I saw a neighborhood kook who had a dead-ringer current event 60-year old Bob Dylan face and I'm not sure she knew it. I didn't tell her. At this moment I'm pondering writing about my feelings about camera-shy and petulant Dylan but will move along. I will mention however that I was asked to dinner at a loose cannon pal's house and she asked me to leave after dinner - after she put on some Dylan and I made a surly comment about the aforementioned. I trampled on sacred terrain.
Planned on having a normal night out last night with friends, dinner and such, and it turned into one of those peer pressurized non-stop cocktail ordering and the haziness of next day memory. As I laid in bed with a most wanging headache at 9AM I wondered (not aloud) what the couple whose wedding I was documenting in about three hours would think. But, being an absolute pro, I was there being my charming usual self.

Tonight photographed Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Dicky Barrett et al hit the stage in black suits and his matching hyper-dyed hair. I was in the security pit and to my left were screaming teenaged girls who did nothing but scream through the set - one of them screamed "oh my god, I see them" when she saw them backstage. To my right was a group of boys (same age/genre) who sang all the lyrics, fists flailing. Dicky spotted a boy, maybe seven, who was pressed against the barricade and had security lift him up and place him on the stage - where he sat for the rest of the gig, looking highly dazed.

Yikes, the beau returns tomorrow night and my bachelorette pad has to be disassembled: the vacuum cleaner is ready for action but I can't seem to take the final step of plugging it in and all. This is the sound I make when I vacuum: "fricka fricka rissa rassen." I HATE cleaning and have found that if I put on some ass-kicking rock & roll, like PJ Harvey, on cordless headphones really loud it becomes more tolerable. FedEx'd off contact sheets to Phish's office and their p.r. guy, Jason, told me a HUGE secret which I abso-freakin-lutely can't tell anyone. I'm wondering why on Earth he even had to tell me. Hoping they dig the images and want to buy one for the BIG secret that will have all Phish phans the world opher peeing in their phreaking pants. Whereas once you could take a blood sample from me and find that it was composed mainly of photo chemicals, these days you would find mainly coffee in the sample. Off to more writing, off to more deadline state of mind, not off to more cleaning.

The theatre marathon turned out to be better than expected - sat next to a delightful guy who took notes as I did through the show but he was rating the dresses glimmering onstage. Several girlie friends took pity upon me for not being able to do my characteristic rabble-rousing and kept coming to the table I was sharing with the dress judge and leaving me scotch and sodas. Thanks to Ramona, thanks to Deb, thanks to Jen, and thanks to Kara for keeping spirits high.
Just returned from shooting a conference. Apparently the hotel had their ventilation units on reverse and the oxygen was being sucked out of the room, I nearly slipped into a coma between speakers. The keynote is a former FBI man who served for "9 years, 8 months, and 9 days." Heh heh heh. At break time I had to photograph his phony baloniness and he's one of my pet peeve kind of guys who says one of three things to me/photographers...but his repartee had an interesting new twist: "that lens is as big as Dallas." Heh heh heh. The complete pet peeve list: 1. Are you the official photographer? (inflection on adjective); 2. Hey is there film in your camera -or- Hey your lens cap is on; 3. Whoah, that's a big lens.
This man would have never made my secret FBI guy series, he wasn't good looking enough. I've got a collection of stealthy shots of on-duty FBI men, so damned handsome in suits and ties, with arched eyebrows, and wires coming out of their ears. Once I was schmoozing two FBI men before Clinton showed up with Gore, Hillary, and Tipper and all was fun and games until I asked this horrifying question:
"Are you all listening to the same thing?" They backed away and that was the end of that.

One parting thought before I part & pout my way to the marathon night of theatre hoopla...those cute and nice boys from Phish's office in Burlington VT called to ask me once again for my images of the band for their web site - they've used my stuff before and this would be from their latest WNY appearance. So here's a simple addition to the deadline miasma - fedex (their account) some contact sheets of them, for them. A woman called the other day about using one of my images on the front of the phonebook, not even the one that I like and use. Her message mentioned no comp but she was sure to mention that they publish 68K copies and "it would be a nice coup." I'm self-editing and withholdng my usual salty adjectives and such. And another procrastinational thought: coups make this exuberant, current event-following photog think of two things - our childhood heroine Patty Hearst/Tanya and messy political acts in faraway lands we would not like to visit.

As I just told my friend in Toronto, if you check your lexicon entries for the words lunacy and overcommitment you'll see my likeness. He offered me tickets to see PJ Harvey & U2 in TO but I can't go - I'm more interested in seeing her skinny talents than them. I saw U2 during the mid-80's when Bono had a broken arm and they weren't a high-powered & socially aware & prop/pop-driven ensemble. The minutes are counting down to the time when I must begin five (unfortunate) hours of photographing a local theatre awards ceremony, attached to my newspaper gig duties. I usually wear a dress but tonight, in my curmudgeonly and stressed state of mind, will show up in slacks, accoutrements and snazzy shoes. It's all just about the shoes anyhow.

I was considering the cheeseball Bronski Beat song on the car radio moments ago (en route back home/here) an interesting exercise in strange self-reflexion when I realized about one minute into it I could stand it no longer and reached for the last preset, a classic rock station halfway through "After the Goldrush." Thank heavens for classic rock.

Also en route I spotted a DMB billboard on Main Street and quickly zoomed like a movie on Dave's adorable face. My first thought was that I needed to steal it. Second thought was how do I get up there? Third thought was where would I prominently display this ginormous piece of Davey plastic?

I am going to write a letter to Mac h.q. to proffer them this important idea which maybe I should trademark first, but hell, here goes, and don't steal it stickyminded reader: an exciting new laptop accessory...the tabletop screen which doesn't shield the computer's screen from pesky radiant light but shields the computer user's identity from pedestrians, onlookers, and general dufuses. Today, practically in another county, I hunkered down for some extra-home writing and nearly screamed when a person who's probably never seen the likes of my ridiculous agenda of commitments and overcommitments spotted me and sauntered over to my (unfortunately public) coffee joint table. This is the time of year when my life becomes an extreme sport and I have no free time.And, as I am wont to say, I don't have time to fart. Tabletop screen. Or maybe an XL sombrero.