Yesterday (friday) I shot all sorts of people on varying levels of fabulousness and realized one interesting fact, mid-day, which both shocked & stunned my avant-garde self: twice this week people whom I don't find to be complete dolts or assholes referred to me as a geek, both in the context of my unwavering rock & roll dedication and passion so it's not totally a horrifying thing. I'm so not the sort of geek who's in a hobby shop checking out the new Lionel train extender metal tracks or anything. How, you might wonder, do I know about such collectible ramifications? Well, let me tell YOU: today I spent a godd chunk of my life motoring about writing up my famed quippicisms about hobbies, arts, kids outfitters, toy purveyors, and the like, for AOL. Ask me any fucking thing you want about the sale of board games, bubbles, hello kitty goods, and the like in this region. I'm on it all like a summer tongue on a drippy popsicle. I'm debating the import of wandering downtown to photograph Gene Loves Jezebel at a club. Do I? Don't I? Tomorrow I've got a marathon music fest sponsored by my newspaper which means I'll be walking walking walking from stage to stage for about nine hours. And at some point, after nightfall, will slip down a few requisite shots of tequila. Pleeez, if you drink tequila and want to be my special pal, don't do so with condiments in my presence. That's so frat, so unnecessary, and so pussy-ish. Tequila must attack one's tongue full throttle. One time a friend brought back a scarily-labeled bottle from Mexico (pronounced right there Mehh-hee-ko) and nobody but me could drink it without barfing right away or nearly doing so. It had the nose of wet dog and the aftertaste of asphalt.

For the second year in a row at the very same venue Dave Matthews left Buffalo after seeing a female press photographer raise both her arms in rock & roll salute (ie: the deaf person's I LOVE YOU, I & L & Y all rolled into one) while hollering "Dave...YOU ROCK, I LOVE YOU" in great earnestness to the great amusement of her male colleagues standing all around her.
One of the group, of blackest/evilest wit, pronounced that our recently-departed fellow photog who was on the DMB press credential list for Reuters would not be there. We tittered, the press lady looked horrified, and later we each drank two expensive beers hoisted up in the departed's honor, to lubricate his way, I suppose, wherever he might be headed.
Tonight I photoraphed moe., national jam band superstars as the pungent scent of patchouli wafted over the 20K in attendance. The first time I shot the four/now five including a deft m.c. they were at a small bar playing in the front window.
I was annoyed at my lack of angle tonight and persevered and fought my way through the crowd to get what I wanted - the front line at a good moment. Like sex, it's all about angles and moments (and scents, and appearances, and feeling "it").
Opening for DMB was Angelique (great and I will be buying her cd) and lovely Macy Gray. I met the official DMB tour photog, Rudy, who bore an uncanny (albeit puffier) resemblance to Dave. He got snuffly when I asked which band he was with. I think the elastic waistband of his sweatpants was too tight.

Late, I work late. But tonight I finished at an earlier hour than usual, deciding to email a writing assignment before DMB. So I'm off to a few errands before filing at the newspaper office and one of the errands leads me to one block away from the home of the aforementioned busted (alleged) pedophile. I see camera crews. It's two in the morning and I'm thinking hostage? Legal announcement? Circled around the block and stopped across the street from the home and got out of the car and saw two people I know who told me that the accused killed himself in his bathtub. I said that I wasn't surprised that that's how it turned out and they looked at me in an odd way, but they had both been drinking around the corner. They left to go back to the bar and I stood and talked with one of the t.v. guys and all three affiliates were waiting out on the sidewalk and across the street neighbors quietly talked. Very windy night and I wondered if I was cold from the weather or the news. We all watched the police come and go and another photographer ran into the home and then left quickly and then returned a while later holding a bottle of Lipton Iced Tea which I thought was bizarre. What an odd time to get thirsty, or reach for a beverage, I thought. There was an oversized SUV sedan type of black vehicle in the driveway and after a while two people took a gurney from it, like the one I garbage picked a few days ago, but on it was a dark plastic bag. An old man left with a clipboard and wearing one latex glove and he went to his car and went back into the house. I wondered if I wished that I had my camera. I wondered what would happen to the archives of this photographer and to his possessions, and if he left a note. Maybe apologizing to all the boys and now men he did bad things to all this time. I thought, still standing there and between the fragments of conversation with the stranger from the t.v. station on the sidewalk, about how all of this pointed to guilt and how for a long time nobody came forward with a definite story or accusation before. And how because of the respect a lot of people had for him as a well-known photojournalist etc. how nobody ever said anything until that one strong fifteen year old had nothing to lose and spoke. I wondered if this man's ghost hovered over the scene, if he might try to be a presence one more time. There was a short and violent thunder and lightning storm a while ago and it seemed very fitting.

Afterthought: 2 second-hand stories about yours truly reported via two very different sorts of men.
1. An Argentinian male import, who moved here to stalk his ex, who I knew from way before their ill-fated relationship, reported to man #1 that one night out and about many years ago he told me as I passed him in a crowded bar that he was miserable. And I said 'good' and moved along my merry way.
2. Man #2 reports that people who sort of know us both witnessed me running/wallking up behind him and grabbing with ferocious strength and venom the back of his coat as he zoomed away, him being at that moment a maxed-out jerk leaving dramatically and impatiently the gig we were both shooting. When he wouldn't stop walking I said 'you're a fucking asshole' and let go of his jacket which, come to think of it, was very inappropriate for the warm evening. Oh, the ongoing fascination with pure emotion in this age of vagueness and confusion between emotion and vicariousness.

Confirming my suspicions about Aging Rockstars Eric Clapton kept still photographers at bay, a safe distance of half a mile from the stage. At the mixing board we stood and about midway through song #2 of 3 one of the colleagues was practically assaulted by an enraged fan who thought he'd be looking at our collective asses all evening.
Not only an Aging Rockstar, Clapton had quickly earned the rep at the venue of being a complete pain in the ass, a primo donno.
I shot a guitar fest gig en plain air at the waterfront and after two blues acts thought I was going to abso-freakin-lutely scream. I was 12-barred out! Thankfully Slash's Snakepit came out and realligned the day. One of my backstage hand acquaintances, upon hearing me gush about the band, handed me a SSP guitar pick which I will forever cherish. Slash was, of course, hot, musically & physically.
Oh, one of my new possessions? A coffin gurney. Garbage picked up in a northern suburb of this middling city. The HOUSE where it was pikt was tossing not one, not two, not three, but FOUR coffin gurneys. I was with Jen and she surprisingly and deftly folded the thing and operated all the knobs and things. We wrestled it into my car and it wasn't until it was just about in the vehicle that I realized it was a transporter for deceased bodies, not living ones. We believe(d) it would (with some minor adjustments and embellishments) make a swell snack table.
Tonight I write like the winds of hell are at my ass - translation: big deadlines. Thousands of words must now stream out of my brain like chlorinated city water out of a non-cinched hose.
Tomorrow night, Dave Matthews rolls into town. Love is in the air.