We all impact one another as human beings. Witness the following as but one example:

1. Kurt Vonnegut writes many great books. One is “Bluebeard.”
2. A friend of mine reads it.
3. This friend lets me borrow it.
4. In the book, I pick up the phrase “baby-shit brown.”
5. I use the term “baby-shit brown” with Rodrigo, a gay, card-carrying Republican wardrobe designer I know.
6. Rodrigo has used the phrase “baby-shit brown” in every conversation I’ve had with him or near him ever since.
7. We all live forever, and maybe just maybe . . .
8. There is hope for Rodrigo’s political tendencies, now that he’s going around quoting Vonnegut.

In an earlier post today, I made reference to a saxophone. That’s because I was thinking about this saxophone player I know from around the Venice ‘hood who always rides his skateboard barefoot while playing his sax. He cruises through town bringing a sense of peace with him. And sometimes you can be out near the beach in the twilight when the cold and the fog and the wind kicks up enough to send you home . . . and then from the mist, you hear the peal of a saxophone moving through the boardwalk. I hadn’t seen him in probably a year or more.

Today is sunshiney and windy. I just got back from a quick skate and I’m rolling down the boardwalk, the wind pushing me fast. I look up into the people ahead and my eyes rest on a glint of sun coming off of a stationary . . . saxophone! No way . . . I’m thinking, and grind my stopper into the cement to slow down and sure enough, it’s my old friend the barefoot skateboarding saxophone player who I’d just been thinking of today!

So, some of the first shots are back from yesterday’s photoshoot.

“Why do we love the darkness and the suffering? My dear, you need only look into your own tortured mind to find out.”

–Ariadne Zeitwellen Masters-Chambers*

*This is the random quote I got from the Random Goth Quote Generator.

Check out more photography at Kevissimo’s LJ here.

Venice has wide storm drains on every corner. It’s quite easy to accidentally drop things into their depths. Fortunately, if you drop something in the Venice storm drain, whether it’s skateboard or cell phone, bong or crack pipe, surfboard or dog . . . there is help out there.

A few months ago, my friend Frenchie came over. I pull up around dusk via Schwinn bicycle to witness the typical sort of arrival that my best friend is known for. Her car is parked slightly askew on the street. Doors open. Hazard lights flashing. She’s standing on the sidewalk in high-heeled boots, cell phone in hand, two LAPD officers blocking the intersection and “non-chalantly” – ahem! – salivating near her as though she is a Bavarian cream filled éclair that’s been dunked once in coffee.

I really thought something was wrong at first . . .

The big emergency? Her cell phone fell into the storm drain. She had flagged down an LAPD squad car and taken command of an officer’s cell phone. Give Archimedes a lever and a good vantage point and the Greek mathematician claimed he could move the globe. Give my friend Frenchie a cell phone and good reception and in her own way, she too can move the globe. I thought she’d never see her phone again. I was wrong.

After about twenty minutes, a huge truck about as long as the city block and reminiscent of a Star Wars Sandcrawler lumbers toward us. Two little guys in orange jumpsuits hop out. One of them pops the heavy manhole cover off with a little bitty tool that is not unlike a garden hoe. The other disappears into the storm drain and retrieves her phone. She takes it with a smile, notices the red message light blinking and says to the man with her syrupy Southern accent, “Thank you, sugar, for rescuing my messages!”

So, the next time your car stereo face plummets into the concrete depths or if some how your saxophone skids into the abyss of the street corners of Venice, don’t fret. Know that free help is available and dispatched quickly to the scene. There’s no need to panic or call your cell phone that’s sitting down there on the dark ledge, just out of arm’s reach. Call the men in the orange jumpsuits. They are professionals. They’ve got a giant truck. They know what to do.

I’m to that point in my life when, sometimes, I have camel-toe and I don’t really care.

It’s my roller skating outfit - strechy sexy matching workout pants and jacket - with racing stripes on the side of the pants. It’s tight, in all the right places. The orange and brown of the suit match my orange and brown skates. The pants pull up in just the right spot, but not too far. This is no exaggerated cameltopia happening. It’s subtle. It’s sexy.

The other day I wore the roller skating suit to the grocery store (without the skates). As I push my cart down the aisle, I turn my head and spy a gentleman in his mid-40’s or so totally checking me out. And I catch his glance and smile and kind of chuckle. He gives me a rather pleasant look that seems to say, “Thank you, lady, thank you for wearing that outfit to the grocery store.”

No problem! So, you see, really I am performing a public service while wearing this outfit - skating the boardwalk or not. Note - it’s difficult for me to get pix of this, but I did have a photoshoot with a friend today and I think we may have gotten it, so look for the upcoming shots. I just couldn’t keep it, you know, the camel toe, to myself.

Every single week - get it here . . . .your Photo Candy Weekly. This is just a snazzy marketing term I made up as an excuse to post some photo that I deem as interesting every week, above and beyond what is on my ever-changing home page. Some weeks it may be something of mine, some times maybe not.

My first Photo Candy Weekly entry is:

a polaroid transfer, a process I will blog about later. For now, enjoy!

So after Josie’s Party, my favorite part of the evening was walking to Santa Monica from Venice at night in the heavy rain. I donned a yellow rainjacket, rubber soled shoes and a red umbrella. Concealed in my pocket was a still half-full and newly resurrected Circle of Sin. I’m heading to this place that used to be called Schatzi’s on Main street in Santa Monica. I have no idea what the place is called now.

It’s my friend Kindred Khan’s birthday. I’ve got some Bushmill’s in my pocket. I’m going to see a bunch of good friends. WooHoo! At the restaurant, I meet up with my friends Patricia and Stu. *Stu is not his real name. It’s a name he made up himself, an alter ego who gets by with much more mayhem and drunkenness than the normal - Oi! - dude. Stu is a Super-man to the local Venice bar scene, if you will. I know his day-time persona, his Clark Kent equivalent, but Stu’s secret is safe with me!* Stu’s girlfriend sent him out for ice cream this rainy night, but he’s somehow made it here with us, instead of to the store. It’s too bad she’s not here, she’s one of the friends I was hoping to see tonight.

So, Stu and Patricia and I are hanging out in the rained-out swank of the club/bar place. I’m lounging on a vinyl couch in my rain jacket in some dim red light under an industrial pop-out tent. Nice enough. I can see the rain and feel a few renegade drops, but all I hear is ambient dance music.

“Hey, check this out,” Patricia says as she hands me a menu.

I open the red and white ribboned book. It’s a bottle menu. $650.00 for a bottle of Dom and 250.00 for any flavor of Absolut. Excellent.

“Hey, check this out,” I say as I pull out the Circle of Sin and begin to pass it around.

“Excellent,” purrs Stu, who takes a pull.

“Although I’m thinking it needs a new name,” I said, “Since it’s really not shaped like a circle . . ”

Stu recaps the flask and grunts with a Spanish accent, “It is . . . the Cortez of Sin!” He beats his chest and heart with his free hand while he holds the . . . Cortez of Sin(?) . . . high in the air.

Patricia is half-Mexican descent and speaks perfect spanish. She looks confused. “What’s ‘Cortez?’” she asks.

“Oi!” says Stu still in his Conquistador-voice, “You know, the heart!”

Patricia laughs. “That’s corazon!”

“Yeah, well, Cortez was a conquistador . . . ” I offer.

“Even Better! A con-QU-ista-Dor! Who had a heart!” says Stu.

I think the verdict is still out as to the new name of this flask. Cortez was indeed a conquistador. A successful one. He destroyed the Aztec empire in the early 1500’s. So, no Cortez of Sin for me, thank you. Any suggestions on a brand name for this new flask are appreciated. Chances are if you are reading this, that someday you’ll drink from it!

Travel has become commonplace in our globalized world. All it takes is a few hundred dollars and a person can buy a plane ticket to just about anywhere on the planet and stomp around to their heart’s content. Just because someone has the money to purchase a ticket and visit someone else’s country doesn’t automatically give them class. And just because a person can stomp around someone else’s sacred ground doesn’t mean they should.

One of my pet peeves is when some overpriveleged white kid says in an offhand way, “Oh yeah, I just did Belize,” or “Have you done India yet?” Countries and cultures are not things to be conquered, like a frat boy does a kegstand. I don’t think that people who view travel in these terms are necessarily evil, I just think that words are powerful and that having the mindset of trampling your way across a place circumvents possible chances for experiencing a place fully and honoring it’s people and culture.

When I think of people who do a place, I can’t help but think of anything more than khaki and mud and litter. When I think, however, of experiencing a destination, instead of mental images, I get the inexhaustible feelings of expanding my awareness. These two concepts are very different. Go, though, do your guided tours while flaunting your khaki shorts, leave your Coke cans behind in a trail of mud from your boots, just do one thing for me please, be respectful to the local people, so that I can come in and actually get to know a few of them and maybe experience some things that would never be revealed on a pre-packaged tour with a gaggle of sight-seers.

I once had this little pewter flask, usually containing Jack Daniel’s, that I carried with me everywhere. On one of it’s many romps, the little flask was nicknamed “The Circle of Sin,” and thus the tradition of takin’ a wee nip o’ the flask with every new acquaintance was born. Anytime I’d introduce myself to someone, we’d have to seal the new friendship with a draw from my trusty canteen.

I’ve carried the Circle of Sin with me to at least five countries, three islands, probably twenty states and across two continents. It’s been dropped, danced on and dinged repeatedly. It’s been thrown in the air, tossed across rooms and bounced off of heads. Everybody from old ladies to strangers sitting next to me at sad movies have known the Circle. Sadly, it eventually got so dinged up that the cap would no longer unscrew without difficulty. So, I just bought a giant bottle of Bushmill’s and kept that in my car.

Realizing that carting around an open container of whiskey isn’t the most sane, safe or legal thing to do, I kept an eye out for a new flask, and that’s about the time that I parked my car, whiskey and all and set off for DC, where I eventually picked up a new whiskey vessel. I kept wanting to bust out this new Circle of Sin, but the new flask was neither a circle, nor was it big enough at the time to quench my sinful thirst for the water of life. Work was stressful and although similar in size to it’s predecessor, this shiny new thing seemed no larger than a thimble.

Since the fall, I’ve relaxed a little bit. I came home to my parked car around Christmas, which was covered in bird poop, and under a stack of blankets, found my nearly full Bushmill’s bottle . . . and haven’t yet had a sip. Haven’t really wanted to . . . but today is the perfect day to celebrate and bring anew into the world the tradition of “The Circle of Sin.” (Well . . . except that whole thing about how the new one isn’t really shaped like a circle, so much as it’s shaped like a shield.)

My friend Nan is having a party to celebrate the life of her Mother, Josie, who passed away around Thanksgiving. I knew Josie and loved her smile and zest for life. So this afternoon at Josie’s party, I’m bringing along my virgin flask. And the first sip will hit the ground for Josie, and then we’ll mingle, the flask and I, getting to know all of Josie’s friends and sending toasts her way. I know she’d be smiling.

Here’s the lowdown. I’ll tell it like it is, so that everything is clear and there are no questions.

My mother has some serious brain trauma problems that stem from several sources. She had an accident as a child which initially delayed her development and within the past several decades has endured some documented spousal abuse from her second husband, which has resulted in at least two hematomas. I’ve thought alot about blogging about this kind of stuff, and whether I should or not and have finally come to the conclusion of - fuck it, pretending it doesn’t exist doesn’t help and besides, it’s kind of interesting, and sometimes heartbreaking, but sometimes really funny. My mother has certainly colored my outlook on life and I like what I’m doing so here it is . . .

My mother has three biological children - myself, my sister and my brother. Of the three of us, Tammy was given up for adoption. I met Tammy for the first time when I was 21 years old. She has never met our mother, only spoken to her one time on the phone.

Since I was very young, I’ve only seen my mother very sporadically. Her new husband often prevented contact, and my new step-mother was great, so it was easy to slip out of her life. As an adult, I’ve made effort to visit her once every few years. More than a few times I’ve been asked to leave by her husband. Once I knocked on her door and she answered, squinting at me and said in her shrill voice, “Yes!? Can I help you?” She didn’t know who I was. She couldn’t see into my eyes which look just like her own and recognize any familiarity.

Tammy and Jimmy and I pull into the town of Champaign-Urbana around midnight on a cold sleepy Thursday night. Tammy says, “You know, now that I am here, I just want to knock on her door. See what she looks like. It will be sort of like looking into the future genetically, since I know I look like her. I don’t want her to know who I am, though.”

I’m actually stunned and pleasantly surprised and nervous all at the same time. I decided last year after a couple of years of moderately heavy involvement with trying to get some help for my mother, that I just couldn’t handle the pressure and the drama. I had no more morbid desire to see her, spend awkward never-ending moments of silence in her house. About five minutes is more than anyone can bear. I’ve actually taken friends with me to visit in the past, just so I have a witness that I’m not crazy. They would whole-heartedly agree, five minutes and you are like an animal ready to gnaw your own hand off to get out of the trap that is their house. For the record, I love her and will do whatever I can to help her, but as long as she chooses to live with someone who won’t allow communication between her and her family, there’s not a lot any of us can do. And I am done beating my head (pun intended) against that wall.

I’d made it clear to both Jimmy and Tammy before we began this journey that there would be absolutely no pressure from me to go a-knockin’ on our mother’s door when we arrived in town. Now, here Tammy is suggesting it and that makes me really happy. Her suggestion of not identifying herself made me even happier. Jimmy chimes in, “Hey, I can go with you while you knock on the door, ’cause hell, she don’t know who I am either!”

We devise a plan. We are all stealth and 007 about it. First, we recon the neighborhood, driving around several times. It’s cold outside, about 18 degrees and bright. We are surprised to see that their Grand Marquis sits in the end of the driveway, near the front door. The Grand Marquis is her husband’s baby and is always in the garage.

Jimmy is “Steven” and Tammy “Jennifer” and their last name is something also made up and they are going to wear sunglasses and knock on the door and (hopefully) when our mother answers, Tammy/Jennifer will say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this was the Johnson residence.” And hopefully there’ll be that zinging moment of “holy shit!” when Tammy’s hidden eyes look deeply into the eyes of a stranger who she will recognize as someone who looks like and moves just like her. Tammy never knew anyone growing up who had her particular smile. Our mother does.

Tammy practices introducing herself with her new name but is having problems saying it properly, so she changes fake names again. I agree to stay in the rental car and take pictures from my hiding place in the backseat, since our mother would most likely recognize me. Tammy covers her piercing blue eyes with reflective sunglasses. “I have to go now or I never will,” she says, and opens her door. Jimmy flips his shades down and wordlessly slips out of the driver’s seat. He’s handsome these days, but a bit intimidating with his shaved head and goatee. Thirty-one years old or not, he’ll always be my little brother.

“Godspeed,” I say, and they walk down the sidewalk. I know we are all taking long slow deep breaths. I start snapping pictures.

They walk up to the door of the screened in porch enclosure. Tammy knocks on the door with alot of force. They stand there for what seems like an eternity. She knocks again. She opens the porch enclosure to knock on the inner front door for several minutes. No answer.

They said the TV was blaring. I confirmed that this is a normal phenomenon. Last time I was there, his 6′ 5″ frame filled up the La-Z-boy and she was crunched into her little living room chair that makes her 4′ 10″ body appear like a doll. They were watching Bonanza, the TV volume cranked as loud as it would go. In an effort to maintain their ruse at the front door, my brother pointed to the name on mailbox while they were standing there shivering, hearts pounding in their throats. He said to my sister in a loud voice for the benefit of anyone who may be secretly listening, “Hey honey, the mailbox doesn’t say ‘Johnson’ . . .”

Eventually they came back to the car. I think we were all better off that for whatever reason, no one answered the door that day.