The wind and the wall

Some of the graffiti in Oaxaca is wonderful. This is a photo I took on our last trip south. I've got better versions of this collage but I just don't have the energy to hunt for them tonight.

The second line of the poem is the toast my brother made one wintery Seattle night over a candle lit spaghetti dinner we cooked. We sat down to eat with my three children and, raising his wine glass, he turned to my daughter and said, "Tell them about us". That was a long time ago. Funny how life twists and turns. These days my daughter doesn't speak to me and my oldest son and I have been estranged for years. I can't even begin to describe how painful this is.

I'm leaving for Mexico in just over a week. There's so much yet to do. And more than can never be undone. And so much more that will be left undone forever.

Mexico

I don't want to jinx the plans, but we're scheduled to leave for Mexico on October 1st for six weeks. I have to start planning and packing and that means first I come here and grumble. I dread packing for these trips. There's not a lot of room in the jeep to start with and I only get a small section for my necessities, all which must be stuffed into the tiny area behind the passenger seat. The rest of the available space is crammed with camping gear, tools and there's a small area for Don Jefe's things. He travels light and I travel heavy and never hear the end of it. Anyway, the trip is looming so I'm creaking into gear. This time we're headed for the Yucatan to poke around some newly discovered Mayan ruins. Of course it will be wonderful but I resist everything. Don Jefe considers it his personal mission to channel me in the new direction and that is when the fun begins.

French Quarter storm wraiths

I love the gusto of Apocalypse N.O.", Joshua Clark's blog chronicling life in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. At least until the beer and Pinot Grigio run out, he and a few other storm wraiths are having a rollicking good time hold-up in the French Quarter as he says, "partying at the end of the world".

I understand Clark's revulsion at the thought of being stuffed back into a tidy, air-conditioned world. I'm not thirty and I don't drink anymore, so some of the romance of their situation would be lost on me, but I still seek ways to touch the abyss. It's not only that I enjoy it, in some intangible but critical way it's indispensable to my life as a poet and a human being. For the same reason, I see that Clark and his friends are on a necessary journey. Check it out before they get evicted.

Tonopah, Queen of the Silver Camps

I just got back from a weekend conference in Tonopah (central Nevada). As usual, I spent most of my lunchbreak and late Saturday night photographing the place. In her day Tonopah was known as the Queen of the Silver Camps and it was here that the final chapter in the settlement of the American West was written. During the bonanza days, Tonopah had a population of 10,000 and sprawled over the hills. Now most of the place has fallen into the dust. Today Tonopah is a tribute to high hopes, hard times, bad winters and not so quiet desperation. Even the old, boarded up church on the hill had its time of reckoning and the moon herself lays low when she's in town as though even she dreads the undertow.




















In Tonopah, nothing and no one is taken for granted. In a place as lonely as this, the ghosts are not only tolerated, they are a welcome part of the town's citizenry.

There's a Bird Garden Buffet in Tonopahbut for some crazy reason it's not open to pigeons! Plonk would definitely not like Tonopah but it's is my kind of place, a wreck and a relic. Tonopah has good coffee, generally friendly neighbors and history. What more can one ask for?

Body bags and image politics

1896

Keeping with the fundamentals of neoconservative leadership, Perception Management, now sacked Bushman and now X FEMA Director Michael Brown's primary concern five hours after the Hurricane Katrina hit land was to "convey a positive "image" of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public." To that end he asked for permission to send one thousand federal workers to New Orleans to assist rescue operations. Reality Check. This week, Louisiana officials prepared for the next stage of the recovery operation by amassing 25,000 body bags.

BODY BAGS.
The idea of body bags is a hard one to manage. The Image Manipulators do everything in their power to keep that image out of the public eye. "Body bags" blow the soft focus and mood music Bush needs to look legitimate. But Hurricane Katrina even tore the roof off of Bush's carefully guarded secret and gave the world a peek at what a truly incompetent boob this guy actually is. Team Turd Blossom is scrambling to re-plant their patented PR Sleeper Bullet in the national psyche and save the day but I hope people manage to stay awake long enough to connect a few more dots because Bush, the poofter who golfed while Katrina shredded the gulf, is the same jackal who lied us into this unwinnable war in the middle east. And that's still just the tip of the shit iceberg.


PS:
If you've been getting your "news" from FOX TV and other propaganda organs for this administration I suggest you refresh your definition of the word "reality". Look it up. You'll find it between "rapture" and "salvation" in the dictionary.

Reality TV cartoon source.

Death of Yogi Nugget

It's a sad day around here today. This morning I discovered that Yogi Nugget died. I realize that with all the disaster and death that's going on in the world, especially now, this news is about as insignificant as insignificant can possibly get but still I care. Life is life. I will miss her.

I'm leaving for Tonopah tomorrow for the weekend, then I'll be in Oregon most of next week but I will post more photos and story as soon as I get the chance. They'll be in the Cockroach Diary.


Ps. I just got my first visitor from New Orleans since Katrina hit. Good to see people are getting back online. That part of the stats map has been dark for days. Welcome back!

Deadman's best friend

"A man died of a seizure five days ago
-- and his dog has stayed by his side ever since --
at a gas station in the Gentilly Woods area of New Orleans."
(Sept. 1st, by Andrea Bruce -- The Washington Post)

Censoring the dead

From the beginning the bodies of military personal killed in Iraq and Afghanistan have been brought back to the US under cover of darkness. The administration doesn't want Americans grasping the reality of the situation. Now the government is doing the same thing with the bodies of the dead strewn throughout New Orleans. Like the soldiers, Bush wants to keep them out of sight and has ordered a media black out on images of corpses. If he had given New Orleans the money it requested, desperately needed, to repair the levees the damage and death toll would have been much less.

Now Bush has decided to head up the investigation into his administration's criminally inadequate response. I can't believe people are going for it. Naturally he won't find himself or his bungling, bloated bureaucracy guilty of anything. It's really disheartening.

Bush clowns as the dead float in New Orleans

1892