The Dude Commune

I have been toying with the idea of building a, for lack of a better term, a dude commune or visitation commune on some property that my wife and I own outside of town. The purpose of this would be for world weary people to come and regenerate themselves for 3 or 4 days. When the visitors checked in they surrender their cell phones and beepers and begin a period of technological celebacy. There would be no television or radio or telephones readily available. For this would be a time to regenerate your soul or inner self in you prefer. A time to relax and get back in touch with yourself and your loved ones. You could spend your days walking in the country, playing in a creek, hot-tubbing, getting a massage, helping in the herb garden, star gazing at night and simply contemplating your navel or reading a book. Anything would be allowed except for communication with the outside world. The food would be simple, healthy, delicious and nourishing. There would be plenty of privacy and no silly organized, required activities. You want to lay naked in the sunshine and get a tan, skinny dip in the creek, no problem. You want to take a second honeymoon with your spouse, make love under the stars on the deck of your cabin, no problem. Life here will be simple and good, like the world should be. No stress, no demands, just relax and put your brain back together.

To Pube, or Not To Pube

Years ago, back in the 60's and 70's, most women (99%), over the age of puberty had a field of luxurious curlies garnishing their nether regions. Admittedly, some may have have gone overboard in this department. I remember one young lady that brought visions of a machete or weed wacker to mind. Most women did keep them trimmed nicely but not waxed clean as is the fashion today. I guess you could say that there is some merits in the truth in advertising method that is in vogue now but there was a degree of mystery in the bushes of days gone by. What wonders were being hidden behind that soft carpet of twisted fur? Some of them quite frankly don't need to see the light of day, a little camouflage would definitely help. There is one woman that I know that between the razor-rash, five o'clock stubble and the fact that she looks like she has been hit with an axe would definitely benefit from a little bush. Maybe it is just a liberal political statement, No More Bush, who knows. If nothing else, the pedophiles of the world should be happy as most women now look like they are nine years old again. If you are going to clean up your crotch, then I would suggest waxing as an alternative to shaving. It's neater, smoother and you would have to go through the ordeal nearly as often. But what is wrong with a little fur? You should look like a woman, not a little girl. Check out this video and you will see what I mean about the situation, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=143058875331636119&q=cat .

Yup, I Was Right

I just came back from a trip to buy some incense, patchouli, if you are interested, from the little shop I mentioned in my last posting yesterday. I asked how their Salvia Divinorum sales were going and they told me that they were through the roof. They said the only thing that the news coverage accomplished was giving them lots of free advertising. The few people that used to buy Salvia came in to buy more before it sold out or disappeared and lots of other people that did not even know of the existence of the shop or of Salvia have been in to check it out and to purchase some. If you are wondering, I did not buy any as I am naturally high on life and don't need any help. Peace and love till later.

Inadvertant Advertising

A little over a week ago, a local television station was hyping one of their local news features for the evening broadcast. There tag line was something along the lines of "Local Store selling potent hallucigen!" As I had to go to work before the evening news broadcast, I asked my wife to watch the program to find out what was being sold and where. After the news, she called me and told me that the news story was about Salvia Divinorum, an herb grown in Mexico, central America, and Hawaii. It contains a pyschedelic compontent known as Salvinorum A. It can be chewed or smoked and from what I have read, it is found to be very unpleasant by most people who experiment with it. The herb is completely legal in the United States as are Nutmeg and Morning Glory seeds, two other common products that you can trip on if you are so inclined. If you are more interested in it and its nauseating side effects, check out www.erowid.com for more information. Back to the news story. It seems that a local shop that sells, posters, incense, beaded curtains, tee shirts and the like was indeed selling the herb. As it is completely legal and most likely 99.9 % of our local population did not know of it's existence, there it sat on the shelf, almost no one knowing it was there. But the television station trotted out a list of local people who were outraged that such a substance was for sale in our fair community and of course, the city should do something to protect us from this demon. Made me think of the 1937 movie Reefer Madness. The afternoon before this program aired, virually no one knew of it's present, I certainly didn't and have been in that shop many times, and thanks to the stations free advertising, now thousands knew about this psychedelic herb for sale, right here in river city, my friends. Sometimes I think people would be better off if we were not quite so well informed by the well meaning do-gooders of our society. Maybe there is an upside to this, instead of our youth looking for an illegal six pack of beer or bottle of booze, the well meaning television station has now informed them about a legal pyschedelic they can all take. Sometimes I wonder and other times, I just don't know. Peace and love until next time.

Photo-Nymph

Every now and then I will write a posting that does not have a social commentary or point to it. It will just be a story from my past. This is one of those. It was a warm day in late spring with beautiful blue skies. Sounds like the opening to an old Dragnet series, doesn't it? As you may have assumed from my Amy From Austin posting I have been into photography for a long time, actually I began as a child back in the 1950's. I have met a large number of women over the years that I have had the priviledge to photograph. This young lady came to me through a mutual friend back in the very early 1990's. She and her husband were from a small town about 40 or 50 miles from where I lived at the time. Her husband first approached me while we were shooting in the country on some property that I owned. He asked about shooting her in the nude. He wanted to know what she would have to do as she was 'shy' to ask herself. I told him that it was easy, she had to take her clothing off. I have always been amazed at how many women are shy about talking about being photographed in the nude and once the clothing comes off, they don't seem to care if it ever goes back on. There was one woman I knew that wanted me to shoot some nudes of her in my studio. I set up the background while she changed into a very loose fitting robe. I had her continue to wear the robe while I did the final lighting adjustments and exposure reading with her in the correct position. When I was ready to shoot her I asked her to remove the garment that she was wearing. At this point, she quietly asked me to turn around. I asked her to repeat her statement as I did not her her. Once more she told me to turn around as I was not going to watch her undress. What the hell, it's her time and money so I turned around. Moments later she was ready to shoot and I turned around to find her totally naked, lying in the position that we had discussed. For the next 45 minutes we shot various poses, all nude. At the end of the shoot, she once again asked me to turn away from her so that she could put her clothing back on. A few days later, she came into studio to look at her proofs and picked several of the images. As she was leaving, she remarked that she couldn't wait th get the finished images so she could show all of her friends. Are you scratching your head yet, I was. I digress, meanwhile back to the couple, as I said, she was too shy to ask me herself about shooting in the altogether so she had her husband ask the all important question. At the end of our brief conversation, he disappeared into the old farmhouse where I had been photographing her at an old window. Within a minute or two, his wife appeared at the glassless window were I had been shooting her clothed just a few minutes before. The only difference was this time the only thing she was wearing was a smile. We shot at the house for a few more minutes and then she wanted to venture down to the creek which flowed rather idyllically about 100 yards away. She took to the creek like the preverbial duck to water. I have photographed a great number of women over the last 40 years or so but I must admit, this young lady was one of the most beautiful women I ever had the priviledge to work with. Her husband was understandably proud of her and completely cool. She was one of the most natural posing people that I have ever photographed. Once she took her clothing off, she became completely comfortable with herself. She truly was a little nymph. She had a quality about her that was rare, she was completely at ease and never carried herself with any airs of being anything special. She was just what she was, thats all. She would have been right at home at Woodstock and pictured her there many times in my mind. We finished our shoot and headed back into town, I took plenty of time loading my equipment back into the back of my SUV in orfer to give her plenty of time to dry off and get changed. She was in the back seat and her husband was in the front. We drove down the lane to leave the farm and reached the gate at the main road. Her husband jumped out and opened it for me. We then headed the 6 or 7 miles back into town. When we were almost back to the city, I happened to glance into the back seat and noticed that this young lady was just now starting to put her clothing back on. She had been just sitting back there, window open and enjoying the breeze. I continued to photograph this young lady over the next several years and used her many times as a model in photgraphy workshops that I held from time to time. I always considered myself very lucky to work with this young model, who wouldn't. As this has been a rather cool, windy winter day, I hope these images have helped warm you up and removed the winters' chill.

The Best Time of Your Life

A week or so again I was talking to some of my friends when one of them posed a most interesting question, "What was the happiest time of your life?" On the surface, this sounded like a very easy question, but after some thought, it isn't. There are hopefully several happy times in everyones life. The happiest moment, the happiest day, the happiest period of time. I asked for some clarification as to which happiest time they were asking about. They wanted to know the happiest period of time. The most difficult of the three for most people. After a few minutes thought, I replied that for me, the happiest period of time was when I was a teenager and had the good fortune to live in the Bahamas for 15 months. This was from June 1964 until the end of August 1965. I can not think of a better place to be. Swimming in beautifully clear, warm water virtually everyday with the exception of a few hurricaine days. The experience of learning in a different type of school and educational environment. At that time, the Bahamas were a part of the British Commonwealth and therefore the the schools and most of the teachers were from England With the exception of one being from Hungary. This was with out a doubt the best year of learning that I ever had in my twelve years of public education. The English firmly believed in corporal punishment and whippings and caning were the rule of the day. Because of this, behavior problems disappeared within the first day or two of class each semester. Students all rose when the teacher entered the room and stood until they were acknowledged by the instructor. You also rose and stood at the end of each class. There was nothing perceived as wrong about showing respect for your elders and each other. We had a two hour lunch break evryday and quite often would go down to the beach to go swimming. It was not unusual to see someone sitting in class in the afternoon with wet hair. I lived on Grand Bahama Island in Freeport before it became a very popular tourist destination. There was a topless and nude beach, quite informative and educational for a boy my age, drinking at almost any age was tolerated as long as you did it in moderation. Moderation was something that everyone learned in order to keep their priviledges. Instead of a ice cream truck driving through town at night, the was a liquor truck, all you had to do was walk to the end of your sidewalk and the truck would stop. You could order all of your liquors, beers, mixers and ice. Your order completed, he would drive down the street to the next person standing at the curb. We had soft drink machines on the street that sold ice cold beer instead of soft drinks. All you had to do was put in your 2 shillings, 28 cents at the time, pick your desired beer, press the botton, and it would appear at the bottom of the machine. Quite often, after school, I would walk over to a friends house and we would enjoy a BeefeatersTM Gin and SchweppesTM Bitter Lemon. A very refreshing way to end a day of studying at school. The Bahamas were a very interesting mix of instense discipline and freedom. You were free to do quite a few things as long as you did not take advantage of your freedoms. During the time I lived there, whites made up only about 20 to 25 percent of the population. The rest of the population was comprised of Bahamians. These were blacks, potential slaves, that were left on the islands when the American Civil War started. The entire population of the island was less than 10,000 people at the time. The Bahamian blacks were of a different mindset than the American black. They were a very sweet, kind and honest people. The white people on the island were always welcome in th small villages on the other parts of the island such as Hunter, Seagrape or Eight Mile Rock. You were welcome in their bars and could dance with them because in their minds, they did not perceive a difference, you were just another person who had come to have a good time. My father would frequently go out to these small towns and bars to play music with them as he was a dyed-in-the-wool musician at heart. He was always wecome with open arms. There was no racial bigotry on the part of the Bahamians, there was some racism present on the part of the American whites when they first moved to the island but with rare exception, this disappeared after they had been there a while. This was completely diferent from the racial tensions and strife that were so prevailent 120 miles away in th mainland of the United States. Crime virtually did not exsist on the island and almost no one locked the houses when they were away in town. Spending fifteen months in a population where I was the minority taught me a great deal about looking at situations form all sides. At the time, I always thought it was strange that the whites that had moved to the island were there to help 'civilize' the native population. They were introducing the need for posessions, money and competion between individuals. This was something that previously really did not exist. The average Bahamian lived in a small house usually placed up on small pylons several feet above the ground. As most of the villages were located on a part of the island that was only several hundred yards wide, the land was only 3 or 4 feet above sea level. The highest point on the whole island was only 22 feet above sea level. By building their houses up on piers, this allowed the occasional high tide to simply flow under the house rather than through it. They all owned a few chickens, planted asmall garden and owned a small boat or dingy. When they were hungry, they ate, usually fish but sometimes one of their chickens, when they were tired they slept, and when they were horny, they made love to their wife or girlfriend. They were all deeply religious and all went to church every Sunday. To me, it seemed like they had a pretty good life and had figured out life pretty damn well. Leave it to us to come into their paradise and insist that they have to go to work everyday, punch a clock, and make money so they can be happy. Bullshit, it seemed to me that they were the truly cizilized people. This was definitely the happiest period of my life and would recommend that if or when you have children of your own, that you move to a small island for a while to let your children learn how to live life. I went back there several years ago with my family only to find that the island had been completely Americanized. It is still a very visually attractive place but it sucks now. None of the character it had all those years ago is still present, it is now nothing more than a tourist trap. You will have to find your own island, but rest assured, they still exist, I found one, but I'm not saying where it is. Peace and love to everyone until next time.

Vindication

There has been much discussion of my recent posting on the "Me Generation", I am quite happy to say that my hypothesis has been affirmed and my position vindicated by no less than TimeTM Magazine. This weeks' issue is their "Person of the Year " issue. When you pick up the magazine and look at the cover, you will find a mirror on the cover-page so that you see your own reflection. Yes, boys and girls, this years "Person of the Year" is YOU. If that isn't reaffirming my position that we are currently living in a narcissistic, Me generation, then I don't know what is. Peace and love until later and unasshamedly I wish you all a very politically incorrect Merry Christmas.