Ahh. Well here it is a week into the new year and things are begining to settle down after all the confounding commotion.
Perhaps I ought to apologize for that last post. It was fun to write, I won't lie to you, but it looks (in retrospect) kind of juvenile and silly. I suppose I get that way from time to time.
My Mom read it and gave me a bit of a hard time... that is to say that it caused her to worry about me. I explained that it was just my sense of humor and that there was no cause for alarm. Mothers are like that, yeah they are. Love you Mom!
The guys at Sharky's liked it. Nobody on Facebook commented, which I interpret to be an inexplicably bad omen, but so what... I'm not superstitious
At any rate I think I want to be a bit more mature, focused and intentional this year, so let's just chalk that last post up to being the last post of last year (a day late and 10,000 riel short) and we'll consider this one to be the first post of the new year and an auspicious harbringer of things to come. Coolio indeedy!
So I've updated and launched my newly redesigned, simpler, more elegant and functional photoblog at www.mythicaldude.net and I hope you'll go check it out. Simple concept: a photo a day... and this time I really mean it.
I've also, yet again, redone my Steve Goodman Photography website at www.stevegoodman.com and while it still needs work (who doesn't?)
I think it has some compelling new features, charming content and a certain glistening shine. Actually it smells like a new car and, as you know, that's a pretty damned good smell.
Of course it'll wear off soon enough and the pile of trash in the backseat will start to become unbearable, but let's not go there now sister...
That might be all I have to say for the moment... just got home from a fun and sweaty Sharky Bar gig and once again the band sounded pretty damned good if I do say so myself.
Shakry's has the best stage and sound system in Phnom Penh, it even has seriously humongous(sp?) stage monitors, so playing there is always a pleasure. In addition to the monitors they have a some huge-ish guitar and bass guitar amps and a snazzy durm kit which Scoddy was all over tonight making things sound extra zesty.
I never really notice drums too much when I listen to most bands, except for when they are really sounding catchy and special, as was the case this evening. Nice and impossible-not-to-notice pithy little accents in all the right places made things sound extra gutsy and in general it felt like the whole improbable Hellhounds machine had been lubed, calibrated and polished to a nice snazzy shine. Pretty cool.
Don't tell anyone that our plates are expired, the brakes are squeaky and the steering is a more than bit dodgy.
It feels like I need to find a photo for this post so please hang on just a minute... OK here's one now:
Yes. It is a brick wall somewhere in the alley behind my apartment in Phnom Penh and it symbolizes, in a starkly literal fashion, the brick wall I ran into at the end of last year. Ouch. Fascinating perhaps, but not pretty by any stretch of the imagination.
These things happen and life is full of false starts, slow boats, dead-ends, abrupt cancellations and lots of minor cuts and bruises (even serious contusions from time to time). Its OK. You run into one of these and - unless your are really out-of-it - you'll know that you were going to fast for your own good and heading in the wrong direction (even if it seemed like a good idea at the time).
Hey man, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and head on over the sunny side of the street! And quit moaning... one must take things in stride.
So now it occurs to me that I need one more juxtapositional image to symbolize the high hopes, determined ambition and spiritually uplifting feeling that a new year ought to be greeted with... uh, hang on again for just a second...
Heh-heh-heh... Yes! A big thumbs-up for this one. Again nothing subtle going on here (we cater to a wide and shortly-attention-spanned multi-culti-demographic audience here at MythicalDude-Amalgamated-Industries-InterCorp-LTD, Inc.TM). Things are both operating normally (which is to say somewhat dysfunctionally) and also changing at the same time. This much is abundantly clear, but what the future holds is anybody's guess. As for me I can only say this... Despite the odds I'm still hoping for the best and I think I'll know it when I see it. And that's all she wrote.
Please stay tuned (As mentioned in that garishly lurid last post (below with the test pattern at the end)... and that's where the tuk-tuk soaring by comes in to play in this photo (a photograph with text in it!) ... to really make the picture memorable and add a healthy dose of funk and a not-very-shy dash of indisputably local flavor to the whole ball-of-wax - even though we're all living like The Jetsons here now in 2010, there still aren't any seatbelts (for reasons unknown)... so we're all going have to just deal with it, come what may.
I like this first blog photo of the new year a lot... and I really know what I'm talking about when it comes to stuff like that, so take my word for it.
It's jam-packed with big fat juicy meaning. Obviously it has its own conceited metaphor... today is the well-lit portion of the photo and tomorrow is represented by the blackness of the doorway. And to reinforce that interpretational notion is the solidly unambiguous statement - written in text - that things are being improved and that we can expect something good!
You really can't get much more straightforward than that in the realm of photographical metaphors.
There's somebody in there (which means that there is a there there)... and they're doing something in the backgound (or so they say) while they remain open for business and operating normally (as though!), or so they say right up fron in BIG BOLD LETTERS. There behind the door, there in the inscrutable darkness of the future just beyond today that nobody can see. Something is happening.
- Something BIG and BOLD.
Where will it all lead? What's going to happen next? Will we be stopping for a pee-break and a snack?
Who the hell knows? Not me, that's for sure and a half.
Hey, its all good and it only seems counter-intuitive until you get used to it. (a tip-o-the-hat to the zenbozo)
So get used to it and for crying out loud there sport, let's all try to get along even if things get a little sloppy here and there. Remember: one man gathers what another man spills... Don't let the fucking bastards wear you down (the BEST advice my Dad ever gave me).
So get with the program dude, stop being such a poopy-head and don't forget to always remember to keep the FUN in dysfunctional.
I smell bad and I'm going to take a shower. like I said before, it was a sweaty night.
Sorry Mom, but I need to try and be honest. In the real world (or so we've been told here in the world of mirth and myth), a good acid-test to predict if something you want to say might be a certain kind of funny... is to ask yourself this... "would my Mom grimace dissapprovingly if she heard me say this?"
Hah! I smell bad and I'm going to take a shower. After that its going to be a good year. That's my status.
Word. Peace and out.
PS: I think we're actually off to a splendid start, but everything is still a little bit weird and distorted.
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