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michaelfftv · 8 years ago

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I had an idea last year that I would begin documenting America every 4th of July. I’d take a cultural snapshot, of the country, from the road, as it were. As I wrote last year, “..the idea for a project came to me a couple of days, or even just the day before the Fourth of July. As photography projects go, the idea was a simple one. I’d simply drive a predetermined route through America, on the Fourth, and document the state of our country on that day”

Last year, I wound through the heart of the Appalachians on what proved to be a cool and dreary, and at times, rain drenched initial adventure. You can read of my honest- and less than bombastic results- here.

The intervening year crept up on me. Obligations were long and cash was short, where should I go to chronicle the state of our country? I didn’t want to skip the piece but going out on an extended trip was out of the question.

Where, I thought, in these insane times can I go, within my temporal and economic budgets to showcase the howling madness that is America under the Trump circus?

It then occurred to me that there are few places as conflicted historically and presently as my home town. And why leave town especially on the Fourth of July if I could find what I needed right in my own hometown. Remember L Frank Baum’s words at the end of the Wizard of Oz? ““If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard…..”

And wasn’t the Wizard of Oz after all, a political allegory and didn’t my home town know a good political allegory when it saw one. Yep, it was right here in the big nasty that G.W. Bush, in a nationally televised speech, sold the lie that was the Second Gulf War which ultimately killed hundred’s of thousands. Baum sold the vision of a paradise over the rainbow; W sold the image of mushroom clouds…

Right here in my home town, Bush knowingly lied by telling the nation that, “The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime’s own actions — [t]e Iraqi regime has violated all of [its] obligations. It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons…… .”

Those words could arguably be seen as the downfall of the American Republic. For in knowingly lying to the American people, and sanctifying the greed and bloodshed which flowed from those lies, Bush, and his handlers, made it possible for the rise of the current Trump kakistocracy.

Trump’s Presidency, of course, makes the Bush’s administration lies and deceit look like a suburban Kool Aid stand in comparison. He came here selling snake oil, a perfect reincarnation of your average 19th century huckster, setting up a Nazi circus, spreading his poison, preaching his own virulent and ignorant brand of misogyny, racism and homophobia.

Speaking to a crowd of rabid white trash, in my home town, Trump promised that once he was elected that he would, “ask my Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to look into her (Hillary Clinton’s crimes, because what she did is a disgrace to the country…” Of course, as of this date, Poor Donny’s a little too busy to persecute Hillary, what with both he and his AG being on the run, trying to avoid impeachment and/or arrest and/or jail…. (And as of this date, Trump has also, predictably, turned on his AG saying, “he wished he never hired him,”).

And this is just the recent past. The truth is that this town has always been the whipping post for the Republican party. In this town rose the Mapplethorpe charade. Our history is littered with an endless parade of self styled bad ass Sheriffs and rosecutors- most notably Simon Leis and Joey TV Deters- who have beaten this town, over the decades, like an abused housewife. The list of petty little men who have beat their chest and made political hay by pissing on everyone who wasn’t white and republican is long and plenary.

Most recently Joey (TV) Deters declined to retry Ray Tensing, the UC cop who gunned down Cincinnati resident Sam DuBois. Tensing was white and DuBois was black.

Tensing had, in the past written 84% of his traffic tickets to minorities and was wearing a confederate flag T shirt under his uniform when he gunned down DuBois-really. I’m not making that up. Deters, who originally feigned outrage, then subjected the cop to a long slow half-assed prosecution which all but guaranteed Tensing’s freedom.

Deters, meanwhile went back to his full-time law practice while still collecting full pay from the Prosecutor’s office. Which only makes sense, justice in this town has always been a part time deal anyway. Besides, he earned his pay, it’s not easy to always say one thing and then do the other that’s sort of like two jobs anyway right?

Joey TV ultimately justified his decision by saying that Tensing remains subject to Federal prosecution. Federal as in tried by the Feds who are run by Donnie (grab her pussy) Trump and his his AG Jeff (“I thought those guys [the Ku Klux Klan] were OK until I learned they smoked pot).” Sessions.

I wonder if the fact that Tensing, Trump and Sessions all buy their white robes from the same retailer constitutes a conflict of Justice. Or maybe I heard that part wrong…..probably not.

And I won’t even start on the kangaroo courts in this town………except to say that as a third generation Attorney in this town, I walked these courthouse halls for fifteen years, watching people being bought and sold by the corporations which run this town……

My point being, that for far too long, this town has been- from my point of view -home to people with giant mouths and little brains. It’s been the nation’s living room for those who love to preach responsibility for others and greed for themselves.

Cincinnati has been a town that for hundreds of years has served as a mouthpiece for all that is crude and narrow-minded and uneducated about our country. As with most of Ohio, our favorite game has long been blame the victim.

For as long as I can recall- some fifty years- this town has lived under a dark cloud of racial oppression and monogamy. For as long as I can remember, this town has reveled being the home of The Man.

From 1995 to 2001 at least 15 black men were shot and killed under increasingly suspicious circumstances by police. By 2001, when Officer Roach killed an unarmed minor named Timothy Thomas, the city had had enough and a four-day riot arose. Eventually the city was placed under Martial Law. As if we were Berlin.

In the decade that followed, my home town very much became a ghost town.

Fortunately, my hometown is now – ever so slowly- turning the tide against such bigotry and ignorance.

Which brings us to Northside. Northside is a an urban neighborhood five miles due north of downtown. For a very long time it has been the perpetual island of misfit toys. A former industrial center along the Mill Creek- a tepid wastewater ditch that bisects the city’s north/south band of industrial production and which runs from north of town, some 30 miles south to just west of downtown . The Mill Creek has been variously claimed and named to be the most endangered river in North America and “a great open city sewer.”

It can be hard to remember, but Cincinnati was, in its day, as blue collar a town as Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Most of the factories which made this city were located along the Mill Creek. Powell Valve, Juergon’s, P&G and countless meat packing plants.

Many of the people who worked and lived in these factories and plants lived in Northside and its surrounding neighborhoods. In very unlike Cincinnati form, there were black and white, Appalachian,- and in time- Africans and Gays also called this neighborhood home.

They lived together in relative peace, though crime was always a problem. No one belonged to a country club. The racial tolerance which existed was not built so much on any high-minded idealism so much as it was cemented in poverty and safety. Everyone, or damn near, everyone was poor or scared. Northside became Cincinnati’s first urban gay enclave because gay residents needed a place to band together for safety.

Thus because they did not have a choice minorities in Northside- with many notable exceptions-learned to lived together. White and black alike ate in the cheap diners that lined Hamilton Ave. Places like Park Chili and the Blue Jay were not so much restaurants, but community living rooms. Everyone knew not just every’s name, but every’s business.

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Diane Coffee- Northside Fourth Of July Festival.

The houses were urban and modest and the traffic was loud and constant. The main street-Hamilton Ave- led to Pill Hill where the city’s hospitals are located, thus ambulance traffic and sirens were frequent.

In time the neighborhood changed. Artists came calling because old industrial space could be had cheap and converted to studios. Maureen Wood, more than anyone else initally made such space available to not just musicians but photographers, painters and writers, such as myself.

Shop by shop, stores opened. Stores which catered to the new customers from outside the neighborhood. Record stores, like Shake It Records, hair salons like Pinokio’s, cheap restaurants and, in time, several bars that featured local music, normally free, almost every night of the week.

The first of these places being The Comet- which served burritos as big as puppies- and the second being The Northside Tavern. Both have phenomenal juke boxes and helped Northside to developed a reputation for being a center for all arts and a rare island in the city. Am island which demonstrated racial and lifestyle tolerance. For many of us, Northside was the pacemaker which allowed us to live in this city of cynicism.

Restaurants like Slims, Bocca and others helped to bring cash from outside Northside into Northside while providing jobs and training not normally found in the neighborhood.

These NST and the Comet not only became important to the local scene, but served as incubators which gave rise to bands and a sound which spread nationally. Bands of every flavor have played , if not lived, in Northside and went on to achieve national renown, if not fame. The Afghan Whigs broke through signing with Sub Pop. The Ass Ponys followed. There have also been Over The Rhine, the Tigerlillies, The Greenhornes and The Heartless Bastards. More recently have been Wussy, The National and Walk The Moon. This is a very partial list.

I have not even touched upon the fact that Cincinnati is one of the founding city’s of rock and roll, nor the importance of King Records and of Herzog Recording studios to Cincinnati as a whole.

Slowly this town has crawled from its grave and opened it’s mind-mostly.

Over the years, artists and musicians have ceased migrating from Cincinnati, at the first sign of success, and now play and work here. Our music scene can hold its own with all but a very few cities in this country. Northside itself is in the midst of gentrification. Properties are selling like wildfire even as rents rise. But that’s another story for another day.

No, I realized that there wasn’t any reason to drive hundred’s of miles to explore the soul of America in 2017. I wouldn’t even need a car as the neighborhood of Northside is barely a mile and half, from the Comet at the top of the hill, passing NST, to Knowlton’s Corner where the main streets of Northside star cross just before crossing over the Mill Creek.

Which is also pretty much the route traced by one of the happiest and funkiest Fourth of July parades in America.

The upshot of the parade is that there is a community Fourth of July parade which kicks off at noon, on the Fourth, and which travels down Hamilton Ave from basically the Comet toJacob Hoffner Park- Northside’s primary park- located just south of Northside Tavern (NST). The parade also coincides with a very great three day music festival at the park.

The Parade is pretty much anything goes and anyone is welcome. In addition, therefore, to the usual politicians and marching bands, there are also various absurdist acts such as a men’s drill team which marches with- yes, you guessed it, power tools.

There are also free form surreal self contained universes sponsored by local stores. A There is a post 40 ‘s women’s drill team which marches and dances in sharp choreography, with lawn chairs. There are drag queens and children with puppies and floats advertising various small businesses. There was a single member of the Northside Air Guitar Society. There are processions of antique cars, there are firetrucks and people who walk with flags and marchers who wish to make a political statement.

This year one of the largest, vocal, and most diverse crowds- and most well received groups- was the Justice For Sam DuBois.

The largest float, ultimately, came last. A man and his wife and girlfriend drove a Tacoma pickup down the street.. They sat alone, save for a dog that sat between them. In the back was a generator, a sound board, a couple of loudspeakers and two guys with a mac book.

From my vantage point, at the bottom of the hill, about halfway down the festival route, it appeared that something strange was going on at the end of the parade. As the parade drew near it was possible to see that people who had been living the parade route, were coming off the sidewalk, on onto the street where they began to dance behind and around the truck.

By the time the truck reached my position, there were thousands of people dancing in the streets in a spontaneous free form rave to the sounds of REM, Marvin Gaye, U2 and the like. It was also clear from looking at people expressions, and their dancing, that people were seriously moved. They did not stop to consider that they had been sitting in the hot sun for over two hours, no they simply rose and joined, en mass, without thinking.

I joined in photographing the dancers. Black and gay; white and Latino; old and young: all were joining in equally. Dancers swarmed around the truck dancing hard to Marvin Gaye in the hot summer air. By the time that the truck reached the lower end of the parade five thousand people were dancing in the street. The people on the sidewalk looked on, not certain as to how to react. This sort of thing does not happen, on large public scale, in my conservative town. Especially during these dark days of Trump.

And more than anything, suddenly, and without warning, happiness was in the air. There was the feeling of being let outside on a warm spring day after a very brutal winter. There was a feeling of being 12 and let out of school for the year, there was a feeling of being let out of one’s cage.

There was a an inexplicable feeling which added up to something akin to freedom. Without anyone saying a word, it seemed as though five thousand people came to collectively recall that they need not suffer needlessly. It seemed, as if, people were recalling that freedom was possible. One hoped that this was the being of something. Something new. One had just a brief, but real vision and hope that collective love could vanquish mass ignorance and that love could dispel hatred.

Maybe if it only took one drunk hanging from a tank, with a bottle of vodka in his hand, to vanquish the USSR; then maybe it only takes one young happy couple, a dog, and a pair of large loudspeakers to push back the miasma of gloom which has fallen on this town.

As the truck reached the end of the parade route, Jimi Hendrick’s Star Spangled Banner cut through the afternoon.

I had the thought that what we needed was not a million people marching on Washington, but millions of people dancing upon the capital.

We need to drape the Mall with loudspeakers and fill the air with the best American music ever written-Louis, Ella, Petty and CCR and The Band. We need to drowned out our fake government with songs of courage and faith and protest: Who’ll Stop The Rain, Gypsy Biker and Strange Fruit. On Sunday, after we sleep in the mall, we’ll play A Love Supreme, from Vinyl on a turntable placed in the Lincoln Monument.

The current regime, may just have enough support and weapons to withstand wide scale marches, they don’t have a prayer against all of us united in love and the music of Coltrane and Miles. They can’t stop us from fucking dancing.

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And if we could manage such a thing, how appropriate if it would start here. How good it would be.

And so it was this Fourth, a klusterfuck of sorrow, though, at the end of the day, there was a gleam of hope, enough to force a smile.

We move forward from here.

A new Post from The Illustrated Essay: I had an idea last year that I would begin documenting America every 4th of July. I'd take a cultural snapshot, of the country, from the road, as it were.

#Fourth July America Backroads Travel North Carolina Kentucky Tennessee Kentucky Ohio race poverty police cops killings project #Holiday

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michaelfftv · 8 years ago

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I. Consciousness Per Pound

On June 17 and 18th, The Chefs Collaborative – Ohio River Valley, in collaboration with Turner Farm and the Midwest Culinary Institute; presented two workshops with Adam Danforth, James Beard and IACP award-winning author of two books concerning slaughtering and butchering livestock.

Danforth, who is fiftyish and fit, a solid guy of medium height with short grey flecked hair and a three day stubble, teaches workshops and lectures nationwide for venues such as Stone Barns Center for Agriculture and the James Beard Foundation Chefs Boot Camp. He hails from Oregon and comes to humane butchering as a second career.

Danforth, who trained at the professional meat processing program at SUNY Cobleskill, one of the only such programs in the United States, before going to work at Marlow and Daughters in New York City, has also worked as a butcher at Blue Hill, and has taught butchering workshops at the aforementioned Stone Barns Center, in addition to demonstrating and lecturing about humane slaughter methods nationally. He also works directly with neophyte individuals and small farms just learning humane slaughter techniques.

This workshop, a two day affair held at Turner’s Farm (one of three working farms remaining within the village of Indian Hill and which has been in operation since the early 1800’s) featured, Saturday, the live butchering of a three and a half year old ewe and a half dozen chickens. The animals were killed, according to humane butchering techniques; skinned (feathered); eviscerated and cleaned.

The morning was beautiful. Deep blue skies punctuated by heavy white clouds. The trees and pastures were a deep green indicative of the past weeks of heavy rain. People came in late and milled about the large clean barn quietly, respectfully.

Danforth and his crew went about their work patiently. At nine, their was a brief roll call and everyone present was invited to state their interest in the event. Attending the workshop were approximately twenty people of various backgrounds and interests. There were tattooed restaurant owners, chefs and cooks (including 21C and Bouquet); professional butchers and more corporate looking, and self described, foodies who simply wanted to know more about humane meat production and slaughter.

There were several children present. None of the folks attending, including the children, seemed especially anxious.

After roll call, Danforth, explained the procedure. The ewe would be brought in first. The crowd, for the start of the event would be pushed back into the recesses of the barn so that the sheep was not aware of our presence. Once the slaughtered was initiated, then everyone could come forward and watch the process. Photographs were not allowed of the actual kill.

The rest of the morning would be spent butchering the ewe, in the barn, After that the chickens would be killed and dressed.

Without further delay, the ewe was brought from a trailer into the barn. Danforth dropped the animals front legs, turned it onto it’s side and drew the knife across it’s throat. Blood gushed from the cut as Danforth made other cuts and then knelled on the side of the sheep while he pumped is’s front legs forward and back with the obvious intent of bleed the animal as fast as possible. I heard, I thought, gasping sounds from the ewe’s sliced throat. It’s severed esophagus was plainly visible in the morning sun. The pool of blood beneath its neck grew larger and larger. Danforth’s assistant motioned to me that I could begin to shoot. I moved up to six meet away and began photographing. The remainder of the crowd came forward. No one spoke for several minutes.

Danforth then asked, I think, “Is everyone alright, are they any questions?” I don’t recall there were. I was engrossed. I took a personal inventory. How did I feel? Fine actually, no different than a moment ago. I recall only being surprised by the speed of the thing. From living sentient being to lifeless dead carcass in fifteen seconds.

The carcass was then hauled across the concrete floor and into the open barn doorway where a pulley and iron triangle had been hung. Danforth forth explained the process for going forward .

The rear legs were cut and the animal was attached, by the heavy tendons in its rear legs to the iron triangle. Danforth pulled the rope- which was looped over the pulley and was tied to the triangle. The ewe slowly rose off the floor. Danforth pulled until the carcass hung several feet, head down, above the floor. Someone hosed down the large pool of blood, as well as the long blood smear across the barn floor into the center drain.

A bottle lamb- who had been put in the trailer with the ewe in order to keep the ewe as calm as possible, for as long as possible, sat in the arms of a large bearded man. A young girl with long brown hair ran back and forth between petting and feeding the lamb and conversing with a large brown and white horse who was leaning out his stall door in the barn across the gravel drive.

It was an idyllic scene.

The remainder of the morning was neither traumatic or surprising. Danforth asked for and received volunteers and slowly broke down the sheep. Skinning the pelt from head to toe – took the better past of an hour and a half and the help of two volunteers. Early on, the chief take away from the workshop was that butchering is hard work.

The ewe was then eviscerated, again heavy work and then beheaded. Danforth showed how to cut the tongue and how to crack the skull of the animal to release its brains.

Throughout the morning people came and went. It was an intelligent and interesting crowd. The PR director for the farm was a former marine who had covered countless stories world wide. I spoke with a local butcher. She’s not entire comfortable with her current method of operations and wants to look at other more humane methods. I spoke with chefs and cooks. I spoke with the executive director of the farm. Most people said the killing was about what they expected. Some felt better for having watched the killing, a few not.

I stayed for the killing of three of the six chickens. There are, it turns out any number of ways to kill chickens and that the killing of chickens is often a noisier and, quite frankly less pleasant affair then killing a ewe. The animals did not die as quietly nor as quickly.

Danforth would explain the next day, that rabbits and chicken are often more animated and suffer more spasms making their death appear more violent.

The procedure for the chickens was, if violent, fairly straight forward. Once the chickens are killed they are placed into a scalding bath to as to melt the collagen holding the feathers in place. The chickens are then either plucked by hand- a process Danforth neatly and expertly demonstrated; or placed into a plastic drum which resembles the drum of a washer or dryer, save that the inside of the drum is lined with stiff rubbery thumbs which serve to remove the feathers. Once inside the tumbler it takes only 45 seconds to de-feather the chicken.

Once the chicken is feathered, it’s then transferred to an aluminium table where it is then eviscerated and butchered.

Overall, I found the morning to be interesting and honest in a way that America rarely ever is.

II. The Consciousness of Brussels Sprouts and Sheep

The second day’s workshop , which was held at the Midwest Culinary Institute at Cincinnati State- as hosted by Danny Bungenstock, Instructor at MCI; involved the complete butchering of a second lamb (rules regarding the post-mortum butchery of newly slaughtered animals prohibited the butchering of the ewe slaughtered on the prior day).

Danforth’s demonstration on Sunday, in addition to covering how to completely butcher an entire animal, also included the preparation and cooking of the butchered lamb, thus literally leading attendees through the entire farm to plate process over the course of the single weekend.

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The second day’s demonstration, carried out in a large kitchen amphitheater, was well practiced and literally textbook. Mr Danforth’s work, as well as his texts, are popular throughout the country are a mix of the compassionate and the practical.

His works have drawn praise from the likes of both animal welfare activists (Temple Grandin: “Butchering Beef by Adam Danforth provides easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions for people raising their own livestock to humanely slaughter a beef animal and butcher it with good food safety practices.”); ranchers ( Paul Willis Farmer & Founder of Niman Ranch:, “Danforth’s books on butchery are required reading for anyone who has eaten meat,”); and the professional kitchen community ( Chef and Co-Owner of Ava Gene’s. Joshua McFadden writes, “Danforth’s books are the best I’ve ever seen on butchery and meat, and have allowed me to better understand how to take advantage of individual muscles while focusing on smaller portions.”).

During the workshop, it was clear that Danforth does his best to minimize the trauma of the process, for the animals being slaughtered, while also working to obtain the best possible butchering results. His workshops are also highly informative; as he has an anatomy professor’s knowledge of animal physiology; combined with an artists eye, which is turned to producing the most aesthetically pleasing product possible. Danforth also spends considerable time explaining general rules of the kitchen while dispensing with common myths concerning the preparation of the animals he prepares.

For instance he repeated the point, more than several times, that tenderness- which is considered by most in our culture to be the hallmark trait of fine meat- is not the apex of flavor.

“Flavor comes from muscles that are most worked,” Danforth lectured repeatedly throughput the weekend, “and those muscles which are most used, are most flavorful, and are not, by their very nature tender.” For this reason, Danforth said he, and many others liked to work with less popular cuts of meat, or to obtain meat from an older animal. Such instruction, therefore, provided not only the opportunity for those present to re-evaluate their ethics, but also the means to improve their own personal culinary arts.

I ultimately felt that all of the kill was interesting, and even important. I was glad for every minute I spent there, but I had also come with questions outside the pale, outside of the questions and interests expressed by others thus far. Thus I was glad to discuss some of the less obvious aspects of Danforth’s work and experiences after the session.

Like some of the others present, I too had my own unique reasons for attending the kill, some conscious to me, and some not. Among my conscious reasons for attending was that I simply wanted a challenge.

Given the nature of the event and the emotions which were bound to play out, I wondered if I could view the event while still maintaining suffcient objectivity to craft an interesting essay from the workshop.

Also, I wondered, could I shoot this event well? That is, how does one make death look, if not beautiful then at least compelling, and yet, respectful?

On a more mundane level, I love to cook, and eat, and experience has taught me that most chefs are passionate about their work; and that it’s nearly impossible to spend a day with a group of chefs and not learn something interesting- if not ribald. Admittedly, this excuse of self exploration, reeks of voyeurism and is a standard excuse I always have ready to justify any lark; yet, there’s almost always a fair degree of truth to this reasoning.

On a more personal and obtuse level, I wanted to attend as part of a personal moral gut check. I think that we all, from time to time, should take our morals out for a test drive and determine whether they require a tune up.

From a culinary point of view, I have, for long periods of time lived as a vegetarian and pescetarian. My reasons for doing so were mostly aligned with the normal valid reasons given by most sane vegetarians. To whit: it’s too ecologically intensive a process to create meat; animals have feelings and should be respected as sentient beings; and that man, being capable of a higher level of thought, on the food chain, should eat in a more enlightened and sustainable manner.

And yet, I have, invariably found these reasons to be insufficient over time and have always returned to eating meat. I am, I have always concluded, a meat eater by design.

As Christof Koch in his wonderful book, Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist (MIT Press) has written, “[h]omo sapiens is part of an evolutionary continuum, not a unique organism that dropped, fully sentient, from the sky. ” As such, I believe that we have our place in the food chain as well as preferences which have been well defined by nearly all of our genetic predecessors for hundreds of thousands of years; those preferences including meat.

Obviously we are capable of evolution, both on a physical and moral basis. Furthermore, we should exercise our ability to move to ever higher levels of morality, in part by intelligently defining our diet.

Such thoughts compelled me to attend this event; leading me to wonder, could I learn to eat in a more sustainable and sane manner relative to my consumption of meat? In short, if I couldn’t go vegetarian all the time, could I do better?

For while I had no doubt that meat is a part of my ancestral chain, I also knew that current mass production methods are wasteful and insensitive, if not cruel. I wanted to know what I could do to minimize my participation in that system.

I also had other, less well defined reasons, for attending the kill; most of those reasons having to do with issues of consciousness

Given personal events which had arisen over the last several years of my life, I wanted to know, were these animals conscious, did they possess awareness, or even intelligence, and what did these terms mean when applied to the food chain as a whole? What was the difference between consciousness, intelligence and awareness?

Moreover, did such qualities exist in all animals, or were they only present on some sliding scale given the complexity and size of the animal? Was it more moral to kill a chicken than a sheep? Should we eat according to size?

Was it possible to measure consciousness per pound?

I thought the people attending this event might have, if not answers to these questions, then at least some thoughts worthy of consideration.

My recent and personal studies in this area had suggested animals did, to some varying degree have some form of consciousness. “I furthermore assume,” Koch continues in Consciousness: that “many animals , mammals especially , possess some of the features of consciousness : They see , hear, smell, and otherwise experience the world. Of course, each species has its own unique sensorium, matched to its ecological niche.” (p.23).

Koch also further opines that:

It is possible that consciousness is common to all multicellular animals. Ravens, crows, magpies, parrots, and other birds; tuna, cichlid, and other fish; squid; and bees are all capable of sophisticated behavior. It is likely that they too possess some inkling of awareness, that they suffer pain and enjoy pleasure. What differs among species and even among members of the same species is how differentiated, how braided and complex these conscious states can be. What they are conscious of—the content of their awareness—is closely related to their senses and their ecological niches. To each its own… The repertoire of conscious states must somehow diminish with the diminishing complexity of an organism’s nervous system. “

Hmmm, or, rather, yikes, or…. again, how do we measure that consciousness? More to the point, how do we factor such findings into our lives in a moral manner in a rapidly declining world?

These are not trivial nor metaphysical questions. The more we learn of human consciousness, the more we should, arguably, be held responsible for our actions.

For, if what Koch writes is true, than the more we understand about consciousness, especially human consciousness, the more aware, and therefore, responsible we should become for our world. The more we learn, the more important it is that our ethics arise from our own understanding, from our own enlightenment and cognition rather than blind, or unquestioned, reliance upon secondhand sources such as religion.

Consciousness should become our primary, if not sole, source of universal comprehension. Koch:

Without consciousness there is nothing. The only way you experience your body and the world of mountains and people , trees and dogs , stars and music is through your subjective experiences, thoughts, and memories. You act and move, see and hear, love and hate, remember the past and imagine the future . But ultimately, you only encounter the world in all of its manifestations via consciousness. And when consciousness ceases, this world ceases as well. Consciousness, (p. 23).

And what if the consciousness of animals begins to even closely approach that of humans? Don’t we owe them better than the intentional infliction of not just pain, but suffering, in order to satisfy our own personal sensory desires?

Such a reality is not far from unlikely. Again, Koch:

[T]he structure of the nervous system is comparable across mammals: It takes an expert neuroanatomist to distinguish between a pea-sized chunk of cerebral cortex taken from a mouse, a monkey, and a person. Our brain is big, but other creatures—elephants, dolphins, and whales—have bigger ones. Neither at the genomic nor at the synaptic, cellular, or connectional levels are there qualitative differences between mice, monkeys, and people. The receptors and pathways that mediate pain are analogous across species.

Additionally:

Physiologic measures of pain confirm … dogs, just like people, have an elevated heart rate and blood pressure and release stress hormones into their bloodstream. And it is not only physical pain that we share with animals but suffering as well. Suffering occurs when animals are systematically abused or when an older pet is separated from its litter mate or its human companion. I’m not saying that dog-pain is exactly like people-pain, but….Consciousness, (p. 35).

So at what point does suffering on the food chain cease to be permissible? I wasn’t certain before the kill and am not certain now. Apparently that line does not begin with mutton. For in the approximately fifteen seconds it took that 3 1/2 year old sheep to die, I did not experience some sort of epiphany- I was not stuck by a lightening bolt of compassion while on the road to Damascus.

I did not certainly enjoy seeing the ewe have its throat slit, but my mind did register the fact that what I was seeing was a necessary part of killing that animal to feed others. All of which begs the question. What factors should be preeminent in constructing our societal and personal ethos? Should we develop rules based upon my visceral or emotional reaction based upon viewing this slaughter or should reason, logic, dictate? I don’t know.

I do know that my lack of strong emotion was unquestionably ameliorated by the fact Danforth was honest and sincere in his practices. His every effort was clearly focused and directed toward the rapid and human slaughter of the animals before him. Furthermore, he was also insistent that all present share the same respect for the animals being dispatched.

After the workshop, Danforth was kind enough to answer some of my questions.

He said that the live workshops were always interesting and unpredictable, if only because he never knows how people will respond. “I always tell people before a kill,” he says, “to try and not anticipate how they will react.” He said that he’s seen just about every conceivable reaction from people attending the workshop- tears, fright, anger, no emotion.

Danforth said his first experience with live kill involved his assisting, as part of his education, with the slaughter of fourteen pigs one morning in rapid order. He said that he was most surprised on that day that he did not undergo any great emotional or mental shifts during that time.

I told him I felt the same way. And I had. Nothing in my worldview changed as a result of the kill. I felt little emotion, though my lack of emotion was due, I knew, in some small part to the fact that I really wanted to capture this event faithfully and objectively. In such circumstances the camera can make one just a little bit braver.

Yet, in the days since the kill, in reviewing the events of that weekend in my mind, I have not felt any retroactive regret, sadness or pain. As I said before, what I saw lined up with my prior moral views. I simply was not surprised. Or maybe I’m only beyond hope. Maybe after 56 years of involuntary and voluntary viewing of man’s ugliness to man, I’m not capable of any real shift in emotion.

I wish I could give a better an answer, yet I’m left with just an honest one: The world is, as the world is, and I am willing take responsibility for my culpability….

I will also say, however, that this exercise compelled reflection, which is never a bad thing. I had chicken for dinner tonight and it was delicious. I also remain very much aware that almost all of the animals we consume are sentient beings due more respect than we currently accord them. They give their lives that we might live; and we should treat them as such.

Live Kill I. Consciousness Per Pound On June 17 and 18th, The Chefs Collaborative - Ohio River Valley, in collaboration with Turner Farm and the Midwest Culinary Institute; presented two workshops with

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michaelfftv · 8 years ago

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I may have fucked up my life and it’s all Bill Murray’s fault. I know it’s fashionable to blame Donald Trump for everything these days- and that trend will undoubtedly continue to grow, but, to be blunt, I don’t worry about Trump.

I mean I certainly understand that I’m going to suffer some terrible repercussions from his election, but at this point, it’s water under the bridge. I did my best to keep him from being elected, but the stupid, greedy, sleazy, immoral and apathetic people won and now we can all suffer the consequences. So fucking be it.

Which doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on life. I’m certainly not going to dress in sack cloth and ashes and bemoan my life or the stupidity, immorality, greed or sleaziness of the people who elected Trump and his pack of shit brained fools. That would be a waste of my valuable and precious life, and besides, karma is going to go pitbull and tear the throat out of those greasy shitbags soon enough.

No, it turns out that even after Trump was elected, the sun came up and the wind blew through the trees. I woke up breathing pretty much like any other day and was forced to decide what I would do with that day. and by extension, what I would do with the next week, month year and remainder of my life.

It’s obviously a decision each of us makes every day- either consciously or by default. And just because an alleged pedephile with the IQ of dog sperm is running the country, doesn’t mean that we have to pack it all end. It’s not game set and match.

So what next? That is again, obviously, dependent upon who you are and what you believe. If you believe in God, arguably it doesn’t matter which path you take, because he’s got your back no matter where you go. As God was alleged to have said in the Book of Genesis- as rewritten by King James, “And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.”

Which- if you are a person of faith, pretty damn sweet. However (long dramatic pause)…. not all of us can rustle up that kind of blind faith no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we would like to be comforted by by said alleged god.

Which pretty much leaves me and ye of little faith standing on the side of the road, looking far into the distant and hazy horizon thinking, “well, what next?”? Or, as Jack Kerouac said, in cribbing the Lord: “Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car at night?”

To be clear and as truthful as possible in this post truth society, I don’t have a car, let alone a shiny car, but I do have a dusty, dinged up bright red pick up truck, which brings me back to Bill Murray being an asshole.

My thought at this point is that I should pack up my bright red pick up- or at the least jump on a train- and- as Huck Finn would have it- head out for the territories. Which is pretty much what I have always done.

For my own personal life narrative goes something like this: I believe that we’re born and we die and that I can’t do a damn thing about either of these conditions, but as the great sage Eddie Vedder once said, “I know I was born and I know that I’ll die, the in between is mine.”

Which brings us to the parable of the grasshopper and the ant.

THE ANT AND THE CRICKET

During the wintertime, an ant was living off the grain that he had stored up for himself during the summer. The cricket came to the ant and asked him to share some of his grain. The ant said to the cricket, ‘And what were you doing all summer long, since you weren’t gathering grain to eat?’ The cricket replied, ‘Because I was busy singing I didn’t have time for the harvest.’ The ant laughed at the cricket’s reply, and hid his heaps of grain deeper in the ground. ‘Since you sang like a fool in the summer,’ said the ant, ‘you better be prepared to dance the winter away!’ This fable depicts lazy, careless people who indulge in foolish pastimes, and therefore lose out.

This was, of course, a favorite parable of the nuns who raised me and every CEO who ever wanted to harness my energy, at minimal pay so that he might enrich his own personal coffers. The ant represents all the good boys and girls.

The cricket, of course represents all those artists and bad boys and general near do wells you so admire but never emulate in life. Those who go through life starving and scraping by and acting irresponsibly so that might, you know, enjoy life now instead of waiting till they’re nearly dead and/or in heaven- which may or may not exist.

Most of us struggle with this dichotomy. I myself spent a large part of my being a good ant. I worked for a large insurance company- and was fantastically underpaid by said wealthy company for a long time.

I also worked for myself. And even though I was calling the shots, I worked- for a very long time as an even more industrious ant. I worked my ass off and rendered unto Caesar and tried to be fair unto everyone- until it because very clear that the whole ant thing was a very large con game.

In writing of man’s need for certainity, conformity Maria Konnikova in her work The Confidence Game: What Con Artists Reveal About the Psychology of Trust and Why Even the Most Rational of Us Are Susceptible to Deception, writes that:

Human beings don’t like to exist in a state of uncertainty or ambiguity. When something doesn’t make sense, we want to supply the missing link. When we don’t understand what or why or how something happened, we want to find the explanation..

Which is why man- as a whole, is so gullible. Man and women will believe damn near anything- no matter how ridiculous the explanation, so long as the explanation serves to calm their anxious soul, serves to smooth their furrowed brow.

Oh my, we’ve stumbled into Donald Trump Territory again haven’t we.

But then it’s always been a con game. Sort of like the Plantation owners reading verses to the slaves so as to justify their enslavement. “Colossians 3:22:Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.”

Sort of like when the banksters bankrupted America in 2008 and the government bailed them out and left the vast majority of us hanging…..

All of which is actually beside the point. Because if the question is, should one check out of society and chose to live a simple life rather than live as a rat on a treadmill counting the days till his or her first heart attack, then the answer is simple.

We should all check out and do whatever in the hell makes us happy and fuck our governmental and corporate masters.

But life never is that simple is it? Because it’s never about just us is it?

We want to believe we are the star of the show, that we are a rugged individualists. We buy wholesale into the saw that America is the land of the individual. As one writer would have it in outlining the common trope known as the rugged American, “America has been the land of the individual, and most Americans have thought of themselves as individualists. We still speak favorably of individual rights, individual initiative, individual responsibility, individual opportunity, and individual achievement.”

Which, of course is why, “the American criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 942 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories,” because we are the freest people in the entire solar system.”

No, the truth is that we are a nation of conformists and we hate people who go their own way. We claim to admire them, but our entire society is constructed to keep people in line because man is a conformist and American’s are no different The government is not an expression of our ideals, but an institution we have created to generate the illusion of safety we require to sleep through long winter nights. It’s in our nature, our DNA. We are programed to conform because there is safety in conformity and profit, or so most Americans actually believe.

I trust that you appreciate that the above tale of the cricket and the ant is from Aesop’s Fables . And do you know what I learned this day from my research? Aesop was a slave. “a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE.”

Of course there have always been those who- no matter what the odds, decide to go their own way-buck the system. They gain their freedom through cunning, wit or sheer determination. Aesops, for instance, was such a man.

While Aesops served as a slave under not one, but two masters, named, Xanthus and Iadmon, “the later gave him his freedom as a reward for his wit and intelligence. As a freedman he supposedly became involved in public affairs and traveled a lot—telling his fables along the way. King Croesus of Lydia was so impressed with Aesop that he offered him residency and a job at his court.”

In fact there are scholars who maintain that the fables served as both morality tales and as a means of subversive, hidden speech, a means of speaking truth to the power during times of political repression.

Of course, playing both ends against the middle can always be a tricky thing- as evidenced by the fact that Aesop was executed, apparently as an act of appeasement to the gods or some offended government….

Such lessons have always been lost on some throughout history. There have always been those who, despite history’s lessons, take to the open road nevertheless. They go in search of wisdom, riches, fame and enlightenment-satori. Some go because they simply cannot stand not to go: Melville famously wrote in Moby Dick.

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

Indeed. Is it possible to say that you have lived until you have obeyed the urge to flee? Those who have quietly taken to ship comprise a respectable society- if not a large one.

One such kindred spirit was W. Somerset Maugham, who in 1944 published, the Razor’s Edge- which was twice made into a movie. The lead in the second movie, filmed in 1984, was, of course, played by Bill Murray in a rare early dramatic role.

The Razor’s Edge epigraph reads, “The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is hard.” In paraphrasing this epigraph- taken from the Katha-Upanishad- Maugham says of the mendicant seeking enlightenment, “Its a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, few are chosen.”

The actual quotation is “Arise, awake, and learn by approaching the exalted ones, for that path is sharp as a razor’s edge, impassable, and hard to go by, say the wise.“

Which is a release and relief when you read it.

As Americans we think that we’re entitled to whatever we want when we want. We’re then shocked and angered when things turn against us. If, however, we’re smart enough to head out on the road knowing that freedom is a motherfucker, then we can adjust our expectations accordingly; put on our game face, bring our A game.

The Razor’s Edge tells the story of Larry Darrell, an American pilot traumatised by his experiences in World War I, who sets off in search of some transcendent meaning in his life. … His rejection of conventional life and search for meaningful experience allows him to thrive while the more materialistic characters suffer reversals of fortune.

The book, it is said, owes much to Maugham’s Asian walkabout. His travels allegedly included a visits to Shri Ramana Maharishi’s ashram in 1938. Maugham, some say, foresaw the West’s fascination for Eastern culture—which would not reach its zenith until some two decades later.

***

I have known many crickets in my life. Some I have known personally, and others I have met through their stories and other works of art.

Many of the crickets I have known are well known, the usual suspects. The Beats, the Transcendentalists, Thoreau, the rock stars of my youth prior to rock and roll being co-opted by Madison Ave and tied to every roll of toilet paper sold in America….

And, of course, there was Joseph Campbell. The man who after reading tales of hero quests in countless cultures throughout time, encapsulated those tales in a common template which serves as the basis for nearly every tale of bravery and conquest ever written by man, or filmed by Hollywood.

I love Campbell’s explanation of the hero-quest, the hero leaves the safety of his society- normally after being ostracized or failing to conform with his society. The hero then goes out into the world where- by engaging in battles and trials, he gains wisdom. Ultimately, she or he returns home to his society bearing hard earned gifts and wisdom which benefit the society.

To Campbell, the cricket is a hero, not a slacker.Maugham as well:“You see, money to you means freedom; to me it means bondage.”

But of all the crickets I have ever met- for whatever reason- none have suckered me as badly as Bill Murray’s portrayal of Larry Darrell in the Razor’s edge. I have seen both movies and read the novel. For whatever reason, the 1984 movie and Murray’s appearance live in my head.

And I went many places and had may adventures and arguably have gained some wisdom. But I am alo now faced with the question- should I go back, can I go back. Is it too late, after spurning all appearance- for the twenty years or so, of a normal life, is it possible to go back and hide heaps of grain deeper in the ground?

Because here’s the problem. Early on in your life you’re going to make the choice to be an ant or a cricket- either consciously or by default or through inertia and apathy. What no one will tell you though is that there comes a point in time- far sooner than you will appreciate, when you can no longer go back.

And so I went, for years, for decades. And winter now approaches. Larry Darrell: “It’s easy to be a holy man on top of a mountain.” Which is true enough. It’s also a very tough gig to be a holy man in America, in Milford Ohio, in 2017.

Maugham’s hero aso says that, “I found out there’s another debt to pay – for the privilege of being alive.” I’ve been chewing on that for a long time now. Do we owe for our birth? Do we owe to others? To whom and what?

Specifically, in my case- what do I owe to my sons, especially my schizophrenic sons. Do I work every minute for the rest of my life to help provide for them- or do I still owe myself a life? Is there a balance, and if so where is the line and who gets to draw it? Me, them, the church, the government?

Maugham: “Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.”

Which, at the end of the day doesn’t really answer the question. Which is too bad, because I don’t have the answer either. Which is really too bad- because I very much need the answer. Because if it isn’t too late, it’s getting close to too late for me.

All I know for certain is that if there is an answer out there, it lies on the road. If I have learned nothing I have learned that there is no wisdom and objectivity like the wisdom of the road.

I know there are also wise men and women out there. So I’ll go in search of both and I’m no coming back until I have the answers I need. I know there answers I need and the people I need to meet are out there. Again, as Maugham has written; “Almost all the people who’ve had the most effect on me I seem to have met by chance, yet looking back it seems as though I couldn’t but have met them.”

So I go. I go to speak to the road, to speak with cranes and eagles and geese and deer and wise men and wise women and holy men and we shall see. Most of all I’m going because I can- I know I owe myself that.

“I don’t think I shall ever find peace till I make up my mind about things,’ he said gravely. He hesitated. ‘It’s very difficult to put into words. The moment you try you feel embarrassed. You say to yourself: “Who am I that I should bother myself about this, that, and the other? Perhaps it’s only because I’m a conceited prig. Wouldn’t it be better to follow the beaten track and let what’s coming to you come?” And then you think of a fellow who an hour before was full of life and fun,and he’s lying dead; it’s all so cruel and meaningless. It’s hard not to ask yourself what life is all about and whether there’s any sense to it or whether it’s all a tragic blunder of blind fate.”

And so I go and I’m not coming back until I have answers. Maybe not the answer, but answers that let me sleep at night. I’ll see you then. Maybe I’m a fool, maybe not.

It’s interesting to note that after the Razor’s Edge and flying home from Nepal to do Ghost Busters; which was Murray’s price- his tradeoff- for being able to make TRE- he quit acting for four years and moved his family to Paris. He studied philosophy at the Sorbonne.

Maybe in the end, the only true suckers are those who never take the time to seriously ask themselves what this life is about. Maybe those are the people who need to comfort themselves with self serving parables.

Maybe I’m insane. Time will tell. More later.

Questions Pt. 1 (or, Bill Murray Is An Asshole). I may have fucked up my life and it's all Bill Murray's fault. I know it's fashionable to blame Donald Trump for everything these days- and that trend will undoubtedly continue to grow, but, to be blunt, I don't worry about Trump.

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michaelfftv · 8 years ago

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It’s our fight, but their march.

Across town, the country and the world, they made their voices heard. Because it was, is, their march, I’ll not add my voice. I will, rather, simply post these photos so they may all see how brave and beautiful and intelligent they were.

And should you ever need my words, images or fists in the future, I’ll be waiting at your back.

Women’s March, Cincinnati Ohio 1/21/17

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Only Women It's our fight, but their march. Across town, the country and the world, they made their voices heard.

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michaelfftv · 9 years ago

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Abandon all hope, and don’t rock the boat And we’ll all make a few hundred grand Everybody’s trying to be a friend of mine Even a dog can shake hands You’ll be making the scene Till they pick your bones clean Warren Zevon

The music industry is a matrix that is counter to what is natural and right. Prince

*******

I. In The Beginning: MPMF

I’d been shooting concerts for about twenty years on the day I decided to quit. The idea had been in my brain for some time. The basis for my contemplated resignation was simple; I simply wasn’t having fun anymore. And as the pros are want to say, that’s the time to go.

I didn’t want to abandon photography all together as that drug still coursed through my veins. I did know beyond of the proverbial shadow of a doubt, however, that I couldn’t shoot another rock band.

I made this decision in the very moment portrayed in the photograph above. That scene is what I saw when I turned the corner to photograph day one of the Bunbury Music Festival, in Cincinnati Ohio, on June 5, 2015.

Fun, Bunbury Festival

Bunbury was started in Cincinnati in 2011 by Bill Donabedean; a local entrepreneur who had previously with mutual friend Sean Rhiney- started The MidPoint Music Festival.

The pair started MidPoint with twenty, or so, friends, myself included. The initial MidPoint festival was a success- so we did it again, and again. And for years on end we all worked hard and for free. We worked to support Bill and Sean’s vision and had the time of our lives, even when Cincinnati was so depressed as to look like Detroit South.

Mid Point Founders Bil Donabedian, Left; Sean Rhiney, Rt and Volunteer Director Tara; circa 1999.

MidPoint was a labor of love; a party for 30,000 people.

The idea behind Midpoint was to host a music festival where unsigned bands from around the country and eventually from around the world could come and meet with fellow musicians, attend seminars and meet with music execs-and other musical experts and industry types in the hope of furthering their careers; if not to ultimately get signed to a label.

This was back in the day when getting signed by a label mattered. It was also years before the explosion of entrepreneurship and the ubiquitous outdoor musical festival.

The idea was that the festival would take place depending upon the year and number of bands selected for that years festival in 10 to 20 venues around Cincinnati’s historic Over The Rhine Neighborhood immediately north of downtown.

The festival started slowly. For a number of years the city was so depressed that there were not even enough open bars to host all of the bands attending the festival.

Putting the finishing touches on a MidPoint venue just hours before the festival’s start.

The festival, instead, was, one year, even forced to open bars for just that weekend with Donabedian and Rhiney obtaining temporary liquor licenses and hiring staff for those ad hoc joints. I recall walking into a bar that year to find painters disassembling scaffolding, just as the opening band was tuning up.

The festival initially was a small operation, but grew exponentially. Security had to be arranged and stage managers had to be recruited. Insurance had to be obtained. Venues had to be located to hold seminars, people speaking at the seminars had to be fed and put up. PR and photography had to be arranged and credentials had to be made. There was the need to interface with the city on any number of levels and someone had to deal with the police, who were less than fervent about the whole idea.

MidPoint

In time, though, the festival flourished, hotels filled, and music venues were packed. Musicians from near and far, as well as music fans, filled normally empty streets.

At its nadir, hundreds of bands from around the world came to Cincinnati to participate.

The festival itself was important to because so little was happening there in those days.

The sidewalks rolled up at dusk and there were very few entertainment venues. The city was a ghost town, no one lived there and you’d be hard pressed to find a couple hundred people socializing in the entire downtown area in those days.

When people came downtown for the rare event: a ball game, Oktoberfest, whatever; they came down, went to the event and drove straight back to the burbs. Midpoint, therefore, was important because it represented a core of people taking initiative and having faith in the possibility of what the city could be.

In 1992, there had been race riots and, for two memorable nights we lived under martial law as if we were in East Berlin after the war.

Those who originated and developed and worked that festival were, in no small part, responsible for the renaissance of this town. It should also be said that the city at that time did precious little to encourage these efforts.

I pitched in where I could working as a stage manager, musical judge (deciding, with many others, what bands would be admitted to the festival) and as a photographer.

MidPoint

For myself, MP was important because it gave me a chance to work closely with a very talented group of people. That core group taught me something I had never been able to figure out for myself -how to meld my abilities to the abilities of others in service of creating something large and worthwhile.

But for that MidPoint opportunity, I don’t know if I would have ever become a productive artist. I knew how to work hard in those days, but I didn’t know the process. They taught me that piece.

The real beauty of MP was that Bill and Sean were open-partially out of need-to letting people try their hand at damn near anything. They couldn’t afford to pay anyone as they made precious little from the event and any slim profits were plowed back into the festival the next year; so instead they offered opportunity and the chance to learn.

In time I, therefore, I became managing editor of photography-largely because I was there and I wanted to do it and no one else wanted it more.

Bunbury

This position was a natural extension of my interests. I had returned to Cincinnati several years before MidPoint launched. I made new friends- nearly all of whom were musicians. Having not a shred of musical talent myself, I began to photograph shows and take band photos as well as other promotional photos as a way of fitting into the scene, as a way of contributing, as a way of furthering my own long-term artistic interests.

Which is not to say that I had any talent when I began photographing the festival. The first night I was entirely bewildered because I could not- in the small dark bars- capture any sort of image. All my photographs were black.

I knew so little about photography that I didn’t understand the concept of ISO, I tried to shoot everything at night with my beginner’s camera (a Canon Rebel) preset to an ISO setting of 100. For those who don’t understand photography, this is essentially equivalent to racing in the Indy 500 using only first gear- and not even appreciating that you have other gears.

Waiting for the show-Midpoint.

In the early years a handful of people also shot the festival and then, over the years, as MP grew, others came. Slowly a core of photographers coalesced and each September became special.

To a photographer, MidPoint came to mean three solid nights of music, the opportunity to shoot 100 bands in a weekend. Again, this was a huge deal because there really much else going on in those days.

And though getting a decent shot was extraordinarily difficult, given the venues’ low lighting, our amateur grade equipment, and relative lack of talent, in time we improved. We explored and expanded our interests.

One night I tore a bedsheet in half, taped it to a brick wall on an empty storefront on Main Street and did portraits of anyone who walked by. Those portraits became the basis for my first ever gallery show.

And while the photography was coming to mean the world to me, those early days were primarily about friendship and energy.

David Rhodes Brown, MidPoint

Inevitably things changed. A feeling of energy and possibility grew. On the best of nights, it was possible, in those small dark squalid clubs, to plug into the energy of the best bands. The sets were short and brutal- but some were so frenetic they survive in my brain until this day.

MidPoint

I recall, for instance, standing on the back of the stage in a packed club shooting GitoGito Hustle, a four piece, all female, punk band from Tokyo. The club shook as the women shook the building and methodically ripped the heart and soul out of everyone present-primarily pasty middle-aged white men who were dumbstruck by this rare (to our town) exotic vision. It was a brutal animated orgy of sound.

In time Donabedian and Rhiney sold Midpoint to CityBeat, a local alternative magazine. I shot subsequent MidPoint Festivals, though my interest waned. Attending the party was nowhere as much fun as throwing the party. There was little adrenalin in it.

II. Blastoff: Bunbury

When in 2011, however, Bill announced that he intended to start a new festival called Bunbury- a more traditional three-day outdoor festival. I again signed on.

Our town was still moribund and dying for entertainment and these were the early days of the outdoor festival phenomenon. Forecastle had been throwing a gig for several years and further south there was Bonnaroo which was just exploding into the national conscious. Beyond that there was much going on in the region and certainly nothing much going on locally.

I, and many others, were tired of driving 100 miles to Lexington, Louisville and Columbus to see shows. Something needed to happen.

Gito Gito Hustle, MidPoint.

The first Bunbury was small affair- a dress rehearsal, with primarily several small bands. I shot from backstage; the shoot was not really much different from shooting any local gig. It was single stage, with no big name headliner. All and all, a nice night, but it was only intended to be a dress rehearsal, something to be shown to sponsors.

When the festival took off for real, however in 2012, things became surreal.

Jane’s addiction headlined that Friday night in 2012. To watch the video from that set is to understand that those of us who had given our hearts and energies to Midpoint, suddenly found ourselves treading water in the deep end of the musical pool.

Dave Navarro; Jane’s Addiction- Bunbury Fest.

The crowds were huge- at least to those of us who had never thrown such a party- 20,000 people crammed onto a lawn alongside the Ohio River.

Gone were the small dark bars of Over The Rhine- Bunbury took place upon a mile long swatch of concert grounds upon which had been erected three large professional stages- like those normally seen in full size arenas- as well as three smaller stages.

Unlike MidPoint the bands that were to play Bunbury were not bands looking to learn the ropes, looking to learn the music industry. Bunbury aimed to compete with other large professional festivals. The talent would be professional, known to the crowds and would arrive in buses, not beaters on the verge of death.

The band who played Bunbury brought mountains of gear in semi trucks. Cafeterias were raised under circus tents to feed hundreds. To walk backstage, especially at the main stage was to walk through canyons of monitors, to skirt racks of expensive guitars and multiple assembled drum kits. There were industry people we’ve never met before, roadies and riggers, light and sound men and women from out of town- faces we’d never seen. Professionals for hire.

We were babes in the wood.

Jane’s Addiction, Bunbury.

And when the shows began we photographers found ourselves, not photographing friends playing before a couple dozen paying guests, but rather; standing between arena size stages and screaming masses some ten feet behind us, five, then twenty thousand, people.

That ten feet of no man’s land- between the crowd and the stage is known as the pit. Walking into and working from the pit became- for many of us- a whole new world of wonder.

There weren’t but a handful of photographers in the pit for the early afternoon shows- but the headliner shows were crowded: close to fifty heavily equipped people crammed into the pit’s small space.

A slow afternoon in the pit, 2012- note boom behind photographers.

The difference between our prior experience was primarily one of scale, size and power.

The music poured from oversized PA’s. The bass thudding from the onstage monitors was a palpable beast, every note a virtual gut punch. Seeming miles of cable lay snaking about the length of the pit, in no apparent order, threatening to ensnare ankles and feet. Standing on the cables was, in and of itself, a painful distraction. We quickly learned that we needed not only professional cameras, but thick boots, competent ear plugs and many changes of clothing.

The pit was not only a loud and potentially dangerous place, but it was also- given the festival’s July date- a very very hot place.

Bunbury Photographer Jacob Drabik.

The festival’s inexperience was also a problem early on. During the first year, the pit not only held working photographers, but inexplicably, a full size boom with a riding operator.

Thus getting a shot involved jockeying for position while setting one’s cameras for exposure and speed as well as watching one’s feet amongst the masses of other feet, and countless cables, as well as making sure that one did not inadvertently step in front of the video boom thus risking decapitation.

You also needed to look out for the other photographers so as to not block their shots.

All of this required a certain zen like stillness and patience because the stage was dark lit and we were forced to shoot, that first night, slow and wide open-that is at maximum aperture and low-speed to compensate for the near complete occasional lack of light.

Thus for many of us, shooting the first Bunbury shows was like beginning again, those shows were like doing delicate surgery for the first time in the midst of a bar room brawl on St Patrick’s day. It takes a certain personality and a very certain skill set to shoot well under these circumstances. Mostly, it takes a serious tolerance for dissonance and noise and madness.

I felt at home from the start.

An early MidPoint performance.

If MidPoint’s best shows provided a jolt of visceral energy, being in the pit for the early Bunbury headliner shows was like being strapped to the outside of an Apollo rocket at blast off.

The very first headliner: Jane’s Addiction, hit the stage and then exploded into a thick white cloud of smoke back-lit by a flurry of blinding strobes.

A half-dozen smoke machines filled the stage with a deep fog. There were two long trapeze which were hung from the rigging. On those trapeze some 15 feet above the stage sat two women in white formal gowns with trains that trailed down to the stage.

Perry Farrell came out in dress pants and a dinner jacket with no shirt, but inexplicably, wearing fingerless gloves.

Guitarist Dave Navarro, also shirtless, was a human tattoo, drifting back into the confines of the stage fog, appearing only briefly from time to time.

Somewhere a bass player and drummer played. Somewhere, I write, for I could not see them- let alone shoot them- for love or money. The stage was also at eye level with the onstage monitors placed along the front of the stage. I quickly learned that the best photographers were tall. I was not.

I, we, learned many lessons that night- chief among them that position in the pit was everything. You needed to be touching the stage and not behind a wedge monitor. You needed to work fast and with complete concentration you had to learn to ignore the noise and the crowd and the band.

21 Pilots-Bunbury.

There were also video shooters in the pit who were hard wired- meaning they had to have helpers pull the wire for the video camera as the video guy made his way up and down the stage. Thus the wires at one’s feet were not just thick and painful under one’s feet, but angry and alive- as was the video guy who- after having his cable stepped on for the twelfth time- exploded in a fury of rage and began throwing haymakers at the nearest photographer.

Pike 27, MidPoint

Once in place, it was necessary to not only identify a subject, estimate distance and light- as described above- but to also allow for the smoke and rapid, blinding flash.

All of this coordination had to necessarily happen in a few moments, for it is the law of the land that photographers are only permitted to shoot the first three songs of the headliner’s set.

Thus, in the short time we had to shoot the act, the stage constantly fluctuated between high noon and a moonless midnight as the strobes continued to flash. It was impossible to adjust camera settings to these changes- the lighting changed far too rapidly. Instead, you chose to shoot in either the light or dark and time your shots. It was also necessary- given the limited time allowed for shooting- to make this choice instantly.

Shooting in the bright glare of the strobe, meant being able to shoot at higher speeds which meant clearer, sharper shots. However, it also meant that everything took on a bleached fishbelly white parlor. The light was also so bright that the odds of ending up with a completely overexposed exposure was pretty high.

Shooting in the dark meant shooting slow which meant that any movement of the camera would result in soft or blurry photos. Shooting slow meant shooting wide open which also meant that the depth of field- that part of the photograph which was in focus was extremely limited.

Whispering Beard

Even pushing professional gear to its limit meant that depth of field was so limited that if you were able to get focus on the tip of someone’s nose, the odds were pretty good that the rest of their face would be soft and the rest of the stage in front or behind that point of focus would be a blur.

What I’m trying to say is that it takes a very specific and strange skill set to be able to shoot concerts. Specifically, under novel, time limited and extremely distracting circumstances, one had to be sharp, and fast with a great sense of timing in order to grab any decent shots.

Flaming Lips

Fortunately, many of these obstacles were ameliorated given the comradery which generally reigned in the early days of the pit. Everyone understood that everyone needed, at the end of the day, to bring home presentable images. Thus the rule of the pit was live and let live; yield prime positions after you have your shots, and should someone need better access- as indicated by their laying an open hand on your shoulder- then you needed to finish your work and yield your spot.

We learned these rules from the pros in the pit. This sort of madness was new to us of the Midpoint crowd- but was old hat to those who made living chasing tours and music festivals. There were also local professional photographers who did other work in the day and came to shoot the festival out of love of music, photography or even curiosity. Nearly every one of these pros were kind and supportive of the green among us.

We learned quickly.

Whispering Beard Festival.

And yet, the first several nights were madness; the work occurred in a whirlwind of noise, the sound itself was beyond deafening. The bass threatened to trigger arrhythmia. The screaming guitars dissected every nerve.

To stand at the foot of the stage was to also gain great appreciation for the musicians. The sound before and upon the stage often bore little resemblance to the sound which ultimately reached the crowd.

Bands, I came to learn, were often playing blind- meaning that they only heard a disjointed portion of what they were playing. Often the sound was the kind of noise which emanates from a partially tuned radio.

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The musicians were, therefore, required to play together as best they could without being able to hear what it was they were playing. It was a lot like a photographer shooting with his eyes closed.

During the Jane’s Addiction set, lights exploded in an irregular rhythm, not set to any beat or any discernible rhythm, just a crazy mix of blinding strobes and darkness and fog.

“How the fuck does one photograph this mess?” I wondered? How the fuck do you shoot this mess?” I screamed aloud?

Answers were not forthcoming.

Main Street, early MidPoint years.

As best you can appeared to be the answer.

I have a distinct recollection, from the end of the set that night, of holding my camera over my head, in desperation, and simply hitting the shutter button as if it were the trigger of a machine gun.

Luckily, by then, we had some knowledge of the intricacies of shooting concerts and because, by then, we owned real- if not professional gear- we did come away with some acceptable photos.

It rained the very next day, the first Saturday of Midpoint. The first of many storms- large and small- to plague the festival. The rain would become an inexplicable Bunbury tradition.

In our youths, it did not rain in Cincinnati in July. For some reason, it now rains in Cincinnati in July- sometimes it rains as if it were mid November.

During that first rainy Saturday, I was standing, with a handful of other photographers, in the pit- waiting for the show to begin. The rain came in from the west. I climbed under the stage and found myself sitting next to a photographer I had hired on behalf of the festival- and upon the recommendation of a friend.

We sat under the stage, waiting out the rain, watching the crowd before us become drenched. We chatted, exchanged bios and learned that we were both, strangely enough practicing Zen Buddhists with a serious interest in the 13th century teacher and sage Dogen. He told me about his teacher who has written the definitive translation of Dogen’s more important work. The early years were like that. Magic. Even the problems were not problems. I told him about my experiences with my new Zen temple in New Mexico.

Amazingly, I was being well paid for all this silliness. Which is not to say that the job was easy. My gig was managing editor. I was tasked with building a photography team- somewhere between 5 and 7 shooters.

Collectively we were to shoot all the shows and shoot the commercial photos which would be needed by the festival in the coming year for sales and publicity purposes.

I was very glad to have the gig, but knew that the gig was not given to me on the basis of my artistic talent. Rather, the job was payment for all the years of uncompensated work with MidPoint and because I had extensive managerial skills in other areas.

I also had quite a bit of experience as a negotiator and as a bar room brawler- these skills were necessary skills as the years went on.

Whispering Beard

This all worked because I was, at least, smart enough to hire great people out of the gate. We grew in talent each year. There were people who came and went, some went onto full-time concert photography gigs, traveling about the world, including the sickly talented Josh Timmerman.

Mostly, I hired people who were team players and refused to hire anyone exuding the least bit of self-importance.

In return my photographers received two passes, a small stipend (which was still better than most gigs) and superior access. Furthermore, as long as they got me the shots I needed, I told them they were free to come and go and shoot as they wish. They were free to use and sell their work on the back-end.

Jason Isbell-Bunbury

Because there was not a lot of money to pay photographers, freedom and access were the best alternatives I had to offer. Fortunately, freedom and access to a concert photographer is as good as cash.

In retrospect, I recall that the first three years of the festival, were long and hot, and often wet, and that the gear was heavy.

The job required walking repeatedly from end of the park-about a mile- to the other in the humid summer heat- all in all we walked somewhere about ten miles a day (according to one photographer’s pedometer).

One, at times, felt more like a highly skilled burro than an artist. We were, each day, by midnight, at festival’s end, little more than a puddle of molten plasma.

The first night of the Festival, and each night thereafter, during the last set we gathered outside our tent or trailer- we had a new home each year- and enjoyed the very best beers of the summer as the festival madness swarmed about us.

GitoGito Hustle; MidPoint.

There’s very little in life as fine as having a cold beer, or four, in the midst of your own personal party for twenty thousand people.

During that brief time that our world stopped, the festival became an act of creation, an act of performance art. We did what we had to do to get through the day, and then came the last set of the night.

Drinking your cold beer, you only then had a chance to appreciate that you had been given a chance few would ever know: to take part in building something large and colorful and loud and real and important.

The festival was important then because we still had so little to enjoy in those days. The town was still dead; and our town was an unhappy place. Revival was just around the corner, but no one could see that, sense that then. Thus, collectively, we worked hard to restart the heart in the corpse which was our city.

We helped- with hundreds of other employees and volunteers- to turn countless miles of lifeless wire, steel and fencing into life, into a huge living hydra, a multi headed beast with hypnotic pulsating powers which caused 20,000 people to dance, sway, fist thrust and head bang to supercharged music under the pale stars and the moon.

I was grateful for the nice paycheck I received, (especially the first year when I was unemployed and my Bunbury check did not take me out west, as any spare money normally did, but put food on my family’s table).

As an artist, I made full use of the fact that I had full access to the grounds and could shoot anywhere, at anytime; but more than anything I was grateful to the chance to make the festival come alive. I was grateful to work alongside so many talented people, people who would work each year, not for the check, but out of love and loyalty to the collective vision.

More than anything though I always most grateful for that moment, late in the day, when the work was complete and I could drink with my mates and take in everything we had accomplished.

In some fifteen years we- MP and Bunbury stakeholders – had under Bill and Sean’s direction grown- from the early MidPoint days of shooting the smallest local bands in the smallest darkest bars in Cincinnati, to shooting and overseeing photography for a festival drawing national acts as well as 40-60,000 people a weekend.

And every year was something new.

What I love about photography is that it always takes me to places I’d never see, nor be permitted to see were I not holding a camera.

III. Chances Taken, Battles Fought and Won

Thus the following year, I photographed Bunbury from a helicopter while circling the festival grounds. The penultimate act, prior to take off, was the pilot taking the doors off the copter so that I had an unobstructed view of the world beneath me. The only thing between myself and the earth- some several thousand feet below- was a very thin seat-belt.

Early afternoon empty fairgrounds.

The last thing the pilot did was point at the small video game like joystick immediately between us. It was ridiculously small cockpit. Not much bigger than a subcompact car. The pilot was a large man; I was larger. Gear was crammed at my foot. “Don’t touch that or hit that or we die.”

I considered explaining to the pilot that I had a very serious fear of flying, that I had not flown in years, that I was gripped by an absolute certainty that we would both soon be dead, but I swallowed the thought. At some point one must cowboy up. I decided that while it was going to suck to die, I was not going to disgrace myself by dying like a coward.

We took off, across the river, on a small point immediately adjacent to the river. The pilot revved the motors which strained greatly. The copter blades whipped just inches above our small glass cabin. Slowly, we rose into a stiff wind as the pilot forced the copter out over the river.

Photographer Matt Steffen

Nothing seemed to happen for a long time. We were suspended 30 then 50 then 100 feet above the muddy brown river, seemingly held in check by the wind, and then we began to lift. In the back of the copter were two contest winners- a father and his grown daughter. They didn’t look much more reassured than I felt. Slowly we rose above the earth.

In time, we gained speed, flew over the baseball park, the concert fairgrounds, over the city and adjoining neighborhoods. We flew high enough- maybe 1500 feet or so that we had a perfect view of all below.

I had lived here for decades, on and off, and knew the city inside and out. And yet, the world was a very different creature from 1500 feet. It was a far more curious place, so curious that I forgot to worry, forgot to be afraid. At this altitude and speed, I had a new perspective on a world I thought I knew completely.

Messerly and Ewing Band, Bunbury 2012 with Midpoint found Sean Rhiney on bass and Midpoint and Bunbury founder Bill Donabedian on drums.

I shot with abandon. The only down side to the flight being that we could only fly in the afternoon when the concert grounds were relatively empty. This edict from the FAA who forbad an evening flight as the Reds were playing that evening next door. And yet, it didn’t matter.

More perks: in time I befriended the fine people who worked for the local NPR station. The did live remotes from the festival and often interviewed the artists. When they needed photos of the artists, my phone rang. “Hello Mike- EmmyLou Harris is going to be here in five minutes- can you be here to shoot her? We’re also expecting Old Crow Medicine Show and the Drive By Truckers after that…..”

Empire of The Sun- Bunbury.

Sometimes things were surreal. One day I shot the Cincinnati band, Walk The Moon. They were in the process of blowing up. They had just come off tour and had a hit on the chart. Come August they would headline the MTV awards. They seemed like any nerdy, Peter Pan, day glow, quartet of young Cincinnati kids.

I shot the band as they gave their interview. It was all unbelievably anti climatic. The band was sweet and modest. At the interview’s end however, as the band cleared the radio’s stations locus, all hell broke out. They were charged by girls with piercing screams. They teens cried out in recognition and broke down in tears. They begged for hugs and photographs.

Really? I remember thinking. I thought such adoration had died in the sixties with the Beatles, but clearly I was wrong.

Midpoint. Works rush to finish renovation a closed venue just minutes before the festival opens.

As the festival grew, our art grew; we walked miles, we became fast friends; the kind of friendships one makes in the teens and twenties- hard and meaningful friendships. For myself- decades past my twenties- this was best of all. Art, beer and friendship. Nothing else really mattered.

In time I became close with several of the photographers. I’d known them before the festival, but after I came to know them as we shot other shows about the city, year round.

Buckle Up- Old Crowe Medicine Show.

And so the festval grew and we became better friends and photographers.

As one of those photographers, Matt Steffen recently wrote about these times:

The mention of what personality thrives in such chaos is hard to explain to people who aren’t of that mindset.

Working through the sweltering heat, rain, mosquitoes, overcrowded pits, sitting on top of each other to edit, blistered feet, and chafed thighs. ..i’d do it tomorrow, without hesitation.

It was like summer camp. Time spent in a bubble, full of difficult work, friendly competition, exhausting pace, and a long, therapeutic walk back to the car.

Thank you for bringing me into that fold.

Like most things in life, the mind has a way to cling to the better memories. All things change, and sometimes good things end. I look forward to the next incarnation.

Tomorrow, beers.

The boys and girls of the Pit- 2012.

In the end we had opportunities that came to few. And yet, unfortunately, in our hard work and success were buried the seeds of our destruction.

Music festivals have become- of late-very popular events. They draw a lot coverage. I saw, this year, documentation of over 900 festivals across the county. In a time of economic hardship everyone came to believe that throwing a music festival was a panacea to poverty.

It turns out, however, that there are only so many tickets and beers that people can afford. We did well as we went forward and we continued to grow, but the seeming success brought unwanted attention to the pit as well.

As the festival’s success grew so did media interest. Each year the crowd in the pit grew and each year I knew fewer faces. The spirit of goodwill- so much a hallmark of prior Bunbury Festivals-became a little less obvious each year.

Patterson Hood; Drive By Truckers, Buckle Up.

And yet, life remained good. We retained full access and shot the bands of our youth and the bands which we admired in this year as well.

In 2014 Buckle up Music Festival debuted. It was the country equivalent to Bunbury and we held it on the same park on the weekend after Bunbury. Thus, in 2014 we ran, for the first time, back to back weekend festivals.

Weezer- Bunbury, year 1.

The Saturday of Buckle Up weekend featured, among others, the following lineup: Emmylou Harris, Old Crowe Medicine Show, Allison Krauss and Union Station, The Drive By Truckers and Willie Nelson.

The great Marty Stuart- a great guitarist and one time right hand of Johnny Cash had played the night before. The first year of Buckle Up also included a performance by old school throwback and potential country savior Sturgill Simpson.

IV. Snake Eyes.

It seemed like a line up that couldn’t miss, but then the rains came. I knew we needed a solid Buckle Up gate to survive until the next year. For all his years of tireless work, Bill did not have unlimited funds to pour into the Festival- his wife and sons needed to eat as well.

These rains in July seemed impossible. Yet somehow a pattern had established itself. The year before, it had rained so much through June and July that the river flooded. The fucking river flooded in July and one of the main stages had to be moved, at last-minute from it’s now flooded position on the river to the main lawn, thus decreasing main stage capacity.

Unfortunately we did not get the gate we needed in 2014 at either Bunbury or Buckle Up and at the close of 2014 the Festivals sold.

I don’t know why the Gods seemed squarely against us. It was not lack of effort or vision which did us in. Those of us who had been with Bill for some 15 years, continued to work just as hard. Bill worked harder each year.

And yet, it seemed that we could not win for losing.

And yet the truth is that throwing any outdoor festival is a crap shoot. It may be long odds, but if it rains in the middle of the summer every year- and people stay home because of the rain- then eventually you’re going to have to fold. Especially during times of intense competition when smaller venues struggle to book popular bands who are paid significantly more to work large festivals.

Whatever the reason, after years of good luck and hard work the die came up snake eyes.

And so the festival was sold. The new owner, Promo West had their own AV department. They had photographers, I was told, on retainer. They would not be hiring anyone to shot the festival- they would simply assign their own people.

I lost my position- which was expected and understandable. When the rains came and the die came up 7, we all lost. No matter my faults, I wasn’t so greedy and/or ungrateful as to take the wins and complain about the losses.

Always the curse of the rain. Bunbury 2012.

The new owner was kind enough to provide me with a couple of passes and a photography credential. They weren’t obligated to extend this kindness, but they did- and they didn’t even ask for any work in return.

So I went to Bunbury 2015.

Early the first morning of Bunbury 2015, I walked up to the photographer’s tables- three long tables under a thin awning. PromoWest had provided no food, water, no supplies of any kind. I counted 25 photographers at the tables and noted I did not know a single one. I said hello and was greeted by silence.

I recalled Warren Zevon’s famous quip that even a dog could shake hands. I tried to start a conversation and was largely ignored.

In time my fellow mates drifted in. Those who had previously worked the festival were able to obtain media passes so they were also able to shoot the show.

The first act was due to hit the main stage and we were escorted to the stage, it having been explained to us that we were not to come and go to the stages during the festival on our own volition, but could only shoot at appointed times and that we were to be escorted to and from the stage for each set.

So went en mass, like cattle, We walked down the back drive of the park and past the tour buses which were, as always, lined end to end. We walked past the band trailers and VIP tent. Were walked to the side of the stage, past mountains of rigging and gear.

I was at the rear of the pack. I had no obligations to any outlet, I was free to shoot whatever I chose, whenever I chose. When I turned the corner to the front of the stage, I saw the scene depicted at the top of this essay.

I tried to envision an entire weekend of being crammed into the pit. I calculated the odds of getting a decent shot, the hassle of wading through this less than friendly, less professional, crowd. I thought about the heat, my complete lack of access and freedom- for all of Midpoint and Bunbury and Buckle Up I had unlimited freedom.

I said to myself: “fuck this.”

I just couldn’t do it anymore. The gig was officially no fun.

Times change and sometimes that change is imperceptible, but nevertheless real.

In the fifteen years between the start of Midpoint and the sale of Bunbury, rock and roll Inc. became as much a corporate beast as the gray suited, white shirted, horn rimmed corporations which the angry young rockers used to lampoon in their salad days.

After the collapse of the economy and the music industry, various people attempted to resuscitate the music industry in a number of ways. One of the ways was the outdoor music festival.

Why the music industry collapsed, is a discussion well beyond the scope of this piece- though, in a In a nutshell, the music industry is adamant that illegal downloading is the prime cause of its revenues dropping over the past decade.

Others say people are buying more music than ever, but that we’re buying individual songs and not expensive albums on CDs and revenue reflects this fact.

Some claim it’s because the music today lacks the quality of prior years and decades.

There are other arguments which are easily found on the web. Chose an argument- in the end, it’s academic. As with many other sectors of the world, the world of rock and roll has changed tremendously.

What is clear is that the music industry took a dive and lots of people explored lots of ways to bring the golden goose back to life. One of the winning solutions was outdoor music festivals. Thus the number of Festivals exploded. Northern California alone has 15 major music festivals this summer .

Buckle Up-Sturgill Simpson- After The Rains

As with almost every American industry, this means that too may dogs are fighting over too few bones.

Festivals come and go in the span of a couple of years.

Said another way, due to the ever competitive market, one bad year is enough to kill a festival. Or make them vulnerable enough that they’re ripe for a buy out.

Walk The Moon in an interview with WNKU.

This new reality also means that bands are heavily dependent upon the summer festivals in order to make a living.

Thus bands travel from festival to festival, caged in a van or tour bus. When they get to the festival they’re shown to a trailer- a non descript trailer perhaps half the size of a mobile home. They eat their meals- and eat well, at least at Bunbury and Buckle Up- in large tents. They play their gig, try and sell some merch and then load back onto the bus and vans to repeat the cycle repeatedly.

It’s this process I think, which has taken the piss out of rock and roll. In the fifteen years I’ve been shooting bands have- with many notable exceptions- become less and less of artists, and more and more businessmen and women, Too many artists have become less friendly, more distant- though most remain well mannered and kind.

Too often-especially at festivals-I found myself shooting, more and more as the years passed, too many sets in which musicians were simply mailing in the effort. They were joyless. They may as well have been making widgets on an assembly line.

Buckle Up

Quality of life can be defined in a number of ways. For one friend, it’s defined by the number of adrenaline rushes in a given week or month. For others, QOL can be measured by the number of memorable lifetime moments- those moments so spectacular you can never forget them; others equate QOL with the number of countries they traveled to and through across the globe.

Me, I guess I measure Quality of life by the number of days in which I get to spend doing exactly what I want in the places I want to be with the people I wish to spend time with. Under this system it’s not necessary to even leave the house to have great days. A great day can be as simple as being at home with my beloved and sons eating homemade Mexican food and watching a hockey game.

Guided by Voices 2012.

Many of the best days, however, take place far from home. The absolute best days also contain a sense of discovery as if one has stumbled into a new country. Spending weeks traveling by train with my sons; and hiking Glacier National Park together, or exploring Point Reyes National Seashore or the streets of San Francisco.

The best days and nights in the pit are like that. But those times are more and more infrequent these days. Shooting someone who does not like her or his job is not a good time.

There’s also the reality that more and more, for reasons both legitimate and flimsy, musicians- and more to the point- their management, have come to resent photographers.

Some of their resentment is understandable-the rise of the blog has led a lot of people to believe that all you need to be a journalist or photographer is a cheap camera, or even, god fucking forbid a cell phone, and a laptop. As a result a lot of pits are crowded with new faces and those faces all too often lack understanding, professionalism and courtesy.

V. Enough Is Enough

There has also clearly been a rise in those in business who believe that because bands are brands they must be handled and managed-like tampons or toilet paper. And like any consumer product, corporations insist that the Brand must be presented in a consistent manner and protected. Such a need to control often extends to those who wish to photograph performances. Thus most photographers are strictly controlled.

Musician Ed Cunningham, Whispering Beard Fest

During Bunbury 2013 a headliner played- I can’t remember who- they were so shitty I’ve pushed them from my memory. The tour manager decided, at the very last minute, that only the house photographer (myself) and the photographer for Rolling Stone would be permitted to shoot their set, for two songs, while standing upon the ground before the sound board- some one hundred and fifty feet from the stage. The combination of lack of elevation and distance almost ensured failure from the start.

The remaining 50 or so photographers who had gone to great time trouble and expense to shoot this band- largely for the benefit of the band- were told that they could, in so many words, pound salt.

Such attitudes were becoming increasingly common everywhere by 2015.

Whispering Beard, Early Morning Jam Session.

I shot a show at a large venue (Riverbend) in which Ray Montaigne- a seeming common man- or maybe that’s just his brand- commanded that photographers could only shoot his set for the first three songs from the very right boundary of the pavilion, ten rows back.

This angle combined with the fact that Montaigne stood at the back of the stage, in the dark, ensured substandard photos. I did my best to shoot my show for my client, went home and deleted the photos after failing to find a single acceptable shot.

Still other bands attempt to control their brand by forcing photographers to sign demeaning and unconscionable contracts proving that photographers may not display the work of an artist without the bands or managements consent; or demand that the band must pre approve any shot to be published; or that the photographer must send all shots to the band and that the band may use all work for any purpose without any payment of share in royalties by the photographer and that the photographer be concurrently prohibited from ever using his or her work.

In other words, under many such contracts, the photographers is free to spend years and tens of thousands of dollars perfecting a craft and is then invited to work for free for other artists and record companies but prohibited from ever profiting from that work.

Ain’t laissez faire capitalism grand?

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As it usually falls to the tour manager to enforce these corporate edicts, tour managers have become especially intolerant of photographers. I lost track of the number of managers who told me that I would not shoot their people as they came and went to the stage, nor could I shoot them from the back of the stage, nor could I shoot past the three songs allotted to the media as a whole.

I would then explain that I was the house photographer and as such had the right to shot from any location at any time and I would politely remind the manager that my boss- the festival- had just paid the artist bags of cash to perform and was entitled to and required photos of said paid performance for the purposes of marketing the festival the following year.

Whispering Beard Festival.

An argument would undoubtedly ensue. In the years I called Bill so he could hash it out with the managers. In time, I just saw the fight through myself. And there were some serious fights which verged on becoming physical.

Poor tour managers tend to rely upon threats of intimidation and implied threats of violence. Many tour managers seemed to believe that their most valuable attribute was being able to act like an asshole on a second’s notice.

I suppose this works for them most of the time because so many employ this technique time and again. It did not work with me however, because I happened to possess the same skill set.

Whispering Beard, Midnight Whiffle Ball.

I also, unlike most people, am not only comfortable with occasional confrontation, but enjoy it. It’s what I did in those days. I’ve been in many brawls in my life and do not regret one of them.

I came to learn that the bigger the band- often- but not always; the bigger the asshole tour manager. I also learned that engaging in a swift verbal confrontation and refusing to back down went a long way to ironing things out swiftly. Most tour managers, I think were not accustomed to photographers who fought back.

One such encounter- with the manager of a band which was very famous for ten minutes a couple of years ago, went something like this:

What are you doing here, you can’t be here

I’m the house photographers, (showing credentials) I’m the only person allowed to shoot the show here

I don’t give a damn who you are, I didn’t say you could be here

It’s not your call the festival specifically told me to shoot the show from here and since he signs my paychecks, and not you, I’m going to shoot from here.

You will not shoot from here I am the tour manager, if you take a single photo, I’ll pull that band off the stage

Sounds like breach of contact to me, but that’s up to you.

I begin walking up the steps to the edge of the stage

I’m calling security

why don’t you do that, they know I’m supposed to be here, plus the festival signs their checks as well

Three

what?

You can have three shots from this spot here.

No- I’m going there- I point to a spot at the top of the stage stairs and will shoot for two songs

You can shoot from the top step and have four shots

There, I say pointing out a spot six inches from the prior spot I had indicated and I want six shots.

Fine he said begrudgingly

I went forward took my shots and left.

In the end I debated telling him that I didn’t really need or want the shots. I easily could have gotten them from the pit and I could have infuriated him by telling him that I’d never even heard of the pseudo boy band he was managing.

Cause why be an asshole?

Chuck Cleaver, Bunbury

Security tended to work in the same way. For whatever reason, security tends to hate photographers. Again, there are some good reasons, but on the whole it’s more a question of envy. Photographers have a cool gig and they have a shitty gig and they’re jealous.

I don’t know why. Security is very important, I’ve seen them save lives- but many don’t take pride in their work so they resent others who do. I’ve never seen a photographer gratuitously give security a hard time- and if I had I would have jerked that photographer back in line instantly.

But for whatever reason, security, as a whole, seemed to think it their duty to do their important job and fuck with us.

For instance, security could never understand-no matter how many times it was explained to them- that the photographers in the pit were entitled to shoot the first three songs of the headliner.

Whispering Beard

Thus if a tour manager wasn’t trying to prematurely drag the photographers from the pit, security was.

It sounds petty, but the upshot is that security frequently tried to control photographers by throwing them out of the pit, incorrectly restricting access.

If this was all a question of ego, such concerns would not even be worthy of mention. The reality is, however, that security, like the tour managers, were fucking with the photographers right to make a living. Ultimately, as with tour managers, problems with security inevitably boiled down to some short sharp nasty arguments. Some very public. In time, however, a truce prevailed.

All these circumstances added up to the fact that, by Bunbury 2015, it simply wasn’t fun, for me, to shoot music. By the time I rounded the corner for the first set of Bunbury 2015 and saw the crowd in the pit-there was no point of staying on.

I could live with the heat and the fact that the layout of the park required walking 10 miles a day while covering heavy gear. I could accept the occasional lack of respect from managers, bands and security, I could even stand not being paid after 2014- even though I am a trained professional doing quality work, I might could even stand working with so many photographers who clearly had no interest in concepts such as mutual respect or professionalism.

Whispering Beard

But I could not see the point in dealing with all these problems for free. I stood at the foot of the stage and contemplated my options.

I did not want to stomp off like a spoiled child. I did not want to just take my ball and go home. If I gave up on music photography what would I do- it was a large part of what I did as an artist.

I couldn’t see how the festival would be anything but a cattle call and I simply didn’t need that. Once upon a time- in the golden days, music photographer was a dream job. These days, not so much.

But what next? I told myself that if I left, before leaving the pit for good, that I’d have to assign myself a new project, a new field of interest. It was not ok to quit and walk away- it was ok, in light of the circumstances, to go onto the next thing.

Bunbury Music Festival.

I’d always loved portraiture and it turned out there were 20,000 interesting faces at the park that day. Some of those faces were beautiful, some odd, some painted. The entire park was heaven for a portrait artist. And given the fact that I had no obligations, no shot list, I could spend the weekend working on my own terms.

I had my next gig. I took a deep breath- let it out and let all the anger and frustration of the day go. I’d move on-greatful for the time I had in the pit and I’d go on to the next thing.

I smiled recalling Hunter S Thompson’s magic words about the music industry:

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.

Bunbury

Afterward

I let this essay sit for almost two years for a number of reasons. The primary reason being that the subject brings up so much emotion, that I wanted time to cool off so that I could finish/edit this piece in an reasonable, if not objective, manner.

I still shoot music, I couldn’t give it up entirely. I couldn’t give up hearing great music live, could not give up spending time with talented artists and I couldn’t stand not seeing the other concert photographers. For all the reasons given above, however, I do not shoot anywhere as often.

I’m careful to pick my shows now. When I shoot festivals, I shoot smaller, more intimate festivals- such the the NoWhere Else and Whispering Beard Festivals. Both of which are blessedly free of ego, filled with kind people and possess a laid back atmosphere where the performers mingle freely and gratefully with concertgoers.

Whispering Beard. Musician Jeremy Pinnel and Daughter.

Also, the fact that I’m mostly shooting music for a new magazine which takes my work seriously, which presents my work professionally and which challenges me to be a better artist, helps to make the gigs I do shoot a much more positive experience.

But the music industry hasn’t changed as whole and I still stand by what I’ve written above. An e-mail I sent to my editor just today, pretty well sums things up.

The PR people from AS never even replied back to say no, even after asking that I send prior photos, links to magazines ect.

Don’t know many industries with a higher percentage of self-centered and self-important jack asses than the music industry…. even a dog can shake hands- I’m appreciating the thought more with each passing day…..

But then, why dwell on the negative? It’s better to be grateful for the opportunities we did have, the chance to learn and the chance to make the most of a special time that won’t likely come again anytime soon.

It’s better to smile and to move onto the next thing. Whatever that might prove to be.

NoWhere Else Fest.

Turn Around Abandon all hope, and don't rock the boat And we'll all make a few hundred grand…

#Music Photography Local Bunbury Midpoint

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michaelfftv · 9 years ago

Text

For Becky, who; over thirty, or so, years has almost helped me to become nearly human.

***

I stood, some years ago, watching the repairman working on my furnace.

“Dead,” he said.

It was maybe 40 degrees in the house and minus 15 outside. In previous years my underground powerline had died in subzero temperatures. My waterline to the house broke after a period of heavy rain and flooding.

“Things,” I told him with a feeling of personal aggrievement, “are always going wrong at exactly the worse time, why is that?”

He looked at me as if he was a man trying to tutor a small child. Evenly and matter of factly, he said, “Things always break when they’re under maximum stress.”

“Truth,” a voice in the back of my head said. A grand and simple and unassailable truth I had never put together. No conspiracies, simply science, simple cause and effect. The next day driving home in the continuing freeze I noted may houses with repair trucks in the drive.

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How many other simple, and yet important, truths have I missed?

Why was I so certain that my malfunctioning furnace was a matter of personal insult? Why had I taken this problem personally? Where do we obtain these basic principles which rule our lives, which we accept as truths and so seldom examine?

And for that matter, where do our opinions come from? From where do our values, our preferences, arise?

Why do we favor concord jelly over peach butter; the Yankees over the Astros; or even hockey over football? Why do we, as children, want to be ballerinas over fireman; and ultimately why do we become nurses instead of lawyers?

And more to the point, why do we come to identify so completely with some of these choices- big and small- that we sometimes lose ourselves, our common sense, our intelligence; and in some cases our humanity in making those choices?

Why do we become threatened or enraged when those choices are contradicted?

Why, for instance am I willing to beat your ass for wearing that Philadelphia Flyers jersey? I am a largely sane and very educated 54 year old man, so why do I lose my mind, on occasion, over relatively unimportant matters?

The fact that someone chose not to use a turn signal should not, on very bad days, cause me rage; cause me to speculate on the likelihood of that person’s lifestyle choices; cause me to speculate upon- despite the complete absence of all credible evidence-the willingness of his or her family to fuck sheep over the preceding generations.

Such behavior, on your part, on my part, is stupid and unacceptable, and, presumably, we know this. And yet, especially of late, we have collectively, as a nation, sunk to new depths ugliness, despair.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but our nation, which is now under maximum stress is very fucking broke and we are taking it very fucking personally.

Why? Why when we are forced to make truly important decisions- such as Trump or Hillary- do we identify so completely with that decision that we are willing to denigrate our fellow man, if not actually cause her harm? Why are we willing to kill or maim strangers- or at least advocate for the harm, their murder, even though we know little, if nothing, of their circumstances and beliefs?

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What do you know of Hillary or The Donald- or Brad or Angelina- beyond what you, I, have been told by well-paid propagandist with very obscure and inchoate objectives and agendas?

Literally what do we know of these people?

Again, why do we allow ourselves to be manipulated? All these issues are, all so often; inchoate, if not illusory. Yet, we treat such oblique and obtuse issues as a matter of life or death as if these problems threaten our very physical security, our lives.

In reality, even when we are forced to make very important and basic decisions, we remain the same essential being no matter what choices we make. Democrat or Republican, pro-choice or not; no matter how we choose, we remain essentially the same as prior to that decision. We remain human, similar, to those around us no matter how important those choices

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We make our choices and the sun comes up tomorrow, the wind blows through the trees.

Unless we are forced to decide whether we, or others, should remain here on earth; unless, for instance, we’re deciding whether or not to continue living, to take chemo for instance; or to remove life support from a loved one, our choices do not fundamentally change us.

And yet, we act as if we are at death’s door. We scream and rant as if our very survival is on the line. How does the excess drama we create around these decisions help us to make these decisions?

How does hatred improve your life, my world? In almost every case, such drama does not help. All too often it only causes us to suffer. And yet, all too often, we let these states of pain and suffering- these optional states of pain and suffering- dominate our humanity, our very sense of identity. Why?

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Some of these choices are very important. You may very well be correct that Hillary is a traitor, or that Trump is a clear and present danger to the future of our Democracy. Both facts may be true. But shouldn’t these decisions, all decisions in our lives, be made free or such ignorance and animus so that we can be certain that we are making correct and enlightened decisions?

You have that power. I have that ability. We have the power to collectively refuse to be used. Do you really believe you’re not being used?

Do you really want to sell these animals your humanity for pennies on the dollar?

And yet so many of us cannot get to this place of intelligent contemplation- why not? Why can’t I, you, look at our basic unenlightened states and do better?

What would happen to us, as a people, as a people, if we could look clearly at our madness, discerned the reasons for that madness; and made an attempt to move past that madness- or at least contain, minimalize, those irrational feelings so that we might make a better, more informed, physically and mentally healthier decision?

Why let others control us? Some, undoubtedly, are motivated by less than honorable motives But the rest?

Maybe at the end of the day some people are just fucked up and can’t do any better.

Have you ever been there? Fucked up, incapable of- at least for a short period of time-of being unable to do better? Maybe, at the end of the day, you’re, I’m, just as fucked up as anyone else and maybe you should get your house before you decide how others should think, live.

Why is it in this alleged land of freedom that so many, from all across the political and social spectrum are absolutely incapable of letting anyone live according to their own dictates, values and morals? Have you ever sat down and contemplated what that word really means? It doesn’t mean that the universe revolves only around you or that you get to tell everyone else what to do with their lives.

Maybe the actions and decisions that others make are a reflection of their relationship with themselves; and, not a personal attack up you and or your values. Maybe I am not the center or the universe, nor are you.

Maybe we should all check ourselves. Maybe we should all go to a quiet cabin the wood and, unplug; make whatever important decisions regarding your life, our lives, in a sane and reflective manner. I write these thoughts from such a place, in the 5am quiet, and I am a better person for having done so.

Maybe, you, I, should admit that while we are limited creatures, that we can do better. Your life is hard as is mine. But we are, you and I, capable of doing better. We must do better or my sons, your daughters, are in very large trouble.

Let’s agree to hate one less person today. Can you get there?

The portraits in this series are of your fellow human beings. I took these portraits over the last six months in various places around the country. I did not ask for any information from these people beyond their permission to take their portraits.

I did not find, over our brief encounter, any reason to hate, idolize or disparage any of these people- though statistics dictate that some of these people, like you, have done horrible things.

Please look carefully at these portraits and tell me what conclusions you can draw about these people, from their portraits. Are they lazy or stupid because of the color of their skin, or their political affiliation? Are they mothers, fathers, sister or brothers?

Choose which of these people should have their first amendment rights abrogated or their lives shortened secondary to your second amendment rights. Let me know which of these people deserve to live and die for their actions, for their beliefs. And then look in the mirror.

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Or maybe just take a close look at these people in a quiet place and then look at yourself and vow to try to do just a little bit better; no matter who you are or what you think. Try and find one good thing to say about your worst enemy.

For our sake, because we deserve better.

Choose not to wage war on others, on yourself.

Choose For Becky, who; over thirty, or so, years has almost helped me to become nearly human.

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michaelfftv · 9 years ago

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The idea for a project came to me a couple of days, or even just the day before the Fourth of July. As photography projects go, the idea was a simple one. I’d simply drive a predetermined route through America, on the Fourth, and document the state of our country on that day.

The idea came to me, I suppose because I was already scheduled to be on the road on the Fourth. Circumstances dictated that there was only one possible weekend I could travel this summer; so I had made the best of a limited calendar and planned a long weekend in North Carolina. A journey to the very northernmost mountains, just south of the Tennessee/Virginia border.

Because I needed to be home on the fourth, the route set itself. I’d drive, on my inaugural Fourth of July project, from tiny Warrensville N.C. to exurban Milford Ohio, just outside of Cincinnati- some 390 miles. A nice cross section of America; basically a drive up the gut of the Appalachians Mountains.

Along the way, I thought, I would photography America on the Fourth. I wasn’t so much interested in photographing the Fourth of July as I was interested in photographing America on the Fourth of July. Most of the nation, I figured, would be off work and out and about doing something I reasoned, so it should be, I thought, a great day to visually take the pulse of America.

The route home was a route I did, and didn’t, know well.

I have frequently traveled throughout the south and, in particular, the western NC region over the last twenty years. Normally, however, I roamed the extreme western edge of North Carolina: Robbinsville, Snowbird, Graham Country and as far east as Asheville, I normally came down 75 and head east on I-40, sometime evening gutting though and over the Smoky Mountain National Park.

Some trips I spend hours sitting bumper to bumper crawling through the commercial shitholes of Gatlinburg, Sevierville and Pigeon Forge. Faux alpine villages chock full of hillbilly supper clubs, gun and knife stores and countless shops peddling endless sugar filled forms of poisons.

Approximately 75 percent of all cases of diabetes in America originate as a result of the fried and sugar coated crap passed off as food in these towns. (Located conveniently in Dollywood’s Rivertown Junction, Dogs n’ Taters is a quick service restaurant serving up delicious foot-long corndogs, hot dogs and chili dogs with a side of fried potato twirls).

That this drive through such a wretched place ends in Cherokee N.C., another artificial town created to celebrate the capture and slaughter of a cultured indigenous tribe only adds insult to reason (Street chiefs and dancers perform on curb side stages outside retail shops and souvenir stores, entertaining crowds of shoppers. The shows, often featuring the traditional, ‘friendship dance’ (with audience participation, below), ‘eagle dance’ and ‘hoop dance’, are free; yet tipping is encouraged, particularly when the “chiefs” pose for photographs. It’s a tradition that began years ago with the late Chief Henry, who was once billed as “The World’s Most Photographed Indian.)”

I had no interest in capturing any such visions on this day. I was, in fact, certain that such a drive down Tn 441 on the Fourth could amount to nothing more than a stop and start nightmare through some of the most heart-breaking soulless, plastic, imitation constructs of a never before existed America. .

I wanted, rather, if possible, to also capture, crystalize, on this single holiday, some of the madness that had been fermenting over the last several years. To capture us not at exactly each other’s throats, but at truce during the culture wars. It wasn’t hyperbole to say that many of us hated one and other these days, I wanted to capture a break in that war.

I wanted to capture America on the Fourth, during Armistice. I didn’t want standard American Fourth of July fare, I didn’t want sparklers and hot dogs or drunks.

If I saw a parade, I’d shoot it; though I wasn’t going to go out of my way to look for parades, commemorative events or firework displays. I’d treat this day, as I treated all travel, I’d get up in the morning and head out without an itinerary. I’d shoot what came across lens; I’d photograph those who crossed my path.

Besides, I really didn’t have the time to work up an itinerary anyway. So I thought I’d wing it. Gas up the truck, go down to the not so local Food Giant and get some fried chicken, apples, and Gatorade for the ride home: just in case I couldn’t find any open backroad restaurants. I’d also need a six pack of good beer, for once I arrived home.

And so I did that. I obtained provisions and took off the next morning.

I knew from prior rambles in these mountains that I needed to head east on Hwy 88 to 194 North which would take me into Tennessee, After that I’d fake it. Head north on back roads, try to avoid the four lanes for as long as possible, and then search out Hwy. 58 headed northwest. That was pretty much the extent of my geography in starting out.

Warrensville N.C. was far east of my prior adventures in N.C.. I knew that to get north, I needed to head up through terra ignoramus (my ignorance), up through a good swatch of Virginia and then through the mystical and largely unknown (at least to me) lands of eastern Kentucky, through Whitesburg, Prestonsburg, Hazard. I’ve spent decades hiking and fishing, camping and photographing all up and down the Appalachians. But I had largely missed eastern Kentucky and western Virginia.

I knew this area to be coal mining territory, traditionally known as a region of very independent, and private, men and women. A place I’d always wanted to explore, but had for any number of reasons, missed out on. Partially, to a small degree, I had avoided the region out of trepidation; but mostly because the roads through those counties generally didn’t lead to where I needed to be.

But now that I had ventured so far north and east in NC, it made sense for me to see this country. Once I began up 194, I came immediately upon Lansing NC. A small broken, more empty than full, village which ran along some old railroad tracks.

I took a few photos of downtown; just a few tired house, a couple of closed and/or dilapidated business- the tough the pizza place was, I was told, good.

One home up the road had the Stars and Bars doubling as curtains in its bedroom windows.

In my last several visits to the deep South, I noted that the fucking flag seems to have spread like mushrooms. I saw it hung in front of homes and flown from broom poles sprouting from the back of outsized pick ups. It was flown in tandem with the Stars and Stripes.

I checked out the local park and ballfield. Nothing, not a soul outside anywhere. While I wasn’t interested in the usual Fourth of July rituals, I did want to speak with people, get an idea of what was on their minds. In Lansing it was apparently sleep.

I headed up 194 and promptly came upon a sign directing me down a rural highway which allegedly took me to route 58. It was choice which came upon me unexpectedly, too early in the day. The choice tested my resolve. Small roads, or smaller roads.

If I picked the wrong small road, I could doom my trip and project from the start. I could get lost in the mountains, lose hours getting back on track.

But if it was the right small road, treasures might abound. A classic Frostian dilemma. Obviously, I took the road less traveled and ended up following a number of small winding roads through small farms, neat and not.

“Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God,” said Kurt Vonnegut Jr in Cat’s Cradle. If, so, this drive was a dance well beyond my limited dancing abilities. To get from Lansing NC to Whitetop Virginia, I took the following route: Head southwest on E St toward NC-194 N continue to Big Horse Creek Rd, right onto Big Horse Creek Rd, continue on Rip Shin Rd. Take Farmers Store Rd to State Rte 726 in Wilson Creek which led, more or less, to route 58 which took me to Whitetop Virginia, I think. But then who cares, but cause the drive was stupid beautiful and led me to good people.

And at some point you just have to let go of the maps and GPS and trust in the road Gods. In any event, I did end up in Whitetop Va., and found myself at an old mercantile store, which was surprisingly open, and which had a sign that said Whitetop General Store. The lot was large and full. I aimed for a large sign at the end of the lot, parked and went to visit.

The landmark signage at the edge of the lot said that this region was the heart of bluegrass country. That Dr Ralph Stanley, among others, had been through and played in this region countless times.

On the porch of the mercantile store were benches and populating those benches were a group of older men. They appeared to be standard issue southern gentlemen so I waited for a break in their conversation- which was a while coming, and asked:

Had they known Ralph Stanley?

“I used to go and listen to him and George Jones play together when I was a young schoolboy. It cost a whole quarter to see the show then.” one said.

I told them about my several encounters with Ralph Stanley and how I was fortunate to photograph him and hear him play.

Was he a good man, I asked

The best another said.

Another gentleman, a big man in suspenders and a bright green T-shirt, said that Stanley had tried to sell him a banjo for 3200.00.

Must of been a beauty for that kind of money I said.

It was, he said, but I told him I wasn’t going to buy, it, that I already had one, one that I had been playing since 1960 and wasn’t going to put it down anytime soon.

So you play I asked?

Always, he said, I grew up in it.

He looked down at his aging hands and then added. Only I just did sell that thing, to my nephew. I can’t play it anymore, too much arthritis.

That must be hard for you. I said.

I lifted up my camera. It’d kill me to have to give this up.

He nodded in agreement, but said nothing else. The wound, I gathered, was still too green for discussion.

A long minute passed and I asked. “Do they still make instruments around here?” I asked,

You bet, I was told. There’s a man named WC Henderson up the road still makes beautiful instruments.

He has a bank vault full of them they told me, worth a million dollars.

Go up and ask to see it, it’s just twelve miles back on Rugby Road.

I told them I couldn’t stop today, I had a long way to go, and besides, I said, it’s a holiday and I don’t want to barge in on a holiday. I promised I’ll be back though.

I grabbed a couple of cheeseburgers from the general store (which was fortunate as I left my chicken and beer in the fridge in Warrensville) and headed north toward Damascus. The road to Damascus twisting through large hills and small mountains and then abruptly turning back upon itself and diving and rising in and out of river valleys.

How fitting I thought to be on the road to Damascus on the Fourth of July. Striding the boundary between God and Government, in these hot and hate filled days, just as Saul had done 2000 years ago.

Would I find redemption as did Saul?

In that one blinding, falling moment Saul became another man. The hunter of Christians, the heresy detective became in one instant full of yearning to be a Christian.

He had seen God. And trembling before that glory, stripped naked of his intellectual pretenses, he had cried out in the hope and fear of all believers:

“Lord, what would You have me to do?”

The odds were definitely against such an occurrence….

And then I had another uniquely southern moment. I noted that somewhere along the way, route 58 had become The Jeb Stuart Highway. A perfect display of state’s rights I thought. Also a fitting moniker for this twisting highway as Stuart’s own career as Major General in the Confederate Cavalry, during the War of Northern Aggression, had also been full of twisting ups and downs.

Promoted to colonel under Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Stuart commanded cavalry units in the Army of Shenandoah. He soon was commanding all the cavalry brigades for the Army of Northern Virginia. After a few successful missions, Stuart was promoted to major general. His career, however, came to an ignoble end. Standing at the end of a long chain of errors committed by a number of soldiers, Stuart came to be regarded as the scapegoat of Gettysburg.

Stuart’s died at the Battle of Yellow Tavern on May 11th 1864 after being mortally shot from his horse by a dismounted Union private.

He whispered his last words “I am resigned, God’s will be done.”

God and Guns, God and Guns. One Hundred and fifty-two years gone by and nothing changes. Hi ho silver-o deliver me from nowhere….

So be it.

From Whitetop to Damascus was 31 miles via route 58 and Chestnut Creek Road. In between was the small fertile hamlet of Green Cove. A literal wide spot in the road. There was no one around, so I shot the small and handsome Green Cove Christian Church (If the donkey and elephant fail you try the lamb).

I took Green Cove Road away from Volney and came shortly to Damascus. Damascus was a small town hip deep in bicycle shops and outfitters, all doing a bang up business under glowering silver blue skies. I gathered from signage that there was a major rails to trail nearby- the Virginia Creeper Trail.

Subsequent research proved me right ( The VCT runs from Whitetop Station to Damascus and then onto Abingdon Va. There’s also apparently cross country riding in the form of the Iron Mountain Trail).

I drove through and took some photos and headed toward Abington. One gets from Damascus to Abingdon by continuing upon the aforementioned Jeb Stuart Highway, which, of course, bypasses the Glenrochie Country Club outside of Abingdon.

I began to realize that I was rapidly losing my sense of objectivity and that despite my love of history and the South, my long standing dislike for Virginia was beginning to rise in my throat. The truth actually being that I’ve never dug Virginia, though I had begun the morning trying to keep an open mind.

It is my experience that truly stupid and oppressive ideas usually spring from a limited number of places and Virginia is one of those places. It was one of a handful of states in the country that can make Ohio, on occasion, look backwards. I recall reading five years or so ago about how, over Christmas holidays, undercover cops went into bars in Reston Va. and Herndon, Va., giving sobriety tests to random patrons. The patrons at the time had not been causing problems. Rather they were simply sitting on their barstools enjoying a Christ libation. Those who who failed were charged with public intoxication, a misdemeanor.

Virgina, for me, was one of those places it was hard to be objective about. I’d wager pretty large money, for instance, that no cop ever went into the Glenrochie Country Club to administer unsolicited breathalyzers.

And yet for all its rednecks and bigots and stupid cops, it is a beautiful state. In between lay Damascus and Abingdon lay the Jefferson National Forest and Mt Roger’s Recreation Area. The VCT apparently cut through the parks following a clear beautiful rhododendron lined stream that bordered Hwy 58. It was lovely country.

I pulled into a parking area within the Mt Roger’s Recreation Area and found groups taking breaks from riding the VC trail. I circled the lot, took some photos and upon leaving noticed a family of five alighting from their SUV. They looked at though they we getting ready for a family hike.

I came upon them again as they were walking through the parking lot towards the trail. They eyed me as I came up beside them.

I rolled down my window. They looked at me and contemplated the forty feet that stood between them and their van, their safe harbor.

Excuse me I said.

Yes, the father said warily. The mother and two daughters looked vaguely worried.

You left your driver’s side door open, I said.

In coming around the lot I saw that they had walked off with their car open. A favorite trick of mine.

Really? he asked suspiciously

Yep I said driving off.

I left them standing there, alone in the parking lot with the shame of being beholden to a polite yankee on the fourth of July.

If I was to know that this was to be pretty much the nadir of my human interaction for the rest of the trip I would have stayed. I wouldn’t have gone out on such a smart ass note. I would have minded my manners like a good southerner.

Abington was a ghost town. I drove through it’s pretty, proud downtown looking for anything going on. The closest I came to culture, or any sort of gathering that morning, was a crowd of folks clustered under a fireworks circus tent which had been pitched in a grocery store parking lot.

I took several photos of the fireworks stand/tent (50% off Today!!) and shot the large stately Abingdon Baptist church on my way out of town. I saw no one on the streets, anywhere. A soft rain began to fall.

I hit Widner’s Market on the way out of town. As I gassed up I looked up and down the breadth and width of Jeb Stuart Highway. Nothing, no one- just an old tired beat soul going into the Wholesale House of Discount Tobacco.

Across the broken four lane was a lot selling prefab wood sheds. No credit needed. Further on, Jeb Stuart Highway rolled onto distant hills under a moody sky. I wanted to be happy to love this land and it’s people, but it was beyond me. Fucking Virgina, I thought. I needed, wanted, to be gone.

A half hour up the road, the sky began to darken. It was 1:30 pm and it looked like 7 pm. I had been on the road for nearly three hours and had only covered 50 miles. A pretty standard photographer’s pace- for me anyway. But if I was going to see and document anyone and anything I needed to get my ass in gear.

I spent the next two hours heading north. Taking Hwy 58 to Ky 15. I crossed the spine of the Appalachians. I found myself surprising alone. Yet, if I was unhappy about being hard up for people to chat up and/or photography; I do have to admit to being happy about avoiding the interstate highways on my way home. My trip down, via I-64 to I 77 had been nearly apocalyptic.

Driving I-64 into West Virginia is always gambling with one’s life. The road is small and tight and potholed and the traffic is always phrenetic and unforgiving. The ride down I-77 is little better. Headed south through WV I had found the usual bumper to bumper traffic on twisting I-77 through WV’s ancient battered and beautiful mountains. A back up just outside of Charleston forced me off the highway at Cabin Creek, boyhood home of basketball great Jerry West.

I stopped at a small store just outside of Cabin Creek. The lot and store were packed. There were lines of 5 to both the mens and womens room. I stood in line for the men’s room. After ten minutes I thought that the young boys ahead of me had simply neglected to see if anyone was actually in the restroom.

Several minutes later, however a flush and sounds of struggle came through the door. The doorknob jiggled once, twice and then three times. A woman of sixtyish- with wiry grey hair, wearing sweats, and weighing a solid three hundred pounds backed a wheelchair out of the men’s room.

There was a man in the chair who was every bit of five hundred pounds. He had white hair and a thick white moustache and beard. His wore camouflage shorts. His right leg was in bandages. His calf was swollen larger than my head. A diabetic on the verge of amputation, I thought. A common story in these parts.

My God I thought, how does she do that, how does she care for him on her own? The couple sat conversing outside the restroom. I watched them from the corner of my eye while I waited for my turn. It was a heartbreaking drama. Who were they, I wondered and did they have people who cared for them?

Walking out to my car, I looked about the lot. An endless display of apparent poverty. Families milled around old crumpled trucks, some dumping ice into coolers, others chatting in small groups. At the edge of the lot was an old battered trailer with an old double-wide with a warped porch facing the store. There was an equally old and faded sign that said barbershop.

There was a general feeling of people escaping their usual lives and heading out.

A man of about 40, with long unkempt hair, worn jeans and a T-shirt sat on the edge of the double-wide porch, his legs dangling off the edge, his arms crossed on warped deck railing. He sat with a wide immobile grin on his face surveying the parking lot crowd. His bearing and posture caused him to look like a simple six year old.

I reached for my camera and stopped. I felt myself torn between not wanting to offend anyone’s dignity and not wanting to remember this place, I didn’t want to remember the guy on the porch, the guy in the wheelchair nor the poor kids filtering in and out of the battered trucks. It was all too damn heartbreaking.

I drove off detouring down hwy 79, trying to decide whether I was a poor human being, a poor photographer, or both. Driving through Cabin Creek I saw no memorial to their famous native son. I drove on through Chelyan along the muddy Kanawha River (formed at Gauley Bridge, by the confluence of the New and Gauley rivers; although the Kanawha shares none of the beauty of her originating rivers).

I rejoined the highway and swore I’d find another way home. I wasn’t longing so much to avoid the ugliness and poverty of West Virginia as I was in need of an aesthetic fix. I needed some beauty. My soul longed for uncluttered mountains or desert.

Now some four days later, headed home, I was two hundred miles to the southwest of Cabin Creek and my soul had been slightly satiated by the North Carolina mountains. I headed for south Kentucky. I hoped to find some crowds, some event, in Prestonburg, Whitesburg or Hazard.

Just south of Kentucky, on a whim, I pulled of route 58 and into Coeburn Virginia. I stopped at the top of a hill overlooking a small old downtown. A fourth of July parade stretched downhill. A large yellow fire truck to the rear. marchers and floats for a mile before me. I stopped my car and took a couple shots. Late, late, late.

Virginia finally gave way to Kentucky and 58 turned onto Highway 15. As I made Kentucky 15, the clouds finally let loose. Just outside of Vicco, nearly to Hazard, I stopped to get gas. While I was in the store, a monsoon arrived. People stood about the store watching the rain come down in windblown torrents, non plussed, silently calculating how long they would wait inside before trying to get to their cars. Impatient as always, I got a large hot coffee and swam for my truck just outside the door.

I waited out the worst of the storm in the parking lot and then headed for Hazard. Before coming to Hazard I was surprised to find a large lake/dam complex with several large marinas. Not the type of country one envisions when contemplating coal country. I stopped in the lot and pulled into the marina.

A sixty foot houseboat nearest to the parking lot floated in its dock flying both the American flag and the stars and bars. Which is it, asshole, I thought, because you can’t have it both ways.

Further up the lot four black pick up trucks, each with an empty boat trailer, sat empty and parked side by side. I took some photographs and headed for the exit. As I did so, I noted that a county sheriff had drifted in behind me. Was he suspicious that I had been photographing, suspicious that I was not local? Images born of watching too many episodes of Justification floated through my head.

I pulled to the side of the lot and he followed. He sat for a long moment behind me- maybe running my tag- contemplating the bump sticker on my tailgate which says “I deny everything as my DVD player is a piece of cheese- (a gift from a disabled artist)- and then slid by on his way.

I then drove through downtown Hazard proper trying to photograph it fairly; trying not to portray it as a beat collection of crumbling buildings; a dying town built on a dying industry; a place forgotten by so many who were doing so much better. I wanted to do justice to all the people on this day.

The problem was that it looked all of those things. Mostly it looked deserted, like Akron and Cleveland at the end of the rust belt days. I did the best I could photographing Hazard in the little time I had. I then headed northwest.

It was 4 o’clock and I was every bit of 200 miles from home. I fought back frustration. Not every project pans out I thought. Yet, It was hard not to see this project as a failure.

I headed north following KY-15 N to KY-402/KY-9000 W in Wolfe County for 50 water logged miles continuing on KY-402/KY-9000 finally to Lexington where I gave up completely and took 1–75 towards Covington where I took exit 191 from I-75.

I made my way to Mainstrasse, the city’s social center, in search of life, but I found none. The normally crowded patio at the Cock and Bull Pub was empty, the chairs and stables sitting stacked in the rain. The surrounding streets were nearly empty, as were the surrounding bars.

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I crossed the big brown and muddy Ohio-recently named the nation’s most polluted waterway-and made my way to the center of town to Fountain Square. Cincinnati has undergone a great renaissance in the last 5 years and Fountain Square, at the city’s core, is now normally crowded nearly every night.

I found, however, nothing this night save a small water logged crowd. There was even less of a crowd at Washington Park, Cincinnati’s newly renovated uptown park across from Music Hall. No one at home, nothing going on. Had the weather held there would have been thousands milling about the lawn.

Some years are just rain outs, I thought.

I headed home, traveling the 25 miles from downtown Cincinnati to my exurban home of Milford. The quaint historic downtown was empty. Nada Nothing Zilch.

A bust- what had I learned?

Maybe that I shouldn’t expect more of America, at least right now.

America was after all, at this point, a pretty damn frustrating place.

Stupidity in so many ways seemed the norm. Mad men commanded the attention of millions. In my home state, Donald Trump was running neck and neck with Hillary Clinton.

Maybe we didn’t deserve more. Maybe this was God’s way of putting everyone in time out so we could collectively rethink the idiocy which was now America.

Dark clouds were gathered on the horizon. Alton Sterling would be killed the next day, for no apparent reason, in Baton Rouge. Five Cops would then be killed in the Dallas ambush just days later, Two deputies in a courthouse in St Joseph Michigan just days after Dallas. Philndo Castile would be gunned down shortly thereafter in St Paul. Two weeks later, three cops would be gunned down in Baton Rouge. Probably the last thing any of us need was togetherness. In an America of empty streets at least everyone lives till tomorrow, I thought.

I knew all of these places of slaughter and had visited them in the past. They were not so different from many other places I had lived in and visited. I did not know or find the people in these places to be any worse than people elsewhere. We weren’t that sick, that fucked up, but…. these days, for whatever reason, we couldn’t help but cheating one and other nor keep from killing one and other.

Why? The question alone was enough to jack one’s blood pressure, break one’s heart. Why had I thought had that I would find anything but frustration and anger and unhappiness on this day, simply because my heart and my head wanted happiness?

God bless America.

Fourth of July The idea for a project came to me a couple of days, or even just the day before the Fourth of July.

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