Life Is A Process Of Growth And Maturity, Wherein We Seek Our Level Of Incompetance…
So I was handed the following books by one of my project managers today…
The One Minute Manager
Managing Projects – Harvard Business School Press
Leading Teams – Harvard Business School Press
Running Meetings – Harvard Business School Press
I guess I’m at that stage in the life of every little tadpole techno nerd kid who one day becomes an engineer somewhere and then goes on to become a senior engineer and then one day finds themselves reading the Harvard Business School Press. So I’m walking back to my little office feeling a tad elated somehow. It’s always Very Nice to know your employer wants to keep and nurture you. Plus, it’s good to find new challenges. Your brain needs challenge if you’re not to get simply old and tired and set in your ways. You just can’t let your one life slide on past you like that. Yes…this is all well and good. Except I’m walking back to my little corner of the Institute and this line from a song I haven’t recalled since I was a teenager suddenly bubbles up from somewhere in the shag carpet basement of my brain…
…Find out I’m the chosen one Oh noooooo!
Ever since The One Minute Manager first came out, something deep down inside of me would get a tad irritated every time I laid eyes on its cover. Any art you can teach in a minute cannot be that worthwhile. Is this why so many bosses are idiots? And now here I am reading the damn thing. But the Harvard stuff looks good actually. And…I guess I need to know this stuff now…
I’m actually working for the space program… The fucking Space Program! Making a living at it…getting a paycheck for it and everything… A really nice paycheck…
And I live within walking distance of where I work…and to two nice grocery stores and some nice restaurants and stuff…
And…I can just decide if I want to take a vacation to Key West later this spring…
Or go for a drive through the southwest…
And I own a house of my own…a fucking house of my own…
A house of my own…
How the hell did this ever happen to me…
The little geek whose clothes never fit right. I was the joke of my Jr. High… Ugly. Crooked teeth. Weird. Everyone laughed… I was a nerd… A nothing…a little faggot… A laugh…
Figured I’d always be a stock boy…a disposable run of the mill nothing…living in rented rooms somewhere if I was lucky… Just struggling to survive and make ends meet… Ugly…an ugly nothing…
I have grown up in a home where Martha Stewart Living is one of the most oft-read magazines and, since I was old enough to truly appreciate weddings, have been a faithful purchaser of Martha Stewart Weddings.
Deux…
However, I feel I would be remiss if I did not share my great disappointment with the current issue. As part of the large portion of the population who strongly believes marriage should be between one man and one woman, I was rather taken aback to see a homosexual wedding featured in the Winter 2010 issue.
Trois…
I may not always agree with the lifestyles and life choices made by all the people featured in every publication I read, but I do not appreciate picking up my favorite magazine to see photographs of homosexual couples being affectionate.
Quatre…
For someone who believes that same-sex marriage is wrong, such articles and/or photos are offensive – and something I certainly would never knowingly pay money for.
Cinq…
I understand that one reader’s views, opinions, and purchases can not change the course of an entire magazine. However, I believe that I speak for a majority. A very large majority.
Six…
As marriage amendments protecting marriage as between one man and one woman have been passed across the country, the facts speak for themselves – America as a nation does not support same-sex marriages.
Sept…
Note: I just wanted to clarify that I don’t hate homosexuals. I actually know a couple gay and lesbian people and they’re great folks.
I was at the Williams-Sonoma near Casa del Garrett, explaining to the nice lady behind the counter that, yes in fact, a good tequila is worth not only spending serious money on, but savoring slowly, and in just the right glass. Last New Year’s week I was served an absolutely wonderful glass of Don Julio 1942 in the tequila bar in Epcot Mexico. American tequila affectionados seem to like Patron, but I am told Don Julio is what the tequila connoisseurs of Mexico drink. If you think Jose Cuervo is synonymous with tequila then I am sorry for you.
Behind the bar at La Cava del Tequila in Disney’s Epcot Mexico
Behind that bar in…Disney World of all places…are some of the best, most expensive tequilas Mexico exports. But Walt Disney believed that this world would be a better place the more we all got to know each other, and shared with one another the best of our lands and ourselves. And as I said, if all you know of tequila is the house rot they sell at the local bar then you do not know tequila…or Mexico. The tall thin bottle on the top row near the center (it’s supposed to be shaped a bit like a leaf of the agave plant) is the Don Julio 1942. I spent $25 dollars for a little bit of the rare stuff served in a glass that resembled a champagne glass, but to a smaller scale. It was decadent, and for the first time I really understood how the right glass is absolutely necessary to the experience. When the distiller works that hard to produce perfection, and succeeds so…well…perfectly, you need a glass that captures the delicate aromas and presents them as you drink. I walked out of there with a new appreciation for all that funny glassware I kept seeing in the wine glass section of Williams-Sonoma.
So there I was, trying to explain to the nice lady behind the counter why I’d been searching for just the right tequila glasses, and was so delighted to finally find a set at her store. I’d searched everywhere and turned up nothing like the glasses I’d been served with at La Cava del Tequila. Some had come close, but none of them were just right. Then I happened on a set that, thankfully for me was on deep sale. The normal price was $70 a glass, but they were on sale for $17 each. I’m assuming it was a product line Williams-Sonoma was discontinuing.
The lady behind the counter quizzed me about the tequila I’d had at La Cava del Tequila that had made me want to spend so much money on a bottle, let alone go to all the trouble to get the right set of glassware for it, as if it was some sort of fine wine or Cognac. I tried to explain but was never able to get past that slightly astonished look on her face, and I realized that the concept of high end tequila is probably a difficult one for most Americans, if not most everyone else outside of Mexico.
One tequila,
Two tequila,
Three tequila,
Floor…
If demon rum is the devil’s drink, tequila is probably Tezcatlipoca’s. At least to the American puritan. And the stuff generally sold to American consumers doesn’t do much for its reputation. I told a co-worker the other day, a young collage student, about how much I liked the tequila bar in Epcot Mexico and his first reaction was to be a bit astonished that tequila could be anything but a really bad hangover. Actually I’ve never had a hangover after drinking fine tequila. But the house rot they sell during happy hour most places will probably give you one just looking at it.
Computers have enabled people to make more mistakes faster
than almost any invention in history, with the possible exception
of tequila and hand guns.
-Mitch Ratcliffe
So I got my tequila glasses home and discovered something else. Fine glassware is intimidating. Swear to god the moment I picked one up and felt its delicate perfection in my fingers (remember, these tiny little glasses originally sold for $70 each), I was a bit awed, and a bit terrified. I have never felt glass like this in my hands before. Ever. So…delicate…yet so perfectly made. I had to get the stickers off and then clean them and that isn’t easy when you are scared to death you’re going to break one every time you hold one in your hand, let alone pick it up and move it. I decided the dishwasher would not do and I hand washed them and I swear the only thing I felt safe washing them with was with my fingertips in soapy water. I didn’t dare rub a rough dishcloth over them. I got out the good dish rack and for the first time ever made use of its wine glass hangers to let them dry. I am not kidding, just picking these things up and moving them around scares me.
But…if you gently (very gently!) tap the edge of one of these glasses, it sings a beautiful, perfect note. These are just the right glasses to serve my Don Julio 1942 in.
I think this could be my first 200 point review…People give me booze for Christmas. I mean, everyone I know does it, even the ones who don’t know everyone else does it. This should probably tell me something about myself, but fuck it.
So this year, among other outstanding bottles which will also be reviewed, a friend dropped off a bottle of Don Julio 1942, and all I can say is Holy Shit.
Holy Shit.
The box states that this tequila is the lifetime achievement of the Don Julio distillery, which may seem a bit much; but a glass and a half into it and I’m starting to see how they could make this claim. Don Julio 1942 is a perfect tequila. No, actually, it’s a perfect spirit, period.
Oak’s apparent in the nose, straight away, but it doesn’t whap you upside the head with it… it’s just a high-level whiff that gives way immediately to the heady vanilla body with just a hint of caramel. The vanilla carries over to the glass, and it’s surprising in the first taste. The agave is unbelievably balanced, the sugars so perfectly apparent in the glass, but not overpowering. It drinks like wine. In fact… it would be way too easy to drink half this bottle right here and now; though this is one I think I’m going to have to make stretch– there are just too many people I want to share it with. But don’t get me wrong here, it’s tequila through and through– this isn’t some fluffy shit– it’s just unbelievably mellow. I’ve never tasted a tequila like this. This is the kind of tequila you could serve at a meeting between the President of Mexico, the head of the Tijuana cartel and the head of the CIA and none of them would kill anyone, lie or any make covert deals until the bottle was done. In fact, they might not even talk until the bottle was done– too much of a distraction.
Today In Defending The Family From The Homosexual Menace…
Via Sullivan…
Oh look at all the bible belt states in that second map. They keep saying that same-sex marriage violates the “complementary nature of the sexes”. Well it sure doesn’t get more complementary then when the family gene pool is kept in the family.
I’d like to see a comparison between states with the highest number of churches per capita and states that allow adult heterosexual men to marry young teenage girls. I’ll bet there’s a lot of overlap there.
Via Atrios… Digby has a good post up about Hippie Randism and Libertarian Lefties that goes into something I’ve wanted to discuss more. A libertarian isn’t a Randiod and either one of these could occasionally seem to resemble either a conservative or liberal. Or to put it another way, and speaking of Whole Food’s hippy climate change denying champion of absolute corporate deregulation and union busting, just because someone looks and acts like a granola organic liberal progressive New Age self-actualization holistic health guru that doesn’t mean they aren’t a right wing asshole when it comes to the prerogatives of massive corporate money. Here, Digby quotes the Times profile…
In the early eighties, Mackey told a reporter, “The union is like having herpes. It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover.” (That quote, to Mackey’s dismay, won’t go away, either.) His disdain for contemporary unionism is ideological, as well as self-serving. Like many who have come before, he says that it was only when he started a business—when he had to meet payroll and deal with government red tape—that his political and economic views, fed on readings of Friedman, Rand, and the Austrians, veered to the right. But there is also a psychological dimension. It derives in large part from a tendency, common among smart people, to presume that everyone in the world either does or should think as he does—to take for granted that people can (or want to) strike his patented balance of enlightenment and self-interest. It sometimes sounds as if he believed that, if every company had him at the helm, there would be no need for unions or health-care reform, and that therefore every company should have someone like him, and that therefore there should be no unions or health-care reform. In other words, because he runs a business a certain way, others will, can, and should, and so the safeguards that have evolved over the generations to protect against human venality—against, say, greedy, bullying bosses—are no longer necessary. The logic is as sound as the presumption is preposterous.
Digby goes on to say…
He’s a libertarian who identifies culturally with the left. He’s into New Age religion and self-actualization and believes in holistic health practices, clean food etc. But he’s not a left libertarian. These things get confusing, but it’s important to make the distinction.
Basically, this guy is a standard issue right libertarian which means that he is a free market fundamentalist, hates unions, hates government and extols the virtues of the John Galts like himself, although he believes in a sort of corporate paternalism that requires him to look after the parasites (workers) in some rudimentary fashion. He is also a believer in civil liberties and drug legalization. (I assume that since he’s a Paul supporter, he’s also critical of the Fed.) There are quite a few of these folks out there who seem like your liberal next door, more than you might realize. Hollywood, for instance, is full of them. I worked for a few. Many of them even think they’re liberals and will vote for Democrats on social issues. But when it comes to taxing the wealthy and regulating business they might as well be Dick Cheney.
There is, of course, an actual left libertarianism and it is best articulated by Noam Chomsky, not some wealthy twit like Mackey…
It gets confusing, and I suppose it will only get more so as the republican party degenerates further and further into theocracy and outright populist-nationalist lunacy. Others have noted how the 2010 edition of the 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference is going to be sponsored in part by the John Birch Society…they of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Was A Communist fame. If this is what the republican party wants to become then don’t be surprised to see people fleeing from it into a lot of factions and libertarianism is a very popular label to wear in some circles. But that’s really all it is in most of them. Just a convenient label the wearer hopes means I’m Really Not A Right Wing Asshole…Honest…
There are Lefty Libertarians. They think government shouldn’t regulate business and shouldn’t regulate morality. There are Right Wing Libertarians. They think government shouldn’t regulate business and states should regulate morality but not the federal government since it had the unmitigated gall to desegregate the schools. And then there are the Randoids. Rand herself and her intellectual spawn Leonard Peikoff absolutely loathed the libertarians. There are mixes and matches (call them mashups if you will…) of all three and then some. There are almost certainly for example, John Birch Libertarians and John Birch Randoids. Probably some of these shop at Whole Foods and look outwardly like hippies.
I like to think of it as that little corner of the Twilight Zone where which way is up depends on which ideology you’ve bought into. The problem with all of these is they have very little interest in how things actually work, and why things can and do fail. It’s all about the ideology. So in one very real sense there isn’t much to practical difference between any of them. But don’t try to tell a Lutheran that they’re more or less like an Episcopalian just with different vestments.
It’s going to be a fun decade, with the republicans leading the way to a political landscape where parties begin are more and more like religious movements, then conversations about how to…you know…actually govern…
Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. I said, “Don’t do it!” He said, “Nobody loves me.” I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me, too! What franchise?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I said, “Me, too!”
Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.” I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over.
Today In Random Google Searches That Led People Here…
I’ve been getting a lot of hits on this particular google search lately…for some reason…
robbie benson
When I first noticed it I got a tad scared that he’d suddenly passed away or something. But no. It seems the gods of Google are just favoring my little blog with hits from people, I assume they’re mostly girls, who think Robbie is very nice on the eyes. I know the feeling. I’m assuming they came here for this…
Yes…it’s a nice one. So for all you folks who ratcheted up my hit count lately over this photo, I would like to take a moment to say thank you…
You’re welcome.
To the Verizon DSL user running Windows on their Mac (ugh!) who asked google today…
bruce garrett gay?
The answer would have to be…yes. But you knew that after shuffling through all my episodes of A Coming Out Story I suppose.
I got a flyer in the mail today from Costco advising me to pre-order my Valentine’s Day flowers now, right next to an offer of $4 off on Splenda artificial sweetener. It must be an omen. So to the user whose google…
valentine’s day posters
…brought them here: Come back in February. This year’s winner promises to be even more worthy then last year’s! Here’s a wee sample of the awesomely fun time we have here during the annual Valentine’s Day Poster Contest!
On the ChristianNewsWire site I see that something called “The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission” has released a list of what it’s pleased to call “the top ten incidents of anti-Christian defamation, bigotry and discrimination in the US from last year.” According to its own press release, the list was “…selected by the subscribers to CADC’s e-mail list and was selected from a list of twenty of CADC’s top stories from 2009.”
I Will Never Get Used To Wearing Glasses…(continued)
I discovered last September, while visiting Disney World, that glasses fog when you leave your nice air conditioned hotel room and venture out into the humid Florida summer. Now it’s winter here in Charm City and I’m discovering that they also fog when you come inside from below freezing into your nice heated and properly humidified little rowhouse. Damn.
Please stop bitching about where they put the cruse control stalk on a Mercedes-Benz. That’s where they’ve always put it. That’s where they’re probably always going to keep putting it. That’s where everyone who drives a Mercedes-Benz expects it to be.
Love, Bruce.
PS: I notice you said the inside door panels flex when you open and close the doors on your top pick Cadillac CTS. And you gave that your top marks? Oh, and the reliability of the car is below average. Please advise: what the hell do you think a luxury car is?
PPS: Who the flying fuck mistakes a column mounted shift selector for the windshield wiper stalk?
Pardon Me While I Mock That Petulant Self-Righteous Resentment Of Everything Fine And Noble About Human Beings That You Keep Mistaking For A Religion…
What you have to understand about this…what I could wish everyone understood about this…is the problem here isn’t Islam. The problem is fundamentalism. Fundamentalism, and the fatal conceit it infects its followers with: that they are not merely the possessors of absolute Truth, but are its very definition. The rest of us can only be heathen scum, who had better obey if we know what’s good for us. It is not a faith, it is a self congratulatory fraud, a spirituality whittled down to the level of cheats and cowards who cannot deal with the demands of life, let alone existence, and passionately hate those of us who not only can, but find beauty and nobility in it.
And if there is anything a cheat hates, it is being mocked…
A Somali man has been charged with trying to kill a Danish artist whose drawing of the Prophet Mohammed sparked riots around the world.
The suspect, who was shot by police outside cartoonist Kurt Westergaard’s home in the city of Aarhus on Friday, was carried into court on a stretcher.
Police say he broke into the house armed with an axe and a knife.
The suspect, who denies the charge, was remanded in custody. Police say he has links with Somali Islamist militants.
The radical al-Shabab group in Somalia hailed the attack.
Al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Ali Muhamud Rage told AFP news agency: “We appreciate the incident in which a Muslim Somali boy attacked the devil who abused our prophet Mohammed and we call upon all Muslims around the world to target the people like” him.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. I guess it’s time to bring this cartoon out again. I did it back in February of 2006, as the note by my signature says “…in solidarity with the Danish 12.”
Morons. I know…I know…we’ll all get along just fine as long as everyone obeys you…
What is this I come home from Florida and it’s 19 degrees outside stuff? I need a telecommute agreement that lets me work in Key West during the winter months…
So I’m dallying around the web and I come across This SLOG Post asking what the various Stranger writers were doing ten years ago, New Year’s Eve. Yes, yes…ten years is a long time. I suppose. And what was I doing? Well lessee… Ten years ago was the…ah…Millennium! Yes. And I decided to celebrate it…alone as I usually am on the holidays…at my childhood vacation spot, Ocean City, New Jersey. I figured it would be fun, and not rowdy since OC is a dry city. That’s “dry” as in, no alcohol. You can’t buy it, you can’t be served it, you can’t drink it in public. You can drink all the booze you can truck in to your hotel room from just across the city line where a convenient liquor store is conveniently located. But otherwise, you go without. Keeps the orangely tanned Jersey shore riffraff away. No beer cans everywhere, no broken bottles, no smell of urine in the parking lot, no blood on the sidewalks. I figured I’d celebrate there.
I got a bonus. OC put on a really magnificent fireworks display at the stroke of midnight, that even Atlantic City across the harbor couldn’t touch. Because they didn’t even bother. No sense giving people a reason to leave the casinos.
I had a great time. I was able to stay at a hotel I could only dream about staying in when I was a kid…the Port ‘O Call, which is the only high rise hotel right on the boardwalk in OC. Most of the boardwalk treats were open that night, and I had lots of fun. Then came the magic hour when the calendar rolled from 1900s to 2000 and the fireworks lit the sky and I was on the beach taking it all in and marveling how much my life had changed since I was the geeky little kid who used to love playing by the shore and on the boardwalk there.
I saw a movement behind me and I turned to look. Two young guys turned towards each other, and while the crowd around them was looking up at the fireworks, embraced and gave each other a loving kiss.
I was dumbfounded. Then delighted. Yes, thinks I, progress is being made. I was happy for them. Maybe when this new decade is over, I thought to myself, the next will find me in the embrace of my own soulmate. And at the stroke of midnight we’ll embrace and give each other a kiss just like those two did. That can’t be too much to hope for. Could it?
It was.
But don’t ask yourself if there could be anything worse the next decade could tell you then that you’ll still be single and lonely and ten years older on top of that, because there is. You could find out that the friends you trusted would help you if they could, think that you’re wasting your time pining for a boyfriend because you are just not boyfriend material. People who look like that want people who look like that… They will look you in the face and tell you that your only hope is to find a trick for the night and get used to having an empty bed the next morning…and they’ll think they’re being kind to you by telling you this.
Ten years later, I really didn’t need to know that. Not that I would believe it, but that they would tell me that. Strangers can bash you…they can take your life away from you…but only friends and family can chew your heart up and spit it back out. That is what the last decade taught me.
The great photographer Margaret Bourke-White once averred she became positively irrational if she couldn’t get a shot she wanted. I know the feeling, but I guess part of the reason I never became a professional photojournalist is I am too polite about it.
Case in point: I’m driving home from Orlando, up I-95, in the lost, lonely mood I usually am after vacationing in a spot where I’m likely to run into a lot of happy couples. It’s the morning after New Year’s Eve and it’s gray and cloudy and looking very, very somber, and I am driving back north away from the sunshine and warmth of Orlando and Disney World and back into the Baltimore Maryland cold. So I’m not feeling exactly cheerful.
As I drive through North Carolina, I see an abandoned motel to my right, that oddly has its front walls entirely removed. What you see is just the shells of the rooms behind the wall, like a lot of post office boxes with their doors torn off. The effect is of a stark hollowness.
No… I think to myself. It’s too obvious… But I can’t get the image out of my mind. I’m driving north and the miles are piling up and I just want to get back home and back to my nest and sulk for the last few remaining days of my vacation and maybe do a little housework. But I can’t get the damn thing out of my head. I even know Exactly the shot I want to get. I can picture it in my head clearly…picture exactly where I need to stand and what angle to shoot at and what my camera settings are.
No…no…it’s too obvious. And…I don’t want to go there. I’m feeling down enough as it is right now. Do I need to make myself feel worse? I think not. Damn…the sky is just right for that shot though. I’ve never seen a place with just its front wall torn off. Why the hell did they do that? It’s so damn odd… Be nice to just wander around it a bit. No…it’s probably fenced off. I’ll bet they have No Trespassing signs plastered everywhere. Do I want to get arrested in North Carolina? Seriously. Just let it go. Damn the sky is just right… Those gray clouds…just the right amount of sunlight up there. That scene really wants to be low contrast. I should just keep going. I don’t need to go there. I’m feeling miserable. Damn that sky is just right. If I stop some other trip it won’t be right. They might have the rest of it torn down by then. I should just keep going. There will be other shots like that one. I’ve never seen a place with just the front wall torn off like that. Do I really want to be wandering around a derelict building all by myself? It might be dangerous. Some thug might see me pull up in my Mercedes-Benz and decide to shoot me for my car and my camera and nobody would ever know what happened to me. Too dangerous. Why the hell did they just take down the front and leave the rest of it up? It’s so damn perfect. It’s like its bearing its empty heart to the sky. All those people who stayed inside, found warmth, shelter for the night, maybe a moment or two of love, and eventually they all left without a second thought and now it has nothing. The front wall was its face…and then the people left and its face fell away and all that’s left are the empty rooms open now to the sky. I should keep going. I don’t need this. I should turn around. Do I really want to go there? Darn it…I can’t let that one go… How far to the next exit…
Which by then was about 3 miles ahead of me and the motel in question about 12 miles behind. I did a loop back and on the way looked for some other possible shots in the landscape. And I found a few, which made me feel better about loosing travel time. There were two service roads paralleling the main Interstate where some lonely restaurants and strip shopping seemed to be barely holding on. I figured after I took a few shots at the abandoned motel I could drive up one of the service roads and get a few more of other stuff by the highway.
I actually had to drive past it again and loop back to find the correct exit. What apparently happened was a new highway was built nearby, cutting off the old exit by the motel, which killed its drive-by business. I had to go back to an exit a few miles in the other direction, and find the place where I could access the service road that led to it. There were few other surviving businesses along that road. A collection of self storage bins. Some odd pumping station whose purpose I had no idea. There were some empty highway billboards and a junk yard/auto body shop that looked like it had been picked over until nothing of value was left. Yet it seemed to still be in business. I wondered who got their work done there. Close by the motel was a trailer/RV park that actually seemed to still be doing a reasonably good business. It was called Sleepy Bear.
I have no idea what the abandoned motel next to it was called, but it was clear that its current owners wanted nobody getting near it. There was a huge, and I mean huge NO TRESPASSING sign right in front. The building itself was only partly fenced in however. Anyone could just walk onto the property from the street.
The service road dead-ended just past the motel, where the old highway interchange had been closed off. I wasn’t about to park in the lot. But there were some pull-offs just down the street that were off the property and I stopped Traveler there and popped the trunk. I took out the new camera, popped off the lens cap, adjusted the hood, switched on and checked my settings. I took a quick light reading. Then I wandered over.
Damn…that sign is big…
Okay…fine. They didn’t want me trespassing. I looked the site over to see if I could get the shot that had been so fixed in my mind the moment I laid eyes on the motel, without setting foot on the property.
Yes…I can do this…
But I was beginning to get the creeps. It was deathly silent all around me…gray and overcast and a tad chilly. Even the Interstate just a few dozen yards away was quiet, due to it being early New Years Day. All the revelers were sleeping it off. Only us lonely travelers on it now…just the occasional sound of a car going by was all there was.
I walked up to the fence along one side of the motel. I couldn’t take my eyes off the building. In a creepy sort of way it felt like it was looking back at me, through empty eyes…
Damn…they really did just yank the front walls off of everything here. WTF…???
I began to wonder if trespassing meant don’t go beyond the fence or if I was trespassing by simply walking up to it. I decided to just get my shots and skedaddle. This is why I am not a professional photojournalist. I am way too timid. The spirit of Weegee laughs at my timidity.
I couldn’t shoot through the fence…the chain link was too much in the way. So I raised my camera above my head and started shooting. The nice thing about a digital camera is you can see your shots instantly and know if your getting it. Every time I clicked the shutter the LCD display on the back of the camera showed what I had just taken. So I could adjust the camera angle a tad and take another…and so on until I had it. At one point, I knew I had the one I wanted…the one that said it. Whenever that happens, it’s like a little electric current goes through me from the camera. I swear.
I backed off and looked around some more. I felt something tempting me in. But I wasn’t going to risk getting arrested. I’d seen a little house down a private driveway next to the motel, and there were certainly people over at Sleepy Bear. As I walked back to Traveler I saw a truck towing a nice vacation trailer behind it drive away. I wondered if the driver noticed me. I walked briefly to the front of the motel again, near the sign but well on what I thought was its good side.
Damn…that sign is Big…
I fired off one more shot of the front of the motel and tarried with the idea of wandering around the front some more to see if there were any other good shots I could get from outside the fence. But something about that sign kept creeping me out.
They really mean it…
So I got back into Traveler, started upand headed back toward the Interstate. There were a couple other shots I’d seen as I made my way to the motel and as I approached one of them, a sign that said simply “Units Available” in front of a long lonely row of cookie-cutter identical self storage bins, I wondered if I could just stop my car in the middle of the road and take it from out the window, because it didn’t look like there was any usable shoulder to the road there. I didn’t want to get stuck. I was about a quarter mile away from the motel.
Suddenly I saw a police car coming at me from the opposite direction. It blew right past me and if it wasn’t doing at least 90 I am no judge of speed. There was nothing in the direction it was going, except Sleepy Bear, the little house behind the motel, and the motel, and the end of the road.
Damn! Damn! Did someone see me taking pictures and call the cops??? I wasn’t about to hang around and find out. Good thing I didn’t stick around… I decided to forgo getting my other shots and politely asked Traveler for triple digit velocity. Traveler happily obliged. I don’t think Das Auto likes being confined to American highway speeds. I had a couple tight curves to navigate but Traveler hunkered down over them and didn’t even flash the Electronic Stability Program light at me, and there wasn’t anyone else out on the roads just then except me and Mr. Policeman.
Good thing I didn’t have the camera hanging out the window… I figured the cop, if he was called out for a trespasser at the motel, would first check the area and only then would the thought cross their mind that perhaps the perp was in the car that they’d shot past like a bat out of hell. By then I’d be well down the Interstate and it would be a fifty-fifty shot at guessing whether I was going north or south, if I was even on the Interstate to begin with. I didn’t think anyone could have gotten my license plate, and at a distance all I would have seemed to be driving was a white compact car of some kind.
I slowed to legal speed when I got on the Interstate. I wasn’t about to get caught in a radar trap either and I had noticed a lot of them already that morning.
Probably they’d have let it go when they discovered the trespasser had left the scene. Why bother, right? Except…do you blast down the road like a bat out of hell just to nail a trespasser at an abandoned motel?
I wasn’t trespassing dammit. I stayed behind the damn fence. What is it with that place…?
I stressed about it all the way to the Virginia boarder. I took the memory card out of the camera and hid it so I could plausibly say, What…Who…Where…Huh if cornered. Except that people who wear their hearts on their sleeves like I do don’t make excellent liars.
The spirit of Weegee mocks my timidity. Did I take some pictures? You talkin to me? Yeah I took some fucking pictures…
Oh well. I got my shot and it was worth it…
Abandoned Motel – Lumberton, NC.
Dang…I wish I could wander around that site and get a few more shots. But I don’t think they want to let me…
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