Picture Notes

Great Falls, Montana - recycling metal parts.

I need some new words for this blog and I’m going to crush many of these so they can be recycled. Lately I’ve mellowed and I’m not angry about anything nor feel the need to change anything and that’s a pretty strange thing. I’m working long hours right now though and don’t have much energy left for much else. I just hope it makes a difference to someone. Here is a poem to chew on - I’ll crush it and recycle the letters tomorrow.

Doubt
Unlike silence it moves
into the mind as a mist
that hides reality.

Isn’t this lovely. It’s fresh ground turkey in a tray about to be cooked. I like the pattern, it’s interesting when I get over what it is. Sure, I could put up another pretty picture and ask the world believe everything is beautiful. This is the inside of an animal.

Below is a partial list of replies that I received back from art directors, picture buyers and editors along with my returned photographic portfolio. I was sending it out the mail looking for work a few years ago. I like the list, it’s like a road map that was being drawn as I passed over an area. It’s very much like the raw meat as well.

“I have to say your presentation wins first prize.” - It was a great presentation, probably too good.
“Your slides are interesting and dramatic.”
“We hope you will continue to send in your work.”
“We enjoyed seeing them.”
“Thanks for your interest.”
“I enjoyed reviewing your slides.”

“Many of these are quite lovely but not the stuff we’re looking for.”
“We’d be happy to look at other work in the future.”
“Though the photographs are quite good, we regret that the subjects…” — Whoops, this is the first real note I think. I had failed to do my homework and they noticed.

“Thank you for taking the time to bring your qualifications to our attention.” This is like saying, “we didn’t have time to look at the photographs, just your short bio.”
“Even though your slides are very well done, I don’t think…”
“Thank you for your participation.”

then, the serious side…. “is suspending publication….”

“Congratulations! Some of your work has been accepted….”
“A check is also enclosed.”

This is one of my favorites:
“Your work very nearly induced us to revise this policy and include photography again. Sorry….”
“Nope. Sorry. Not this….”
“He felt the slides were interesting and of excellent quality.”
“Unfortunately”
“It did make me smile.”
“A total of six slides were used….”
“We’re holding 3 of your slides.”
“Thank you for sending us your photographs. We liked them.”

Someone once asked me why I compiled this list and keep it around and I wasn’t sure then, nor am I completely sure now. It’s like the dues we’ve all had to pay to do something we truly love doing and we are all more than just fresh meat being delivered to the market.  Next I’ll write about a few of the many portfolio presentations I’ve made.

I just saw the film “This film is not yet rated” and I’m more appreciative of the internet and what it has given us than I was before. The message of the documentary; that the film ratings board shouldn’t operate in a closed off, secret environment unaccountable to independent producers, was well made. The large entertainment companies control film distribution, like they do the news, it’s their system and it’s a closed system. If you can’t get your independent film into theaters, for what ever reason, you can’t tell your story. The documentary was made a few years ago and now broadband internet is reaching more people in this country, like it is in Europe, and film distribution should become less of a problem.

Everyone should get up to speed on Net Neutrality, that is how the large entertainment companies want to control and restrict public access to the internet. They want the internet to favor their products. This is going to be a bad fight for them because as soon as the internet providers try to restrict access or steer people to “favored” sites, we’ll all find new providers who won’t, it’s just that simple.

It’s ironic that the world wide web, which was a place designed for commerce, has become this forum for opinions and ideas that is operating unrestricted by anyone, unless you are in China where ideas seem to get people in trouble. Without bloggers asking questions we would become compliant sheep, not even able to ask the right questions, sort of like like this guy in the parking lot. “But men who think like sheep are even better” in a song by Brian McNeill, There Are No Gods and Precious Few Heroes.

So here’s a hero: Ralph Nader. OK, so the documentary was a little too self serving - I’m not sure he can really walk on water. But before I saw the film I didn’t realize how many programs he started and how much he has helped all Americans. I think that talking about Automobile safety was radical at the time and I remember how he was trivialized by the media. (You know, it was probably about advertising revenue.) Do we really want to turn our government over to the private sector, to these people, so they can make a profit from everyone? It seems bad enough already when you count the number of lobbyists in Washington, DC.

From Wikipedia: “In 1980, Nader resigned as director of Public Citizen to work on other projects, forcefully campaigning against what he believed to be the dangers of large multinational corporations. He went on to start a variety of non-profit organizations:

• Capitol Hill News Service
• Citizen Advocacy Center
• Citizens Utility Boards
• Congress Accountability Project
• Consumer Task Force For Automotive Issues
• Corporate Accountability Research Project
• Disability Rights Center
• Equal Justice Foundation
• Foundation for Taxpayers and Consumer Rights
• Georgia Legal Watch
• National Citizens’ Coalition for Nursing Home Reform
• National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
• Pension Rights Center
• PROD (truck safety)
• Retired Professionals Action Group
• The Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest
• 1969: Center for the Study of Responsive Law
• 1970s: Public Interest Research Groups
• 1970: Center for Auto Safety
• 1970: Connecticut Citizen Action Group
• 1971: Aviation Consumer Action Project
• 1972: Clean Water Action Project
• 1972: Center for Women’s Policy Studies
• 1980: Multinational Monitor (magazine covering multinational corporations)
• 1982: Trial Lawyers for Public Justice
• 1982: Essential Information (encourage citizen activism and do investigative journalism)
• 1983: Telecommunications Research and Action Center
• 1983: National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest
• 1989: Princeton Project 55 (alumni public service)
• 1993: Appleseed Foundation (local change)
• 1994: Resource Consumption Alliance (conserve trees)
• 1995: Center for Insurance Research
• 1995: Consumer Project on Technology
• 1997?: Government Purchasing Project (encourage purchase of safe products)
• 1998: Center for Justice and Democracy
• 1998: Organization for Competitive Markets
• 1998: American Antitrust Institute (ensure fair competition)
• 1999?: Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest
• 1999?: Commercial Alert (protect family, community, and democracy from corporations)
• 2000: Congressional Accountability Project (fight corruption in Congress)
• 2001: Citizen Works (promote NGO cooperation, build grassroots support, and start new groups)
• 2001: Democracy Rising (hold rallies to educate and empower citizens)

I wish he worked for the government and had the ability to fix some of what is now broken.

How do you write over 100 books? I don’t know, but I’d imagine that first you read everything you can get your hands on, even skipping food to save money for books. And it may help if you become an itinerant worker, traveling the world as a merchant seaman. Then get a good typewriter and a quiet place to work and put the typewriter there. Start with poetry and don’t forget lunch. This was Louis L’Amour’s writing set up demo from Jamestown, North Dakota. He wrote all his novels in Los Angeles, though originally from Jamestown.

“How the West Was Won” is one of the books I’m familiar with but I know people who have read all his books. I think they were retired when they started reading them. It’s estimated that Louis L’Amour sold over 225 million books around the world. Now that’s one hot property that most books stores should make space for.

on another note:

“I am perfectly willing that those holding views differing from mine should continue to live, but with every fiber of my being I loathe indirection and shiftiness, and where it occurs in high place, and it used to save face at the expense of the vital interests of our great service (in which silly people place such a child-like trust), I want that man’s blood and I will have it no matter what it costs me personally.” - William S. Sims.

William S. Sims was a Naval officer at the turn of the 20th century and he was writing about the bureaucracy at the time. The US Government had passed the Pendleton Act (1883) setting up the “modern Civil Service” and the act was intended to replace the existing patronage system with one based on merit and job performance. I don’t know if things are better now or that anything has changed since then - it’s still a place of favors and doing favors for people is how you advance your career (yep, anything and everything you can think of).