Broken Images, All Alike

New Spaces

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:24:01 -0500

The new place lacks a shower. Entirely. The kitchen faucet leaks and the stove won't turn on. The fan in the windowless bathroom does not work.

But the apartment makes up for all of its shortcomings by having glorious windows, sunbeams, puppies wrestling on the carpet. Who needs faucets, showers, warm meals when your days are full of sunlight?

On the move

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:46:05 -0500

Despite all my tough talk about using spreadsheets to track everything from how often the dog poops to how much radishes cost at the corner store, I make most of my decisions by stumbling around blindly and grasping at things.

Take last week, for instance.

I figured it was time for me to move out of Jason's basement. I wanted a place with tall windows, windows that in the summer open to a busy street and let the bustle of the city fly up right into my living room.

Sure, I could've made spreadsheets with prices and pros and cons.

But instead I said 'fuck it' and clicked the first online ad without any photos attached. Online ads without photos are the best kinds of ads.

In this case, the ad lead to a late-night meeting with a lady who rents bachelor apartments above the tattoo studio (next-door to the massage parlour). We spent about half an hour breaking into some dudes apartment. The key just didn't want to work.

After long moments of awkwardness, the door finally cracked open. Dirty dishes were scattered everywhere. The dude ate lots of beans and liked iron crosses a hell of a lot.

"Good people live in this building," the lady said. Her boyfriend with tattoos all the way up his neck agreed.

"No dealers or anything," he said. "I used to deal when I was growing up but not anymore."

I liked him instantly. The apartment not so much. The windows were the type that didn't open - just one solid piece of glass buffering you from the outside world.

"I have another place," she said. "It even has a balcony."

We climbed a crooked stairway that smelled like urine. All the doors were painted red and awesome. This other apartment had no working lights, and also no dirty dishes. It was vast and superb. The windows were the type that opened to the street below.

"I love it," she said.

"And you can watch the Christmas parade from the balcony," she said.

"I'll take it," I said.

Two days later I got a call. "The landlord wants to meet you," she said.

***

I met him in the middle of King St. He walked towards me with a limp, looking old and wise, and opened a door to an empty storefront.

Inside an armless mannequin waited for better days.

"So you want the place, eh?"

"Yeah."

"Do you want to see it again?" he said.

"No, it's perfect."

I'm moving in less than a month. It's going to be awesome.

I See Dead People

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:35:03 -0500

Sarah came for a visit. So naturally we spent an entire weekend looking at dead people in Toronto. (Narrated by Harrison Ford pretending to be an archeologist.) Ugh. Gross. I know.

But on the up side, we also saw a sad tapir and a rhino drinking its own urine. And it was Sra's birthday so we ate too many cupcakes. And Sarah brought me books about pigs and happiness and I bought pig gloves which made me happy.

We spent the rest of the time dressing up the dog, which didn't seem to make her happy at all:

Letting the days go by ... let the water hold me down

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 22:25:25 -0500

I'm immensely relieved 2009 is over -- what an shitty year it's been. One meaningless trauma after another. Now that I washed this lingering stench of disappointment from my bones, let's never speak of 2009 again.

But the year did end with awesome. And by awesome, I mean crepes. Dave hosted the annual Crepes and Champagne New Year's party and the dog and I had our fill of chocolate, pets, ultraviolence. And look, pictures of pretty things that are not my wang.

HO!

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:42:14 -0500

I can't recall a more low-key Christmas since the one I spent in 1989. Back then there were riots on the streets and people dying, foolishly as it turned out. Bullets whizzed by our window all night long and the moon was the weirdest shade of red I've ever seen. I was just a little shit and couldn't do anything, so I had to keep my lights off and huddle to sleep with my stuffed animals at 9pm.

Now, 20 years later, there are no riots. But since Christmas day I've been turning my lights out at 9pm and huddling to sleep with my puppy. It's been pretty awesome.

And I got pants for Christmas. Look how awesome they are. Whee!

A Barrie Merry Christmas

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:40:28 -0500

The dog and I were feeling pretty down last week. So we packed our germs in the car and headed up to Barrie over the weekend. The Regan and the Sherry held their annual Christmas open house, and man, pretty much everyone was there: that Alysia girl I haven't seen in forever, big-bellied Megan, our fearless leader Corwin and his army of elves, and even this dude nobody knew so we insulted in various ways.

"Sucks to your asthmar, piggy."

And then we jabbed him with wooden spears until he left.

And after the hugs, and scrabble, and treats, and the cold medication that went to my head, and Regan's hands caressing my right nipple, a bunch of us somehow ended up on top of the stairs massaging each other, the dog wagging her tail lazily between us.

"This is like one of those high school parties where everybody sits around and massages everybody else," Borrelli said.

Then there was slumber and dreams and dogs jumping on beds in the night.

In the morning everybody braced themselves as I drove to breakfast. "This van can fly," I said. "Not today," they said.

Over greasy breakfast foods I told them about girls in faraway places and awkwardness. They gave me life advice. "Try not to stick your penis in anyone for a while," they said.

I thanked them, and when the dog and I left Barrie we felt enormously better, like the weight of all the sickness and anguish melted in the night.

Oh yeah, and we have pictures.

Let's Dance Around The Issue

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:17:39 -0500

I love December. The fucking cold, the endless nights leave room for enjoyable activities such as: taking flu medication, dashing through the snow, self-doubting, pity parties.

Speaking of which, we're seriously overdue for a pity party. Pity parties are fun -- I'll start!

Here's my life right now:

I'll be 30 soon. That's old.
I live alone in a musky basement with my dog.
Most of my meals consist entirely of cheese. And chocolate.
Am I too fat? Is my ass too big? Why don't my pants fit?
My god, am I going bald already? Is that why she left?
The dog stained the bed with her bum last week and I keep putting off changing the sheets.
I drink alone and post dirty pictures of myself on teh internets.
I don't floss.
My day job is to help people; I can't even help myself.
I now idle my car in the morning because I'm too lazy to scrape the windshield.
I'm emotionally scarred and needy.

This could go on for a while, but we'd better save some for tomorrow. Your turn...

Boys are such pigs

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:10:41 -0500

I decided that my fuzzy pig hat is so awesome it deserves to be photographed for an entire year. That's right -- new photo project: me wearing a pig hat. And not much else.

This is going to rock so much more than the other 365 days craziness.

Fun With Google

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 19:30:49 -0500

Did I mention I have a new job? Well, it's true -- I started on Monday. So this week has been full of both awesome and awkward at once. Especially today.

You see, me and the other new guy showed up at a meeting. Exciting, I know. But wait, it gets better.

Once they finished going over the items on the meeting agenda, they brought out a projector and started to Google our names, right in front of everyone. There were only about 20 people in the room. Nothing came up for the other guy because of his horribly common name. But then they started typing in my name, and even before they were done typing Google came back with 1,120,000 results. Seriously:

Some of those 1,120,000 results were hard to explain.

Puppy Trips FTW!

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:42:40 -0500

The poop-monster and I went on a two hour bike ride from Elmira to Wallenstein this morning. There are few things in life that seem to satisfy her as completely as a fresh pile of horse shit by the side of the road. Luckily, our little trek offered her plenty of opportunities to experience absolute bliss.

While she ran around swamps and fields, I made plans to hike with her the 800km Bruce Trail from beginning to end. I'm just not too sure about her endurance. We hiked smaller sections in previous years, and she absolutely loved it. So this spring we're going to test the waters and hike for seven days straight covering about 150km.

I'm planning to go around the Bear Lake area, so it would be really cool if any of you peeps could join us for a day, suggest any accommodations, or let us camp out in your backyard. In exchange for your help, the dog will gladly eat up any foul-smelling refuse she finds in the area. At least I won't have to pack any kibble on the trip.

News Spaces

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:08:21 -0500

So. I decided it would be neat to have a separate photo blog to show some of the fun I'm having with people in love and pregnant bellies. You'll find all that awesomeness here.

Henceforth, I'm saving this space for my prolonged outburst of emotional angst, like, "OMG I'm so sad and spend my nights crying over lost loves and dead puppies." Yeah. That's going to work out awesome.

Fall, we hardly knew ye

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:23:30 -0500

Looks like I got geared up for winter just in time. It started snowing today. And nothing makes a shitty, wintry day better than wearing a fuzzy, pink pig hat.

We've got yer pixels right here

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:50:05 -0500

Emily and I went down to Toronto on Friday to learn how to inject some glamour into our photography. Apparently, not making people look like fucking monsters is key.

The ride to Toronto is endless, so we had a chance to talk shop. Emily's been working for a bunch of wedding photographers already -- the kind that ask $5000 for a wedding, charge for everything else on top of it, and then run off without paying their assistants. Jerks.

I've always envisioned running my photo business with a different set of principles, which go something like this:

1. Don't suck.

2. Images should be free. I take photos to share experiences, stories, excitement. The moments captured don't belong to me -- they belong to us. Thus, most of the stuff I shoot I release under Creative Commons. Take it, use it, modify it, do awesome things with it: that's how culture evolves.

3. Treat your clients awesome. The people I photograph are my friends. They share with me some of the most important moments of their lives. The least I can do is give them the freedom to share their stories with friends, lovers, strangers on the internet. My goal is to make sharing easier, not to charge through the nose for prints, DVD's, etc. Charging for prints is so 1800's.

4. Wide angles are key. Yes they can make people look like monsters, but look at the excitement on their faces! I'm OK with sacrificing a bit of aesthetic perfection to capture a bit of awesome.

5. Fuck fashion shoots. A wedding is not America's next top model. Most things in life aren't. Let's see people happy and laughing and making out on the streets.

6. Let's see each other in new ways. We already have a thousand cliched ways of seeing the stuff around us. Repetition is deadly. Let's find all sorts of crazy new ways to be and take off our clothes and dance.

7. Watermarks and borders can die a slow, awful death.

I told Emily these things and I joked that my goal is to make absolutely no money from my photography. We laughed, but then I went home and punched some numbers into a spreadsheet and as it turns out it's all true. All revenue I made this year has been eaten up by equipment depreciation and other losses -- I haven't even begun to cover the cost of the cameras and lenses I own.

So let's find out how long I can hold on to my principles. The moment I start watermarking my images you can come over and punch me in the face.

Working Class Hero

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:00:35 -0500

I just got an email from a former coworker and realized that it's been a bit over a year since I got laid off from my first real job. And what an awesome year it's been. I remember mopping around for a couple of days after I received my termination letter, but then taking off my clothes and dancing in the wilderness. Whee!

Getting fired was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. It offered me an escape from the cubicle farms and it let me rediscover my passion for puppies and photos. I also started working really cool jobs for non-profits that I never thought I'd get the chance to do.

Especially now that the corporate world has become it's own soul-crushing purgatory, it feels really awesome to run my own projects and feel that every day is its own awesome adventure. It's not all roses, though. My current contract expires in November, and next year will be a difficult one financially, but I hope I can grow my business well enough to avoid ending back in a cubicle farm. Yay for not knowing what happens next!

Turkeys are gentle creatures

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:37:15 -0500

Without you Thanksgivings is a lonesome animal slaughter, the streets are a frozen heartache, the bed a vast emptiness. But on the upside, I've been jabbing sharp objects into stolen toy monkeys -- the kids love it.