everyone's lost but me...

Photographers live in the past. We take ourselves out of the moment to record it for posterity. Witnessing, but never fully taking part. Then, after the fact, we examine and rearrange the events, hoping to make sense of them. By then, however, it’s too late. The past is gone and it doesn’t really matter that we figured it out in the first place. I’ve realized that the several years of my life I’ve obsessively documented are now hollow memories and not as fulfilling or comforting as I thought they would be. As I peruse these photographs from time to time, I see Brothers, Friends and Lovers. I see the places I’ve gone and places I haven’t been to in a very long time. The one thing I don’t see is myself. I am absent from these events, and consequently, I am absent from the memories as well... I still carry a camera pretty much everywhere I go, but now the life experiences come first and the photos come second.

Re: Public Breast Feeders: Unless you brought enough for everybody, maybe you should put that away.

My Doctor once told me, tapping his temple; "Some images are just for you... for up here." Those images are some of my best work, and I jealously guard them.

I entered the crowded coffee chain at 10AM, to discover that it wasn’t really that crowded, just jammed up by 2 people, each with doublewide strollers. This husband and wife team had managed to put a complete stop to traffic flow. The store was smallish, and had a couple of displays that were taking up valuable real estate (though not as much as these Peterbuilt Prams). As people shuffled in, and tried to move into the line, the prams held their ground. Do these people have any concept of what they’re doing? Can’t you park those damn things at a meter and have one of you go in? Oh, wait. Neither of you knows what you want even though you both see this menu every day of your work week. So if you could fuck with everybody’s life, while adding 15 minutes to my coffee buying experience, that’d be great. While you may think it’s quaint to have a stroller the size of your husband’s H3, nobody else does. That Baby doll tee from Abercrombie and Fitch doesn’t give you a pass, either. I don’t...

She had asked for a Rice Crispy Treat. Dammit. My heart leapt into my throat. The tag on the tray said Marshmallow Bar. Can’t she read? I couldn’t let her call it a Rice Crispy Treat, not with those rumors floating around. We never paid for the right to use the brand and if THEY caught wind of it, we’d be in trouble. I must have had a deer in headlights look on my face because she repeated her order. “Rice Crispy Treat?” she said, pointing. Those elves are treacherous... I mean they’re Evil. He’s not called Snap for show. That little guy is a knee breaker and he’s crazy. You ever wonder WHY the Original Boo-Berry went off the market? It’s because they never found him, not after he started talking smack about Snap and his brothers. (Subsequently, they pulled a "Darren From Bewitched" and "reintroduced" him.) After that, Cap’n Crunch had to house all of the General Mills guys in his Vitamin Fortified Compound in the West Indies. “How ‘bout a Marshmallow Bar?” ...

The world is essentially divided into 2 types of people: those that tip and those that are cheap oxygen wasting mouth breathers. This is the type of person that a corpulent childhood friend named Albert would have described as “School in the summer time... No class.” You know who you are. And so do we. We notice you, and we still smile because it’s our job. But on the inside we’re doing unspeakable things to you... and that’s why I’M smiling. When I moved here from West Michigan, I thought I had left a city plagued by the cheapest lousiest people on earth. Not so. Bearing their lanyards as a badge of distinction (as if I’m impressed), sauntering up to the counter while talking on the cell phone (hands-free blue tooth sci-fi ear piece, of course, you neophyte) and browsing a menu they’ve looked at a thousand times before. The vacant open mouth stare I know so well. Then they order the same thing they always do. “Uuuuuuuummmmm... hum... well I’d like- No we can’t have that report by M...