All Tool, no Futz

 Photography has been a hobby as long as I can remember. 

With time, cameras got better and so did some of the photos. 

My time would be spent wrangling with the camera settings to get it to obey me. Sometimes I almost got it right. Being of limited talent and all that. 

Taming the Manual mode felt like being creative. Setting up the buttons and dials to be just so. Ooh those custom settings and dials work so well. 

More time thinking about gear and acquiring more gear and finding faults with said gear. 

Bob Kramer, a master knife maker and Hugh Brownstone, a street photographer (from who i borrow the title) pulled down the veils on this nonsense for me. 

A knife is a tool - the goal is good food. 

A camera should be invisible - what is important is to capture a moment and realize your vision for it. 

A tool is something i use to achieve an end goal. 

The tool, in itself can be interesting and beautiful and indulgent. Even be a work of art. Like a Hasselblad.

We can argue Android vs Apple till the cows come home and die and become beef to be consumed. 

But that is not the goal. Enabling human endeavor is.

Tools should be invisible and weightless in the pursuit of that goal.

How well can the tool get out of the way - that is the rubric by which any tool should be judged. 

Daffodils

 As the only poem that I remember from school, the association is instantaneous and overwhelming. 

…… For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

- From “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth

Pic location: New England Botanical Gardens, Boylston MA. 

Epilogue: SUV Glam

 Glam metal confused and splintered the metal music industry. 

But it did not deter true creatives and real diehards.

In the relative silence of the underground, the people who loved the music went to work. And from those wonderfully weird depths of darkness sprang forth a beautiful fountain of art. 

When glam was ready to roll over and die under a mound of cocaine and hubris, the curtains revealed a veritable feast - Grunge, Nu-metal, Black, Death, Doom, Progressive, Tech, Folk, Kawaii etc. - a sub-genre for any adjective you can think of. 

As the wise Eric Martin Ain put it, “…there are many many more shades and colors to darkness than just black….”

Today metal is creatively fecund and well. And that gives me hope. 

At some point, the world will see the foolishness that is the SUV epidemic. 

And when the SUV’s eventually fuck off into the back halls of posterity - because something else becomes popular, what kind of vehicles and automotive solutions will take its place? 

What shapes and sounds and capacities lie in the beyond? What modes of propulsion?

I cannot wait for the future already. An SUV-less future? Maybe not.

But a less-SUV future. Let's fucking go.

Boston Marathon 2024

 It’s the day to ship off to Boston - we welcome spring and athletes from all corners of the world.

For the authentic experience, you have to take the T.

We love something because it has faults. It is fallible. That makes it human. And so is the case with the T. 

It’s like a crazy spouse - one that might try to kill you. Might even succeed. But will always love you. 

                                              

No - these are not extras or amateur entertainers; these are athletes participating in the marathon. The Wheelchair and Para categories are the ones that set off first and then get to the finish line the quickest. 

Proves that running isn’t fast enough on a consistent basis. Wheels are better. But what the hell.

                                                 

Of course, we have to reach Boston and pahk. and it does not mattah if you don’t touch the tahmac. Everyone pays to pahk anywhere. Who do ya think you aah? A blimp?

                                    

We had a lot of fun is what we want to portray on social media. In reality, it was all fear and loathing and consistent foreboding. 

                                                

And some nice sights on the way back home. Only looks good when the weather co-operates. And when tourist naff is absent.

So, how do you like them apples?

Never go full glam.

 If you are younger or more musically discriminating or just uninterested in anything 80’s, you wouldn’t have heard of this term called glam metal. 

And instead of burying you with a trash heap of words to describe this car crash of a musico-sartorial movement, please stare at the below image - overexposure might burn your retinas and kill some grey cells. 

Potted history: somewhere in the early eighties, Van Halen and Motley Crue were putting out good music. But people were more interested in their fashion than the guitar solos and good song writing. 

One thing led to another, music was kicked out of the car and had to take a cab to the beauty salon. This epidemic of hair spray is what eventually came to be known as glam metal. 

This music was so popular that other music went underground. Many squillions of dollars were made. 

Most of it - erm, almost all of it was utter garbage. Because it had nothing to do with good music. 

If metal music has a foundational trauma in its history, it is glam metal. Trust me, it was difficult to even write this. 

I wanted to use this movement as an analogy - to address a car buying habit that is following something similar. The rise of the Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV).

SUV’s came from military vehicles - roughly speaking. The idea was to make cars rough and ready to take any terrain. There was enough interest that civilian models were made - think early Toyota Land Cruisers, Willys Jeep, Mercedes Benz G-wagon. 

Fair enough. In combination with low fuel prices, people wanting to avoid the minivan-suburban image and growing life expectancies, SUV’s went from a niche to a booming market. 

The companies saw the trend and got their grubby hands on the concept. Zeitgeist.

                                    

From a niche market, to essentially every car being sold in the US these days. 

So now you have many many SUV’s - small and big. Tall and less tall. 5 and 7 seaters. Bulky and bulkier. Hybrid and ICE and EV. 

In the process, SUV’s practically killed off the sedan, hatchback and minivan. And created a whole army of brick faced unrecognizable facsimiles that even the manufacturer wouldn’t be able to tell apart. 

Of course, there are good ones here and there - but the vast majority are unengaging, gas guzzling, tire and brake and tarmac chewing phatboy road cloggers driven by people who are uninterested in cars and think that the arrival of a new baby has to be celebrated by a buying an SUV. 

And the car enthusiasts, and small car buyers and the true eco-conscious were left stranded or bankrupted. 

Many squillions of dollars were made.

In short, the SUV went full glam. And just like glam, eventually, it will crash, burn and be denounced.

Basic Rhythms

 We all find life lessons and values in things that we are attached to and like. 

I found some of mine from musicians, who, on the whole can be a tricky bunch - some with very questionable motivations. 

But there is always gold to be found - happy listening. 

Mike Mangini talking about why being open minded is the most important thing for any artist.

Chris Adler on his “why” for playing drums.

Gaining Blood

 Did you travel outside of the USA and Canada in the last year?

Yes. 

Where to?

India. 

Oh, that’s bad news. You cannot donate blood for 3 years because you lived in a malaria endemic area. 

But I asked the hospital about that, and they said you just need a 3-month deferral if you were traveling through and not lived there. 

Right, so when did you come back? 

6-Jan-24. 

Ok, so Feb, Mar, April. Yes, that is 3 months. 

~~pokerfaced

So, I think you can donate. When did you visit India before that?

Last year. 

So, you visit India every year? that might cause a problem. 

No, last year’s visit was after 5 years of not visiting. 

Ohh, so 5 years. That sounds alright. it should be OK.

~~pokerfaced

I did not know donating blood had a possibly mathematical-ethical gray area. But there you are. 

Maybe that is why vampires went extinct - no blood was exchanged for fear of lawsuits. Oh well.