Did the Greg Sterlace Show (Yours Truly uses that term ultimately loosely) last night, arriving for taping and waiting a long while for some stoner musicians to show up - their band name was . . . Dyspepsia, no, Dysorg, no, it was Dystopia or Dysmorphic. It was a duo and they brought along their pal, Snake, a very Guns 'n Roses-lookin' dude with aviator shades and bandanna who said very little. I refer to him during the taping at one point as the show's potted plant. I did, most importantly, get a chance to do my famed rock jump during the band's "performance," over the top of the percussionist's head. Annie Deck showed up so she appears in the group photos, next to me for some. Oh, and Bad Ronald and I renewed our vows and the attorney who married us on the GSS a few years back couldn't make it so Greg did the honors. Standing in the background for that moment was a guy named Jim who showed up in a tricked-out suit fabricated from some classic PlayBoy fabric. His shoes were a rollicking shade of Pepto pink. All in all, the usual mayhem. After, headed out with Annie and met up with her brother Tom at Hardware where there was actually good live music warbling throught the convivial molecules.

Love conviviality.

Began the day just post asscrack of dawn and drove out to Middling City U where Yours Truly had an odd conversation with a student receptionist with listening comprehension issues. Apparently all the staff was in a meeting or vaporized and I was awaiting the arrival of my photo subject, a man who works at a top-secret defense contracting site associated with the U. As I am waiting and dropping off work for one who works at the desolate Friday office, I make some chat with the hearing impaired girl who, I am gathering, is probably a gigantic follower of all things sci-fi. Why, You may ask, is that my deducement of her. It had to do with her aerospace engineering studies, her manner of speaking, her sci-fi-looking shirt that would fit into any movie which outfits the femmes aboard a celestial ship of sorts in concurrently fetching (read revealing) yet sturdy and work-ready wear. So we're talking as the man/subject is late and then later yet. She says she's going on to grad studies in all things aerospace and so YT states Oh, you're done. Well, nearly done. She is squinting her eyes. WHAT, she replies. You are done, well, nearly done. Repeat exchange once more. Then I realize that she thinks I've called her dumb so I re-say You are nearly finished. She gets this.
The man arrives.
I have been warned that he's been hard to agree to being photographed, harder to schedule. This shoot was arranged by one of my editors so I only just found this all out yesterday.
He is sweaty and apologizing and says he could not find the building.
I suggest we leave this building and expect an argument but YT has gracefully pointed out that we will have a better time of portrait-making elsewhere. I give the nouveau location and off we speed. He is then late and then later still at the other spot.
I think he's pulled an archetypal male move of not saying he does not know how to get to this new destination. A car pulls up and it's not him.
Ten minutes drift along and then he arrives, saying he ran into someone he knew in the parking lot.
So we're making small talk as I photograph him and he goes into a rant about how his business is super-secret and that he's jetting off a lot to lobby in Washington and we discuss airports. Then he returns to ranting about how the Middling City Daily has misquoted him severely four times and the whole time I'm shooting away, offering some compositional strategies and thinking Uhh, okay, I'll be certain not to misquote you in any photo captions, Mr. Secret.
He wants a jpeg sent to him to prove to some of his colleagues far away that it's not always snowing in the Middling City and then I suggest we do a few portraits outdoors. He declines.
So, I'm thinking Wow, Mr. Secret is kind of kooky for how in h-e-double-hockey-sticks are some images of him standing inside a very neutral building with some very natural and pleasing window light going to prove a damned thing about weather maps in this region.
Moral:
You may be a lobbying scientist but that does not make you a MapQuest or Art scholar.

Scholarly Love.

Hearing this soundbite from unsound GWB yesterday on NPR I thought I'd e-fetch this quote, brushoffalicious and diabolical, regarding the press pressing on about the background of the next possible Supreme Court appointee.

"People are interested to know why I picked Harriet Miers,'' [President Bush]; said. "They want to know Harriet Miers' background. They want to know as much as they possibly can before they form opinions. Part of Harriet Miers' life is her religion.''

With logic akimbo, sidesteppingly the President answers nothing. So, as an exercise, is some self-MadLibbing below:

'Blog readers are interested to know why I picked Nancy J. Parisi,' Yours Truly said. 'Middling Cityites want to know My Perfect sport utility wagon. They belch to know as much as they possibly can before they form monkeys. Part of Yours Truly's perfection is her Oban.'

MadLibbin' Love.

Live and clean forget from day to day,
Mop life up as fast as it dribbles away.

-Sam Beckett, from
Collected Poems in English & French

Some birthday wizened words from the Sam, this emergence anniversary after picking up the niece and nephew and quote unquote kidnapping them for a sojourn to the avenue for some caffeine, sugar, cd's, rollicking hijinx before returning them to their more steady advisors and handlers. Time to head out with Kennedy and then points beyond.

Wise Love.

John Lennon's birthdate. Today.

Yoko always suggests to remember the beginning, not the ending.
Ending time is near, the garden the yellowed green and withered leaves and bees searching for the last pollen morsels, and the Middling City sky turning its customary Autumnal Gray.
Tomorrow is my own day of reckoning and it's usually a day I work and sort through matters but tomorrow I'm holding off on work, à la Day of Rest, for a change. Brucey observed that I have a hard time with the 10/10 and to that I said It's one's own special private New Year's Eve, in a way, a time to assess the highs, the lows, the plan of action, the bell curves, and pie charts. Yours Truly also believes a person's b-day is, if you care, love, like a person, a time to say Hey, you came out into the world and yafuckinhoo to that. Belated Happy B-day to JW,Esq., who, I am certain, spent his special day body-painted and addled in some club after hanging up the BBsuit. Tomorrow is also Katharine's date of birth, the niece, who plopped onto the scene on the 10/10.
So yesterday was Marty and Susan's wedding day and in lieu of being there in a cute black ensemble amongst some of my most favoured people and giving a reading penned by YT, I was a hired camera at a wedding of near-strangers who booked me over a year ago. And I did her sister's wedding and there was no way in h.e.l.l. I could say Oh, oops, sorry, I won't be there. So there I was. Encountered the sociopathic priest at Saint Weirdo's, I'm sure I blogged about him at last year's wedding of the sister of yesterday's bride. He didn't perform the ceremony yesterday but there were stories about him from the rehearsal run-through, of him pronouncing that there would be no alcohol, cigarettes, shenanigans on the premises of Saint Weirdo's. Nothing of the sort. So he's nowhere to be seen, whew, but then, during the formal fam photos in the church he appeared. He, as is his wont, approached me discreetly and mustered up in a most astonishing hate-filled and passive-aggressive stylee This is NOT a photo studio . . . you have TWENTY minutes. I informed one and all. Then I requested that the couple stick around with me when we were done, they had asked if I needed anything and I said Yes, please wait with me while I break this all down, last year this priest waited until everyone had left and came from God knows where to harngue me and scared me a bit. So they did, and, lo & behold, Father Creepo appeared and, when seeing that I was not alone, sort of disappeared again. Thwarted.
At the reception I was seated for dinner between the d.j. and a retired, 80-year old cop. After several attempts to ask the retiree about his former career as cop and boxer I gave up, his suspiciousness from years on the beat preventing me from hearing some good tales, I asked Andy the d.j. about his side job as a d.j. at a Middling City strip joint. Far more interesting, and rewarding. Now teeming with fun facts about the dancers, percentages, strategies, etc.
YT does have a priviledged purview of an enthralling cross-section of an odd assembly of people on any given week.
On that positive tale-rich note I end.

Love of rich tales.