the village buzz

i started to wonder a few weeks ago if you could make evocative photos with a camera phone. i had snapped mostly utility photos up until now. photos of stuff that i could remember until i got to the hardware store.

then, i realized that i had what might be an okay-ish type camera in my pocket pretty much all the time. so, i started pointing it at things i see every day.

this is probably one of the ugliest dolls i have seen in a long time. it almost looks like it was built after the fact. it is a dog’s body, with a girl’s face. when i walked by it, i almost stopped in my tracks because it was so hideous.

this little guy was up for sale at a flea market / junk bonanza. this place is chock full of things that nobody cares about anymore. for a buck, you can take them home, but for most people, it’s sort of like a museum of stuff you may have seen in your past. for those of you from southern california, think of trueblood’s.

as a joke, i snapped a photo of it..

then, i started to wonder.

this weird little doll probably sat through thunderstorms, earthquakes, domestic violence, drunken rampages, and helped some kid make it through another night that was completely beyond their control. if it was a raggedy anne or some other standard issue doll, it wouldn’t be so weird… but looking at this hideous creature, you would have to wonder what kind of parent would pick up something so ugly? my guess is that it’s the same kind of person that would subject their kids to random acts of insanity.

then again.. it may just be so ugly that no one ever bought it.. and it’s been an orphan since it rolled off the assembly line..

this is a baby kitten that melody and karen found in their engine compartment. it was a tiny baby, and i don’t think it was weaned yet. we were having a bbq at our house, and they brought him over.

erin, a veteran kitten rescuer was there.. she started playing with the kitten, and found that it had some sort of heebie jeebie.. it is some kind of worm that lives under its skin. she almost threw up right on the poor little guy! she then informed us that the thing HAD to come out right away..

so michael (her husband) says.. ‘hold my baby!’ and they took the kitten out back and did the surgery on the porch.

it was the most harrowing thing i have ever seen.. well.. almost.. well.. yeah it was..

i almost threw up..

but the good news is, kitty is alive and well, and his heebie jeebies are all gone..

on this day, i called corey to check up on parker, the 20 pound lardass cat. corey told me it was -30F and miserable back home. some quick calculating reminded me that once again, it was one hundred degrees warmer in california.

shooting a snapshot like this, i wonder why i ever left.

the next day, i had to drive to long beach in the middle of the day.. and quickly remembered why i split.

if they would just kick 75% of the people out (the bad ones!), i would come back. when that happens, someone give me a call.

sometimes, when people talk about everyone going nuts, they describe it as ‘feeding time at the zoo..’

i was at the santa barbara zoo the other day, and i remembered that they were going to feed the penguins at 3:00. we were just getting off the little train when i saw that it was 2:59. we busted ass and made it just in time!

rather than seeing the feeding frenzy i was braced to see, i saw something totally different. one of the little guys was standing up on a rock and serving as a lookout. as soon as the lady popped out the door with the fish, he called everyone.

in one quick motion, all the penguins popped out of the water, and stood in a single file line, and got their lunch. if anyone wanted more, they wobbled over to the end of the line, and waited another round. sooner or later, they were all full, and they just kinda stood around, like a tipsy rat pack.

i was amazed. it makes me wonder why people can’t be that patient. this whole ordeal took less than ten minutes, and everyone got all they needed and had time to chill out around the pond.

if this were people, i bet it would take at least a half hour to get everyone fed.. and everyone would still stand in line pushing and bitching..

we could learn a little from penguins, i think..

alright, you’re gonna have to look hard to see this, but once you look at it close enough, it will be clear. this is a little baby seal that was born about an hour before i got there. it would be SO COOL to see him being born, but it didn’t work out.. i watched this little guy wobble around trying to figure out which end was up, and i felt bad for him. he was JUST tossed out of the womb and onto the rocks, while freezing cold february water smacked him around. when i went to bed at night, all i could do was hope he would be alright. and yes, he was alright… WHEW!

if you are squeamish, STOP READING NOW!!

when the baby seal rolled out, seagulls were lined up to eat the afterbirth. upon the blessed after event, a seagull thanksgiving was had. YUCK!

that bit of info was for eric mayer, with whom i had a discussion earlier this week about how NASTY wild animals are.

those big fatsos on the beach are seals. there is a stretch of beach off bailard avenue in carpinteria that is set aside for the seals to hang out, undisturbed. when i grow up and retire, i think this is what i am gonna do. if all the seals spots are taken, i would settle for a place anywhere in carpinteria. there are a group of volunteers who hang out every day and count the seals, talk to visitors about them, and let them use their binoculars. that is the coolest. i was hoping to see some whales out there, but i think the whales (like me) were on vacation.. dang my luck!

if you live in the socal area and want to see more info on the rookery, check here!

i tried this once before, but i was terribly unorganized. this time, i am gonna be a bit smarter about it. i would like to branch this list out a little more, just because it’s so much fun, and i like getting feedback from everyone. here’s what i would like to do. i have two prints, from my personal collection that i would like to give away. they are 5×7’s, and may or may not have been featured on this site. they were going to go on my wall, but i think it might be fun to put them on someone else’s wall. so, here’s the trick. the first two people to get 15 people to sign up for this list, gets them. i owe “ARRRrrrr”:http://xterminal.livejournal.com/ a print from my last botched attempt to do this, so he gets one, and this does not count as part of the two. ideally, the people who sign up should like photos (not necessarily photography) and stories. here’s what they need to do:

1. “go here”:http://village-buzz.com/lists/?p=subscribe and sign up.

2. confirm their subscription

3. come back to this entry, and leave a comment that says “so and so sent me…”

4. the count will be tallied chronologically.. for all to see..

have fun!

the flower that sucked my blood

one afternoon, the girl and i were up in this place called peninsula. it’s a small little spot somewhere in the cuyahoga national park. i am always lost when i go in there, but this day, we found our way into the place. we had lunch and during lunch, they had this fantastic wheat beer on tap. down the hatch they went. with all these beers, they brought slices of lemons. as i squeezed the lemons, lemon juice kinda squirted everywhere. it was nothing too messy, but i guess the essence was all over me by the time lunch was over. we decided to go hiking on the trails, and found ourselves kinda far back up the trail. the problem was, this was the middle of summer. right at the height of mosquito season. these guys smelled not only the co2 in my breath, but all the lemon all over me. they attacked like pit bulls. every time i stopped walking, they would over power me. i wanted to shoot these little flowers so bad, but i couldn’t deal. finally, i sucked it up, hit the deck, and shot this little feller. i need to make a print of this for my wall.

grado phono cartridge on vinyl

this one goes out to “RRRrrr”:http://xterminal.livejournal.com/ .

he requested a photo of something like “massive stupid retarded quantities of vinyl.” although my collection is nowhere near the status of some of r’s friends’, i would imagine mine kicks some pretty good ass in the land of mere mortals.

i still listen to alot of vinyl. hell, there’s a record spinning on the turntable right now (it’s the soundtrack from “the graduate”).

although i have converted most of my cd collection to mp3, and i have hundreds of megs of them at my fingertips from any room in the house, there is just something about vinyl that is missing from my connected digital life.

i tried to figure out what that might be, but it eluded me for awhile. then, one night, i was laying on the floor, watching the candle bounce shadows off the ceiling and listening to a record, and i realized what it was. vinyl offers something to us that we really have no regard for anymore. commitment.

it is now SO easy to start a playlist, and after the second or third song, throw another one on. it’s really easy to do this for hours on end. you have no commitment to the album that is playing. i think humans like that kind of commitment.

we look over all the vinyl choices. grab one. remove it from its sleeve. clean it. put it on the turntable and drop the needle. all of a sudden, you are committed for 20 minutes of your life. you are going to listen to that record.

in those 20 minutes of committment, you and the artist can sort of get to know each other.

this photograph was taken by candlelight, just for the hell of it. the album on the turntable is “john and yoko’s double fantasy”:http://www.amazon.com/Double-Fantasy-John-Lennon/dp/B000002UUC/sr=8-1/qid=1169002742/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7043418-0245454?ie=UTF8&s=music

it happened to be playing, and i happened to have a camera handy.

i bought that record when it came out. i was in the 5th grade. that afternoon, this girl named kyra (one of my sister’s friends) came over, and we ended up listening to the album together.

i think we were sitting indian style, or something, on the floor i so distinctly remember that when the yoko songs came on, we kinda looked at each other like.. “wtf?”..

now, listening to that album, those yoko songs really are cool songs. good songs punctuated by moments of “wtf?”.. but still a really listenable ablum.. even after 27 years..

grandma rangel

since i got a huge amount of feedback from alot of other people who think their grandmas are awesome, i thought i would post one more photo of grandma. this is was taken the last time i saw her. when i was packing my bike up, and getting ready to head back to ohio. now that i think back, she was one of the people who taught me about traveling around the country. they took me on my first serious road trip (to omaha, nebraska) when i was 8 or 9. seeing names like kingman, abilene, and tucamcare go by can really get a person addicted to seeing what is around the corner in this country. my grandma continued to travel until recently. she was here in ohio not too long ago, and i stomped around niagra falls with her not too long before that. anyway… i am SURE i get my wanderlust from the Rangel family. more on this later.