Film at 11...

Ok I got the "film" back from the "lab." And I had them scan them into digital land too... Well they were supposed to do big honk'n files but they did little crap files and heck I paid for big honk'n file so I guess I will go back and run the risk of them losing the "transparencies" one more time. This was one of those pro joints with 3000 euro bodies just begging you to fork it over... I might as well have went to foto-casita. Dang!



Anyway all said there are some winners in the "roll." Here's one. What a lovely guy. Obviously he hasn't been spending his golden years dealing with Telefonica. I'll flickr 'em when I get the real deal scans in or I pop for a "pro" scanner and do it myself. I think "pro" scanners are going for like 11.95 now. If I wait until tuesday they will probably be giving them away with a bag of spaghetti.

Feed

Caras de mi Barrio

I Finally go off my culo and started taking pictures of the people who live in my neighborhood. I have been talking about this for probably as long as I have lived here. And as always things are different once you dive in.

My new art buddy Alissa and I hit the streets in search of those denizens of Sants that have always caught my eye. Alissa, is from Portland, Oregon, lives on the other side of the block from me and is here doing a documentary about Angolan children who are victims of land mines. Is it strange that another Portland filmmaker who shares the friendship of a certain accordionist happens to live a half a block away from me in this very off the radar neighborhood of Barcelona? Yep. Very.

Anyway I talked Alissa into going along for two reasons:

1. After wandering around the Saharawi camps alone with a camera and in general practicing "art" by myself I thought it would be more fun to do something like this with somebody else. It was.

2. Ultimately I am a coward and a single guy going up to strangers with a camera and asking to take their picture usually doesn't work and is... for the single guy, kinda scary. Like the Mormon missionaries, the little old lady Jehovah´s Witnesses and cops, 2 is better. Enough with the brave thing.

The parameters were these. Stop anybody I thought looked "interesting" and shoot out one 36 exposure roll. Yep... film!

Even with the two for us our refusal rate was about 90%. But what we did get is pretty amazing.

I have to be honest that for this project the people I had in mind were the snarly old ladies that have completely destroyed my usually positive opinions of old people and ruined my hope for aging gracefully. We did indeed start out asking these golden agers but as one would expect they were not interested and many of which expressed the same generosity of spirit that they demonstrate at the vegetable stand at my mercado... But the people who did agree had a quality that was open and in it's own way beautiful. OK I am drawn to how do we say this... interesting looking people. This is not about shooting babes in bikinis this is about shooting people with strange noses, big ears and odd tuffs of facial hair... and that's just the ladies. But there was something behind these strange and remarkable faces and oh so not perfect bodies. There was the man whose son had downs syndrome, the guy white haired guy with the dew lap, gucci shades and his shirt open to his navel, the beautiful very, very old man with a cane who seemed to be thankful for every painful step he was taking. The capper was 87 year old Maria Sanchez and her daughter Francesca. At first Francesca was suspicious and for some reason kept running back into the carniceria that we were in front of. But soon she returned and told the story of her son who has leukemia and there search for a bone marrow doner. It turns out Francesca is a professora at the University of Barcelona and they have found someone with a bone marrow match someplace in the United States but they can't locate his exact position. She was holding back the tears.

The thing about Spain is that everything thing is just below the surface. It's sometimes a hard surface but it's brittle so you can just tap it and you are in to another world. I guess the task of taking somebody's picture is all that is needed to break through. I'll put the pictures up on flickr as soon as get them processed and scanned.

Culos Obvioso y Oscuro

You I'm starting to lose it. But I'm coming to the some conclusions. Here`s a few simple ones.

In Europe the assholes are not as obvious as in the US.

US. Bush. UK. Blair. Blair... here's an example... had a nice quiet photo opportunity lunch with Gaddafi... ok it was a while ago but hey it happened. I remember the press conference. I think thay talked about the beautiful beaches.

The Aids injecting Bulgarian Nurses. Ok they are going to die. The they are going to live but be in some Libyan dungeon for the rest of thier lives. Then they are gong to die. Then they are free. These people were in said dungeon for 8 years while their fate was decided and Tony was having lunch with Muammar. Try the Fatoush. I love Fatoush. Well firstly I am happy about this but secondly why? Link. Because the EU and the French paid 438 million euros to get them out of there. The figure comes from 1 million Euros per infected kid. Cecilia Sarkozy probably brought the check. Pass go, pay 438 million and you are out of jail... after 8 years in the hole and a little torture to boot. But this Gaddafi guy is OK now in Sarkozy's and George's and Tony' book... well Tony's book is not so important now... Gordon's book? How does Mr. Brown feel. Ah heck what's a little thing like Lockerbie. "Hell Momut why not come on down to Guantanamo and ask some of your people some questions."

And Nick is having such a good time hanging with George. Link. Baked beans. Burgers. Ketchup.

You know in Europe they have this way of looking the other way. Look at Blair. Man, that guy could talk! Impressive! But it's all about the power dance. Sarkozy, well at least he speaks his mind... scarey as that might be... until he gets elected and he makes nice with the socialists, hires a whack of them and the cutlery and china remains firmly in place on the French lunch table. And it's not like the socialist had any trouble working for the Vlad Sarkozy. They friggin' curtsied. And then a guilt wracked Segolene comes clean and admits that much of she was promising was complete merde. Why? Well my guess is that she wants a job too. Scoundrels on the left. Scoundrels on the right. At least with GW we know he's an asshole... all the time, 24/7.
And then there is Dubai, which continues to haunt me... mas tarde. Jeez, I better get back to talking about Zoe, Ham and my old commercials.

España donde esta mi España...

So was I down a the bakery this morning waiting on line for my sometimes regular Sunday "Media Luna" which is basically an very good apple turnover. OK its not really Spanish or Catalan it's French and comes from a quasi-French bakery chain called "Paul." So I guess I'm cheating but for many things like this and croissants Paul is pretty much "the" place for this kind of baking. But to give credit where credit is do the bakery across the street has the best bread in Barcelona... I should know because I'v probably tried 100 bakeries so far.

So it's a Sunday in August, everybody is away on vacaciones including Benedicte and Zoe who are in the US of A. Living in this very working class barrio I sometimes lose track of the quiet side of Spain and Catalunya. Sants is soooo noisy. Scooters, buses, cars... and everybody trying to be heard by screaming over the top of it all. And lets face it Spaniards are not exactly known for being soft spoken. But Paul and the Calle were for once quiet. I asked the lady in front of me if she was the last in line and she said she was... this very Catalan solution to the lining up problem could be it's most valuable contribution to the world. It's brilliant, you enter a shop, bakery, hardware store and you ask, "Who's last?" The last person responds and you can go about what doing other things or just wait comfortably knowing that all you have to watch that persons progress. Of course when someone new enters and asks the big question you of course are the one who needs to say, "Yo!" And so it continues.

But I found my self waiting comfortably and perusing the newly added ice cream and it's incredibly expensive contents. 125 CL cups for 5 euros... please, this is neighborhood that prefers its ice cream in the shape of Spiderman or Mickey Mouse. The door opening was announced by a very soft bell and not a buzzer from the Gong Show and a pretty young woman entered. She seemed to know the slightly portly fellow who was next in line after me. They greeted each other and began a lovely quiet conversation. She was speaking with this soft and resonant voice that had the lovely sibilant of well spoken Castilian. Beautiful.

Living in Sants I have lost track of what I fell in love with in Spain. It's not the hubbub all though that is part of it. It's not the screaming neighbors or the garbage being picked up outside my bedroom at 4 in the morning. It's voices and people like that girl in Paul.

I'm finding young alternative-y Spanish folks to be what I find most attractive about this country. The are smart, open and committed to change. Older folks can be really hard and closed minded, particularly in working class. Keep up the fight chicos and chicas.

Water World

We spent a couple of weeks in Brittany with Benedicte's family. It's a yearly thing, every year Benedicte's parents rent a house and invite the entire clan. Depending on how far the net is cast this can be up to 11,000 people... or at least it seems that way sometimes.

I just try to help out as much as possible and what seems to help the most is if I stay the hell out of the way. It's a machine. A french machine but still... a machine. So I try to grab Zoe and do things. Go fishing. Go hiking. Go to the cafe and draw. But this year I had the wise idea to bring... wet suits. OK lots of slack from Benedicte... "When I was a kid we didn't have wet suits!" Well neither did I and let me tell you I was friggin' cold. I always seemed to be cold. Rubber boots and cotton socks during a snow storm. Wet mittens that made better sponges than insulators. Brrrrr.... So I got Zoe this cute pink shorty. Mask, fins, suit... all pink and all for like 40 bucks.

Zoe was one of those water babies. You know like on the Nirvana album cover. It always made sense to me, we spend the 1st 9 months underwater... why not just toss them in the pool on their second day out of the womb. Well it wasn't exactly day 2 but she was in the pool at 6 weeks taking lessons but sadly in her case it didn't work. Although she has always loved the water she has also been very afraid of it. Later on through her school they offered more swimming classes... after weeks of trying to get her jump in they put her in the shallow end and told to stick with the 3 year olds. Luckily she didn't mind.

But I am proud to announce that this summer through the Robin Willis reluctant swimmer program she is now a fish. She would spend hours paddling around looking at fishies and crabs and well, a lot of rocks. The slight buoyancy of the wet suit seem to help her and the mask and snorkel replaced the fear of down there with fascination.

So obviously I too was out there with her. While floating amidst the flotsam and jetsam I revisited the idea that our species biggest mistake was crawling out of the sea. I feel completely free when I am underwater. It seems as natural as breathing. I do not desire anything. No cars, big screens... no career ambitions... Time does not exist. Neither does gravity. Neither do problems. I am one with the waves. I have always thought that I was really an otter who oddly wound up as a television commercial director. I think Zoe is one too.

Out-there-a-stan

The Beirut story is long and complicated. Yes there were bombs going off... in the suburbs. Yes I was pretty much required to go back to my hotel every night and stay there and watch the Discovery channel and eat Fatoush. Yes the lovely folks at the production company did have an office pool regarding which neighborhood would be bombed next. Yes Moneer the Egyptian creative director who is based in Dubai with the agency refused to shoot in Beirut. At one point the shoot was cancelled, then was to be moved to Kuala Lampur (?!) then Moneer was instructed to not be such a wussy by his boss, strap himself into his flack jacket and get his hiney over to Lebanon. Yes I saw Dubai and was completely freaked out. Beirut is on the radar but Dubai... what hath Allah wrought?

The big questions is why? Why did I do it? Why is there Dubai? Why are people seemingly so intent on screwing up things?

Answers:

1. Well it just happened. I got these really strange boards via email and the next thing you know I was booked. And I needed the job. And I think I have this strange desire to see odd places in the world and in general I like people and am fascinated by other cultures. It is probably related to eating camel and living with the Saharawi.

2. You got me. But I think it has something to do with pure unfettered evil. Greed. Exploitation. Insanity. All the big corporations are there. There is the world's biggest indoor ski area. The biggest market in the world for private submarines. It is usually 50 degrees. The sun is eternally behind this wall of white that is in fact the sea boiling away. Inside buildings, cars... it's proudly 15 degrees. The brown skinned people who are building Dubai are for the most part slaves. They hold their passports. They do not have the benefit of air conditioned Mercedes SUVs. Its like working on Mercury. Why? Tax free zones? No workers rights? Big bucks? Swank restaurants? Starbucks? Ample cheap big screens?

3. In general I don't see this in kids... well most kids... It seems to be a something we think is required of as adults. Table alignment and fork placement. Believing in a concrete definition of God. Killing people because they think that eating with your left hand is the sign of the devil or that the holy ghost did or did not impregnate the mother of God's son... which is a conceptual problem because I count 3 separate deities and what is supposed to set the world's largest religion apart from tree fornicating pagans is that it's monotheistic.

Being waste deep in advertising I have come to see that most of these big international mega-corporations do not care squat about anything other than the quarterly returns. It's not like everybody who works for them are blood thirsty capitalist with horns and tails. Its just people with families and responsibilities who need a job and have been conned into thinking that this is the right path. Heck I have derived my income for longer than I care to admit on these various entities. (See the answer to question one for a clearer description.)

We have got to carve out a different path for our kids. My 7 year old daughter's school has offered her Chinese lessons. She is taking them because she wants to learn another language but the school is not offering them so she can hang out with Chinese folks and better understand dim sum, the school is offering them because "its' the future". Well it's a future that I don't want to go to. Sweat shops cranking out more and more crap for Wall Mart. Phony pharmaceuticals that kill people. Zilch environmental concerns. Human rights? What's that compared to a DVD player for 20 bucks? Why are we turning a blind eye to this stuff. Why is the world not looking at Dubai and cringing?

It's taken a while for the Beirut job to sink in. While I was there I never had one moment that I felt unsafe. I had grave doubts about doing a spot for a powdered soft drink for the Saudi's because the agency and client think it would be just the thing to compliment the pre and post daylight gorging that goes on during Ramadan there. But I felt like I was on adventure. I felt lucky to be seeing a place like Beirut up close and personal. I loved the crew and still miss them. The Lebanese are absolutely amazing and lovely people. But now a couple of month's later I really don't know what the hell I was doing. It was dangerous. There were really bombs. The army was on seemingly every street corner. I got frisked on the hood of car by a young soldier with a machine gun.

What's odd though is that I'd go back to Beirut in a heartbeat. There is something about the place and the people. It's a dark and perhaps dangerous intoxication. Here are links to my flickr accounts and some pictures I shot on my cel phone or DV camera.
Beirut
Dubai