Old weird America. It’s out there folks. Ghosts goblins murderers and madmen. Walking the streets, hiding in the alleys, tapping on your window. Nobody knows and nobody sees.

The train whistle long and low as the sun disappears behind the mountains. Deep in the west, again.

There is nothing here, really, except for what we see. Plastic formed to suggest BigFun to be had here…We’re smiling, always smiling. Dead of night we are smiling. We will never stop smiling.

Hipster coolness to be had here. Our Plastic Men look far into the distance. You can see what they see if only you make the right purchase. It all comes down to choices. What do you choose? What is Hip? Can you handle it? Remember…we are watching. Always watching.

Twilight in Southern New Jersey as the farmers get ready for a long winter. Lots of building going on around here and sooner or later there will be exurban tract housing from the river to the sea.

The Powers That Be in The Financial District in Manhattan are taking Occupy Wall Street very seriously.  This is Wall Street… 

…in America, the land of the free.  The majority of people that were walking around down here yesterday were tourists.  Foreigners.   Not hard to imagine what they were thinking as they experienced Fortress America.   Someone had to anticipate an uprising, otherwise why are these fortifications even here?  How long have they been here? These things can’t be built over night. And they are EVERYWHERE in the district.  Entire city blocks barricaded to protect…who?   Looters?    These fortifications are here to keep Americans in check. This sort of preparation is chilling.

Occupy Wall Street began in July as a suggestion from the Adbusters Media Foundation, an anti-consumerist group based in Canada. Adbusters proposed a peaceful protest in Wall Street. Adbusters had one simple demand:

From there…we are now here.

The occupation has been criticized for among other things, not having a clear agenda. The agenda couldn’t be more clear. Let’s reign in the power that corporations wield in the American political arena. Does anyone think American (global) corporations don’t have ENOUGH influence? Does anyone think that global corporations should keep the means to attain more power? Should there be NO restraint on money in politics? Is everything a commodity?

Protest can be defined as political theater. A person, people, an organization comes together to bring attention to an issue, or a set of issues, the goal being some sort of change to the status quo. To do this…to highlight an issue…to garner attention…people have to do things that will (say it with me now) ATTRACT ATTENTION. This is why the protesters are playing drums, dancing, yelling, making signs, camping out. A protest is meaningless without attention. Occupy Wall Street has been criticized for making a sincere effort to get attention. Given that just about everyone can agree that corporations wield an inordinate amount of power, this criticism (mainly from corporate media) is pretty silly. Occupy Wall Street is a legitimate protest. The protesters don’t look like you, or act like you, but they are there for you.

There is a 99% theater group involved in this protest. These are the folks that garner much of the attention because of the things they do TO GET ATTENTION. Remember…this is a protest (a protest requires attention).

America has a strong history of effective social protest. Even the most successful protests were met with scorn when they began. For Pete’s Sake, America was born of protest. To deny the overarching influence that corporations play in our daily lives is akin to denying the night. To scorn Occupy Wall Street is to scorn America. The people that are part of this growing movement still believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they have the ability to speak, and to object, and to make changes to a society they see as broken. They exercise this ability in the face of those that have the means to silence them, and silence them by force, if necessary. So yes, you may be inconvenienced by this protest, you may be turned off by the way they look, the way they speak, the noise they make…but honestly, reasonable people know that corporations have an inordinate amount of influence in our lives, politicians are in the bag for Wall Street, Wall Street has managed to socialize their losses while privatizing their profit. We all know it, we all have been saying it, Occupy Wall Street is trying to change it.

America has a long and storied history of social protest. On October 6 a group of (mostly) young people began camping (occupying) the City Hall Plaza in Philadelphia. The occupation is in solidarity and part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, a movement that has inspired disaffected Americans all over the country. This from the Occupy Philly website:

We are your every day Americans, who are against the corporate greed that has plagued this country, and the politics(sic) who allow this greed to occur. We include teachers, college students, labor members, unemployed workers, and the other 99%. We are standing in solidarity with friends in New York City, and across the country. #OccupyPhilly.

Many Americans are uneasy these days. Regardless of which side of the political road you stand on, if you have been paying attention over the last 10 years you have seen some pretty wild things happen in America. Over the last few years more and more Americans are reacting to what has been happening. Occupy Philly is part of that reaction.

The movement communicates primarily through signage, although once a day there is a sort of call-and-response period. A speaker will begin and the crowd will repeat the stated phrases. This is, frankly, an awkward form of communication. The people participating in this demonstration are sincere, peaceful, and angry. They have made a concerted effort to cooperate with the City and the Police. Mayor Nutter and Commissioner Ramsey have been very cooperative. While there is a constant police presence, there is no indication of any friction between the “occupiers” and law enforcement.

Aside from anger at the 1% (an ill-defined group, presumably people with lots of money and influence) there are other issues at stake: The cost of health care, the cost of war, war in general.

The future of any social movement is impossible to predict. Lots of folks are curious about this protest and some mainstream folks typically stop by to have a look and even lend support. Again, many Americans know that something is wrong, and are seemingly hoping that this movement will take hold and have an impact. Politicians of every stripe will try to use the participants for their own end.

On my last visit to City Hall I walked through Love Park. There is a permanent population of homeless folks that live there. Technically I guess Love Park is their home. Homeless people are also living around City Hall and can be found in the location of the protest. These are people that are, in every way, invisible. As much as I tried I couldn’t get around the dichotomy between the protest and the homeless. I am sympathetic to much of the agenda of the Occupy movement. These are challenging times. We as a society/culture/country can be accurately judged by how we treat our most vulnerable. Be conscious. See those around you. Don’t be so focused on your anger that you miss the chance to help those next to you. In the end all we have is our humanity.

Indeed, any car on the lot. But don’t look too long or think too much just put your money on the table and take a ride. Experience the freedom, see the USA in your Chevrolet, prepare to want one, inspiration comes standard, make every mile count, everything we do is driven by you, the more you know the better it looks, isn’t it time for a real car? Like always, like never before.

Some insight as to the efficacy of buzzwords, labeling, cache? Has Johnson managed to transform a household cleaning product into a desirable collectible? Are the marketing people at Johnson winding us up, knowing full well that no one reads the labels anyway? Is this evidence of the end of marketing? The blue is pretty anyway.

The world is a finite place. The challenge to see differently and therefore make photographs heretofore unseen is beyond daunting. Some photographers seek out the unusual in an effort to make unusual work. The result, when coupled with a chaotic technique, is often a visual mess. The fact is that the world around me/us/you is often fairly straightforward. To photograph the world straight is to risk the label “derivative” “not new” “boring”.

See with new eyes all that you see. Even photographs.

It’s all out in front of us ya know. Keep your head up and your eyes open. Ya can’t miss it. I’m deep in the west again this evening as the sun sets on the east coast. Bus rides in the dead of night through Northern Arizona, the expanse of the world peeking out at me as the sun begins to rise and we head back to Flagstaff. This is where we walked. This is where we swam. Take a picture here. Take a souvenir.

It’s true, everything (everything) speeds away from us at the speed of life and we hold on we hold on we hold on and then we stop…and look. Look again.

I spoke to an old friend last week and we remembered sitting on a rocky hill looking out over the Northern California desert as the moon rose. Disaster and calamity was right behind us but in front of us was the moon and the sky and the desert, coyotes howling and the mountains stark and still.

The Sweeping Epic. The Definitive Mark. The Last Word. The Masterpiece.

Someday everything is going to be different.

But what the hell. Photographs are open to interpretation, more so then most things. The viewer brings a life of experience to the viewing and all manner of impossible factors enter into whatever people take away from the image. And let’s face it, many photographers are intentionally vague about any particular message anyway, the better to be perceived as intellectually able, no doubt. It’s life that interests me…hardcore life…not in any extreme sort of way, quite the opposite. Our days are filled with what we do and what we see, where we go and (again) what we see while we are going and what we see and do when we get there. So that’s what I photograph.

Something else we don’t notice until it is commonplace. Nothing stops commerce, another example of Relentless America. Times Square is a theater now with non-stop movies and audiovisual shenanigans to delight the tourists. Fear not, it’s coming to your town too. I can’t get gas or stand in a checkout line without some video screen yelling at me.

Get off my lawn For Pete’s Sake.

Ms. Sontag describes “heroic vision” by relating the story of Alfred Stieglitz standing in a blizzard for three hours on February 22, 1893 “awaiting the proper moment” to take his picture : “Fifth Avenue, Winter.” Sontag continues: “The proper moment is when one can see things (especially what everyone has already seen) in a fresh way.” She actually describes this as “peculiar heroism.”

Ms. Sontag is having a run at photographers, but she does so with a powerful intellect. And she’s right, to a certain extent. Photographers have been known to go to great lengths to make photographs. Photographs are beyond ubiquitous. The good news is that even total immersion in the world of photography cannot possibly include every photo ever made. And seeing extends to the photograph, not just the world from where the photo was extracted. The serious viewer has a responsibility in this transaction too.

“The photographer, and the consumer of photographs, follows in the footsteps of the ragpicker, who was one of Baudelaire’s favorite figures for the modern poet.”

Susan Sontag

Aaron Stevens came down to the D.C. area from Ohio to visit his daughter. He left a note for her Sunday morning: “I’m going to The Wall”. Aaron served in a combat unit in South Vietnam in the late ’60′s, a period of time that was of the most divisive politically and culturally in our history. There was fighting in the streets in America.

My Dad spent time in South Vietnam working as an engineer at Cam Rahn Bay. I still remember when he came home, we all went to the airport to pick him up. The Big Homecoming. I never knew he was in a combat zone until he showed me photos he had made.

America wages war. We have this immense War Machine that never stops…never will stop. Vietnam taught the War Machine to remove most of America from the experience. Today less then 1% of the population serves in the Military. They are all, every one, volunteers. Americans are not touched by what is going on in the current theaters of war. Theaters Of War.

Aaron and I talked a bit. I said I come here looking for answers, he stated very simply that he comes here to see his friends. We shook hands and I left Aaron with his friends and I headed to Arlington, Section 60 where the New War Dead wait for their memorial.

Thanks Aaron.

Trip to D.C. Middle of the night. Sun up. Monuments to war. Lots of respect. Hallowed Ground. New dead. War Planes flying. Peace in the trash.

“Americans should know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls.”
-Walt Whitman

Jack Kerouac was born March 12, 1922. He died at the age of 47 in 1969. Most famous for writing “On The Road” perhaps but I will always love Kerouac for his introduction to Robert Franks’ The Americans:

“That crazy feeling in America when the sun is hot on the streets and music comes out of the jukebox…”

A mannequin is an articulated doll used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, and others especially to display or fit clothing. During the 1950s, mannequins were also used in nuclear tests to help illustrate the effects of nuclear weapons on human beings. Indeed, mannequins are model people. Do we even see them anymore? This army of plastic representations of us.

Maryland is in The South. In the run up to The Civil War the tobacco growing counties in Southern Maryland were seccesionist while the northern part of the state was firmly Union. Booth was from Baltimore.

A reasonably short drive brings you down to Pokomoke City. I typically end up around Cambridge looking for Bald Eagles.

Lots of Church here, as everywhere. I sometimes listen to the Radio Preachers expound on salvation, assuring me that my soul is at risk unless I repent.

Everything is spread out down here, houses isolated. I didn’t take any surveys but I’m sure the American Gun Culture is alive and well. Help from Law Enforcement is not close by, and no doubt residents take care of home defense themselves.

I met the owner of this house:

I was standing in the middle of a lonely street making this photograph. He was next door, saw me and jumped out of his dump truck hollering about why the photograph. Perfectly reasonable question that I had no answer for. I put on my Don’t Shoot Me smile and walked on over. Good Morning, how are you? Why the photograph? I’m a photographer blah blah blah.

Tough neighborhood.

No Bald Eagles this time down but I’ll be back. Always plenty to see in Southern Maryland.

What you see is worth a look. Luckily, it’s everywhere.

Alongside a two lane road in North Carolina. Ramshackle. Teetering on collapse. A message, depending on where you stand and how you see. Buddy Miller singing about faith in the background. Cars passing by.

Time the avenger. Time the illusion. It’s getting to the point where I’m no fun anymore.

We, some of us (or maybe just me) look for constants in our lives. Things or people that we want to believe remain the same even though we know they don’t. Songs from years back, movies we see again and again, that friend we knew so long ago. Photographs presumably allow us to grab the moment as it flies by and hold onto it, but even that is illusory. I started photographing this house almost 20 years ago. Most days I have no idea why I photograph it, and others…Sunday mornings or afternoons mostly…I head out with serious intent to photograph The House. The House always looks different in my head and then I arrive and remember that the space is not as expansive and the trees and grass are even more overgrown…but I love it anyway. Blame Andrew Wyeth. The search for Melancholy never ends.