Road Color

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esterday’s post was a bit bleak, but it was honest. Authentic, as we say today. We saw an example of it on Thursday night, when the January 6 Committee laid the insurrection at Trump’s feet. And, at his feet it will stay.

I’m sure he’ll be hopping mad. Too bad.

It was an exercise in public relations, but as I said yesterday we have to do something to help people remember what happened on that terrible day. Democracy is at risk. Never forget that. Ever.

It hasn’t been a great time for me, and many people. I read it in their writing. It’s not what they say. It’s the tone in which they say it. A friend said she lost all creativity so she’s been listening to her old work as a stranger to see what she liked about it in the first place.

I tell you, we are worn out, ground down, whipped and beaten. Driven beyond all boundaries, as Rickie Lee Jones wrote.

Something has to change. And, quickly.

I decided to follow my friend’s idea. I started looking at old work. This is two fold. The first is to re-inspire me. The second is to supply pictures for my PicFair project. I can’t tell you that it will help me in the long term, but I keep thinking when did I make work like that?

Then it hit me. Like a bolt from the blue. Many of us have scaled our lives way back. Even the little things like grocery shopping. We order it through a shopping service. It was convenient during lockdown. It still is today. Grocery shopping maybe ought not be the highlight of our months, but it’s getting out.

No wonder we are so salty and unhappy.

I used to travel a lot to photograph. I travel less, but I still do. I don’t make pictures. What happened to me? When I’m on the road I work on the music side of my life. That keeps me pretty busy. I intend to photograph but I never get to it. And yet, when Uncle Lionel passed and we held the largest second line I’ve ever seen, for him, we were in Houston. I flew home to New Orleans, photographed it and returned to Texas in time for the show. Long day, but a fun day.

That wasn’t so long ago. I think. Time seems to be rushing past like a fast flowing river.

There are the places that I still love, but I’ll never get back to again. I lived in Hong Kong for six years. The last time I returned was before 2010. CoVid keeps it locked down, but so do the Mainland Chinese. I doubt I’ll return in my lifetime.

There are new places that I’d like to go. I’m mostly Ukrainian on my dad’s side. I could start in Belorussia and work down. Uh, wait what?

I’m not even sure I’ll see my wonderful New Mexico again anytime soon. But, I’ll be damned if I’m writing that one off just yet.

I think a lot of people are feeling that way. The issues that I wrote about yesterday took a long time to get to this point. They’ll take even longer to go away if we don’t do something for ourselves and then attack one of those issues.

You know how you feel when you get a couple of big things done on the never ending to do list? The good feeling doesn’t last long because are just chores. I think if we get something bigger done as a step to get something even bigger done we might start to feel better.

I sure hope so.

Looking up at the floor is getting old.