"The Boulevard"
Part I

And so it begins on the Boulevard’s most regal day. It’s the special Sunday, the day Oscar bestows with all hubris and humility the gold of desire. Outside the theater though, gridlocked on the corner of Highland and Sunset is where the pre-show really begins. The words, they pour from the mouth of the streets, and the “Trust Jesus” preacher, the other man in black, begins his oratory.

“Hey you A-holes in your fricking limousine’s, there is not one word in the Bible that talks about acting. That’s because it doesn’t exist. you know why? Because it isn’t a talent, you have no talent and you get paid for doing nothing. God is angry. God hates you. Obey or perish."

Anger and expletives continue to flow from the preacher's lips.  Thrusting his megaphone onto his salted chapped lips he bellows over and over. “REPENT HOLLYWOOD VULTURES REPENT! REPENT HOLLYWOOD VULTURES REPENT! REPENT HOLLYWOOD VULTURES REPENT!

Across the street are the young girls holding up their silent signs, which read, “Roll down your windows please.” Aching silence, as the two competing worlds collide and then the man with the carbon tongue, the street preacher begins again. “Shame on you and your stupid movies. Okay you rich man in that black car I see you and God see’s you and you should be ashamed of yourself."

There are a lot of men out here on the Blvd taking off their underwear in public. I wonder at what point he crossed over? When it was suddenly okay for him to go out and stand on a street corner the day of the Oscar’s and fill the world that day with his thoughts and a megaphone.

Army of One
From The Boulevard Series

So, here I am, I’m back. Last I left, the bones still had a little marrow left in them. Back on the Blvd., here to get what’s left, get it out of the corners. Men, and their ideas of who they are. I walk by these two guys going at it. “I’ve been retired all my life. Except I didn’t stop drinking, hell, that’s been my full time job. All you really need in life is a couple of good words. I could turn my life into a video game. I could be the atom bomb.” A big round ass of a girl wonders in, interrupts Oppenheimer and bums a cigarette from the old man. He obliges, not reluctant in the least. He does her the favor of a light and continues. “It came out of me like I was spitting water. I wrote three scripts in three days. You’re a much better writer than you think you are.” His name is Wild Bill. The 1-800 Starbus slowly drives by. Six or eight pink tourists from the Midwest sit perched. Sweaty, fat thighs stick to the seats. Wild Bill gives them the finger. “They got bad genes in the middle of this country.”  He draws from within his fingers the black nicotine that sustains him. “You know, you can wear clothes like this when you’re an old man. Take that woman, who took that cigarette. You gotta feel bad for her. A big fat ass like that and no tits, that’s God messin’ with you right there. If I’m going to be fat, I want a big ass set of titties. At least that way, God’s giving me something to work with.” As she walked away, a six, maybe eight-inch hole spread from the middle of her old, tired grey sweat pants. Her under pants were cotton, pale blue. “Well, at least she’s got somethin’ workin’ for her.” I wonder if she knew.

"Clown"
From The Boulevard Series

And as I walk down the Blvd., I simply snatch broken pieces of conversation...

Wake up blood bags, its time to consume.
I don’t really want to go to Japan, but they have everything I want there
It’s good because it’s slow but it’s fast
She talks to angels, that’s not the point
Baby I can break you down
Movie star homes
Free paternity test
Stomach shots lets turn around
I mean like, like, like, I’m creative
Tell mom I want to be a sumo wrestler
Stop walkin’ into people before I smack you
God’s she’s freaking hot
Do a good deed today
Everyone’s gettin’ somethin’
Just eat what you can
The mushroom cycle
I’m already sick of the playoffs
Love Park
I’m gonna submerge my double dip
What’s your number on the Internet
I’ve got a hole in my foot
The sooner these things pop the better
Half is half of half but it’s not a quarter
Let me see that look on your face.
Stick to the spicy milk in the cup
I can eat all day what about it
She’s an easy lover, awkward limbs
I just stuffed my face with calories right now
I dropped a pound in a week and a half on my meat diet
Yeah let's go we’re burnin’ daylight
I love a well-dressed woman who uses f*** every other word
Make that tortilla bleed
You know we shouldn’t have left the puppy in the car
I’ve got lights for the man cruiser
Tear the lettuce off and throw it on the ground
I lost 7.15 inches in the last 6 months
I can't get it out of you, your gonna need a doctor to do that
I should be a doctor

St. Christopher Crosses

We turned right onto a street of such sorrow, I felt my soul hover and then leave. The street had been given the name of Saint Christopher, and was home to the saints and souls of the three hundred thousand sleeping under his slow rounded stones. I dropped to my knees. Impossible words accelerated out of my being at a speed I could not control nor cared to control. An immense cross of twenty feet lay upon the hillside covered in purple silk. Below are roughly seven hundred and fifty unmarked crosses. Beyond tears.

Spirit Wood

Finally, I’m off the grid of humanity, off into a place where I can just drift and drive.  After four hours, I’m out past the cell zone, out past the radio. My mind and my quixotic soul are now in complete congruence. And on into the silent sheets of rain I spin. Into God’s great sky of grey, folding into each breath of wind. I slow, feeling the pull of an easy magnetism and ease the car to the right. Before me, hundreds of ravens take to the air circling my car. They too are the blood and bone of me, and I am breathless as they share their spirit wood with me. The black sky, their painting of feathers above me, the way their wings brush against the sightless horizon enter me as myth.  The birds feel as if they’ve soldiered through time to be here, and that this is their final immaculate place of rest. Four hours and hundreds of miles of exits, and this is the random one I chose. I will not spread my camera here upon your silent landscape of rain. Instead I will touch your black earth, the roots of the trees from which you were born. I chose not to photograph you; I chose instead to commit you to my inner world. Not everything needs to be rendered still. In these recent years, I’ve chosen to walk away from more and more images. I am happy in the fact that I alone have seen them. The cumbersome nature of the camera takes away from the sense of being true and pure as witness in spirit.

Bottle Nose Beauty

To she who once swam without fear, I acknowledge you. To your Bottle Nose beauty. Your last breath, lost in the vastness of our sea. Without a voice, left to die alone. Until your body meets with my camera, my soul and I breathe back in the essence that was once you. The photographs came from a different place this time. Reflected through a 7th prism, a dimension that had expressed itself only briefly over the last two decades. I’d removed the mind from the photograph.

Bob's Snorkel Shack

“You having fun yet? Nope. You having fun yet? Nope. You having fun yet? Nope. You having fun yet? Nope. You having fun yet? Nope. Pass me a freaking banana would you…” And that’s how it all began, as the baboon tourists sat, waiting with their bellies full of boredom, apathy and misery. They looked fresh off the bus from the Lithium Institute with nothing but pick axes and death in their eyes. The one big fat guy with his mask on his head, wetsuit on backwards with bulging pink limbs full of high blood pressure and cholesterol was the worst. Maybe because that could be me in ten or less; note to self, always have cyanide handy. Hawaii is all about mirrors and being seen in public. The veil must be lifted, but I ignore, choosing instead to busy myself in the completion of photographs, my greatest distraction in life. I think of the Curse of Lono… the last big voice that came booming out of here was Hunter S. Thompson. Spreading the thick hummus of his words across the printed page. The devil surely had him, wrestling that thick tongue of his, scraping off the paste and throwing it under the might of Steadman’s bloodied blade. Two knights, savoring their collective lust.

Belfast:  Innocence Lost

Yes, it began here on the streets of Belfast. Innocence, mine was about to be lost. It came by way of two children. And it was their smile, their youth, the exuberance, the joy. Held in a moment inside their bright blue eyes. In the opposite direction was an elderly man, shoulders narrowed from the weight of his life as he carried his invisible yoke with him up the delving road. He took me on life’s journey of sorrow that day, and I left my youth cutting the string to my own life. I’d like to go back to that place now, almost twenty-five years later, to that place where I traded my past for my present.