Enough of this...

Blogger has been giving me endless grief. As many of you may have guessed, I am already blogging here now. Come say "hi".

Not "later"... gone.

Monday Morning You Look So Fine: Oasis.

Rudi knows me better than most. I’m a cunt. Or, at least, I often appear to be. Given the nature of much of what I photograph, and the ways of means of popular and/or counter-culture, I often come across those who assume they know (for the purposes of the conversations they have with me) what I will, and should, say. They’re often wrong.

This leaves me having to explain why I don’t have to like what, or who, they thought I would. I do what I do. I don’t really want to have to explain it, especially having been put on the spot of late for explaining things I wasn’t even trying to explain. Not so much putting the cart in front of the horse, as right-square-on-fucking top of it. Poor horse.

Now, I can dumb down my responses and observations for the lowest common denominator, but I have a certain degree of insight. Some of it earned, some of it learnt, the latter from my soon-to-be-ex wife. She’s a very capable, very intelligent woman; a psychologist, Masters (with distinction) behind her, Doctorate just ahead, internationally published and a lecturer now to boot. She’s done much to lecture me in the past as to the nature of transference, and projection, and how it manifests itself in day to day life; mine included. Oh boy… does it ever.

I have seen this happen on a much grander scale with Fokofpolisiekar, in their interactions with people who "know" them, or "know" what to expect of them… and I realized I don’t want to have to see it in my own life. So I decided to build a wall between me and just about everyone else. That wall, more often than not, is my personality; though it’s nothing personal… except when it is. Call it the Oasis Method… something more than just a name I have in common with Liam Gallagher.

Rudi gets that. I wish more people did.

“I carry a madness
Everywhere I go.
Over the border
And back to the snow.

So if you see me
And I look right through,
You shouldn’t take it
As a reflection on you.

Come on, turn up the sun.
Turn it up for everyone.
Love one another…” – Oasis

Later.

Monday Morning You Look So Fine: Erykah Badu.

For those who know... the words come from the beginning of Badu's "Love Of My Life" video. Respect to ?uestlove for the wide variety on Friday night... I have never seen so many musos and headz just watch a DJ at work before. And some need to stop hating on me for my reaction to Roxanne.

A lotta memories came back that night... Philly people in the room, and Hamma and I remembering 1999 and eating curry at his place in Greenpoint, the night before the tornado... Boogie Down Nights!

"Once upon a time on a planet somewhere a bombastic beat was born...Let's call her Hip Hop..." - Erykah Badu

If you know the vid, you know Nthabi's styles in this shot. Keep an eye out for her album in the new year.

Later.

It's too early for music just yet...

I cannot keep catching sunrise like this. What a weekend. Respect to all the Jozi people I saw... and the sunrise I spotted from Dom's place. Maybe I should have photographed it...

Urg. Coffee.

Later.

Monday Morning You Look So Fine: Sigur Rós.

There is much to be said for this, regardless of the language barrier. Besides, translations are easily tracked down. The title, Hoppipolla, means "hopping into puddles"... it's a state of mind I can dig, these days, something born of upliftment.

There's more besides, but for now, it is what it is. It reminds me of late nights, and mattresses... new work and new directions. I was holding back on some of the above and below, but there is an affinity and connection to this work that I am happy to share it for now... there is more coming, and new projects and purpose in the new year.

"hoppípolla
í engum stígvélum
allur rennvotur (rennblautur)
í engum stígvélum

og ég fæ blóðnasir
en ég stend alltaf upp" - Hoppípolla, Sigur Rós

Later.

The View From The Floor.

A hard time, perhaps. Spent last night unpacking, and then again this morning; books of years ago, '99 in Sunnyside. A Buddhist shrine. A whole lotta soul music, rare bootleg Oasis.

T-shirts. Well, shirt.

Hidden messages, differing time zones, reading between the lines. January is a long way away... a part of me wishes I was going with a friend to Japan; he's off to see family, I wouldn't mind taking a turn past Kōtoku-in, seeing the giant Buddha.

But you take your reference where you find it. Shifted a whole lot of that recently in regards to Sigur Rós these past few, and Oasis even. There was someone who placed a very uncomfortable weight on Don't Look Back In Anger for me, with their backhanded self-importance... that now is gone. That, and Listen Up, Noel singing it unprepared on MTV of all things, for those of you who know... the understanding of the difference between want and need, is where it got me. That, and Brigid loves when I sing it LOUD in the car.

"Listen up, what's the time,
Said today I'm gonna speak my mind.
Take me up to the top of the world,
I wanna see my crime...

Sailing down a river alone,
I've been trying to find my way back home
But I don't believe in magic, life is automatic
But I don't mind being on my own
No, I don't mind being on my own" - Oasis

There's a lot of rambling here, but there are those who understand. It's early in some places, and there are sofas still unmade... Brigid and I are off to the park.

It's early? It's late? It's time to get up.

Now.

Monday Morning You Look So Fine: Oasis.

Meeting a good friend at the airport soon... think I'm going to make it. I think she just may keep me sane.

"And I can feel the warning signs running around my mind.

So here I go still scratching around the same old hole,
My body feels young but my mind is very old.
So what do you say?
You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway...

You're half the world away...

I've been lost I've been found but I don't feel down." - Oasis


Later.

Monday Morning You Look So Fine: The Constantines.

"Lizaveta, we stood together in the pissing rain.
Your skin was showing through your shirt.
You said, "Lover, let's run for cover."
I said, "Lover, wait.
Stay here and I'll give up all I'm worth." - The Constantines

Long day. Long weekend.

Later.

"I live my life in the city..."

That, and it is good to have friends come visit, as well as a daughter that realises the Boer's rifle is missing.

Later.

Monday Morning You Look So Fine: The Verve.

"I see houses
Rows and rows of red bricks
I see black cars
Some blood-stained exit...

I see mountains
Blood red sunsets
I see a million storms
Love getting in between." - The Verve

Later.