him for his own passion and exuberance for life.

Perhaps the greatest body builder that ever was (seven time, undefeated Mr. Universe), movie star, real estate mogul and now Governor of California. That to me is a sign that this guy loves life,that he is passionate and hot-blooded and not afraid to tell like it is.

The true national anthem for many Mexicans, and Mexican-Americans like me, is not Mexicanos, al grito de Guerra; no, it is El Rey written by the country’s most famous composers and lyricists— José Alfredo Jiménez.

The song has been recorded innumerable times and it describes the soul of many people who value the power of individual will, and the will to determine one’s own life. It is a particularly great song to sing-and-slur after a few too many shots of tequila.

El Rey

Yo sé bien que estoy afuera,
pero el día que yo me muera,
sé que tendrás que llorar.

Llorar y llorar,
llorar y llorar.

Dirás que no me quisiste,
pero vas a estar muy triste
y así te vas a quedar.

Chorus

Con dinero y sin dinero
hago siempre lo que quiero
y mi palabra es la ley.

No tengo trono ni reina,
ni nadie que me comprenda,
pero sigo siendo el rey.


Una piedra en el camino
me enseñó que mi destino
Era rodar y rodar.

Rodar y rodar,
rodar y rodar.

Después me dijo un arriero
que no hay que llegar primero
pero hay que saber llegar.

Repeat Chorus

The King

I know well that I don’t matter,
But the day I die
You will cry.

You will cry,
You will cry.

You’ll say you never did love me,
But you’ll feel sad thinking of me,
And that’s how you’ll always be.

With or without money
I do as I please
And the law is what I say.

I have neither throne nor queen,
Nor anyone who understands me
But the king I will always be.

From a stone along the road
I learned that my fate,
Was just to roll and to roll.

To roll and to roll,
to roll and to roll.

Then an old mule driver told me:
Its not about getting there first,
Its about knowing how to get there.


Of course, it sounds much, much better in Spanish, especially when you’re really-really drunk. But there you have it.

Admittedly, it is a very machismo, very male, song in a way; but it is also a song about individuality, about the greatest feeling one can experience—lost love, about passion, and about being hot-blooded.

It is very much the equivalent to what some might argue is the American equivalent unofficial national anthem of a certain generation: My Way especially as sung by old blue eyes, the late and great Frank Sinatra.

My Way

And now, the end is here
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full
I traveled each and ev'ry highway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption
I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this, I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way

I've loved, I've laughed and cried
I've had my fill, my share of losing
And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing
To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way,
"Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way"

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows and did it my way!

(written by Paul Anka).



Arnold Schwarzenegger happens to have blue eyes too…and, he’s hot-blooded.

*

Read more essays, stories, musings, poems and prose like this at Literary Central!.

Click HERE if you would like to receive e-mail updates whenever new lorenzodom photos are published.


original photo credits: unknown

Do You Know This Woman? (Part I)

Do You Know This Woman? (Part I)
Originally uploaded by lorenzodom

September 13, 2006, New York City, School of Hard Knocks:

Do you know this woman?

Alas, I don’t.

And now, I'm sorely paying for it.

Well, sort of, nothing truly horrible. Actually, quite the opposite, in a way.

You see, the powerhouse advertising agency DDB Berlin (i.e. Gunn Report's Most Awarded Agency Network in the World. For the second year in a row Adweek's Global Agency Network of the Year. Four-time winner, Clio Agency Network of the Year. Winner of more awards than any other network in the history of the Cannes International Advertising Festival.) contacted the editor at Look magazine, which has featured a couple of sets of photos of mine (July and March).

Apparently, they were in love with the same photo that both Look and Gnostic Magazine used as well, because they called me twice from Berlin and sent two e-mails. In the process they attached the mocked up magazine advertisement for Max Magazine that you see here.

Unfortunately, I was at an off-site meeting for work all day long, and missed their calls.

However, I was never paid for the photos used in Look and Gnostic, and being that they were not directly tied to an advertisement, and thus not serving commercial purposes, I felt that they fell into the safety net of “Photography for Art and Editorial” purposes, which is legal in the State of New York, and for which one does not need a written model release form.

Hence, my frustration (Fuck!). Hence, I ask “Do you know this woman?”

Because quite honestly, my gritted teeth, my tense shoulders, my exclamations of “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” tonight are not about the money. Far from. Because I love what I’m doing.

Photography has become such a beautifully fulfilling experience for me that it doesn’t bother me one bit that I have not made a cent since I began this endeavor a little over a year ago. It does not bother me that only get 4-5 hours of sleep a night because my passion, my fervor, my exuberance, for both writing and photography keep me working tirelessly—yet, oh, so wearily—night and day.

But it does irk me that I am missing out on an amazing opportunity.

I like to think that there is an opportunity around every corner and that you just have to be prepared to meet and take advantage of her. Unfortunately, apparently, obviously, I wasn’t ready this time. That sucks, big time.

In July, Germany’s premier magazine, fotoMAGAZINE, featured a story on my cut-out technique and now a major-major advertising agency wants to use one of my photos, but they can’t. Because this wholly amateur photographer didn’t get his unsuspecting model to sign a release form. How frustrating is that? I keep lamenting over how much instant exposure and worldwide recognition for my work that might have garnered for my work (sigh).

So, let that be a lesson to you. Please let that be a lesson for you, or at least someone out there learn from this, because I had to learn it the hard way, and that’s tough.
To paraphrase the good ol’ Admiral Hyman G. Rickover learn from others' mistakes—you’ll never live long enough to make them all yourself.

Oh, well, at least, perhaps, I can boast to my grandchildren some day that I earned my hard knocks on the gritty streets of New York. At least, I guess, I’ve got that going for me.

By the way, here are a few more lessons I’ve learned on the streets of NYC: 25 Lessons I Have Learned. Earlier this year Cyan Books approached me about publishing this work. Subbsequently, I've expanded the work from the original 25 pages into a tome of about 500 pages with lots and lots of photographs. It will be published in the Spring of 2007.

Any way, so, learn by my mistakes and Act Now! Get your release form here! Print it out and carry it wherever you go, so that when you know that you’ve got the photo that might bring you instant fame, shamelessly run after your subject, and get her to sign the damned thing.

That said, there may be hope after all!

Because not only to you have to remember, that regardless of the curve balls life throws you, you’ve got to keep thinking positively, so that you’re ready to swing at the very next pitch, but...

...I just read about a court case adjudicated this year in New York City where the judge decided in favor of the defendant, the artist who took photos surreptitiously near Times Square, and then sold 10 prints of it at $20,000 to $30,000 each. Here is the article, the aforementioned case is at the end in the couple of paragraphs on Invasion of Privacy.

Also, I met someone on the subway platform recently, and we happened to have a conversation about photography, because I thought he was dressed rather dapperly, and so I offered to take his portrait. It so happened that he’s been working in the photography print business for 15 years now, and currently focuses on producing exhibition photography only now.

He passionately stated that if he had an opportunity to publish a book of his photographs that he would not hesitate to include those of strangers on the street ,because they are in “the public domain.” He argued that the popular photography of the fifties and sixties was established upon street photos of anonymous subjects, and that no one ever ascertained release forms. In particular, he cited the exhibit of Lee Friedlander’s prolific work last year at the MoMa, whose prolific work is well known for documenting city life.

So, that said, there may be hope for us aspiring street photographers after all. If you work hard enough, if you’re undaunted, if you don’t get run over or beat up by some stranger you dared take a photo of, if you don't get taken advantage of by big avertising agenices that like to take advantage of little people (i.e. DDB), and if your genius is recognized before you ultimately perish, then who knows? Maybe you too can have your own exhibit at the MoMa….

Do You Know This Woman? (Part II)