Memorial Day Madness | 5/12ths of 2011, gone.

Memorial Day 2005

When I meet new people, inevitably there’s a conversation about my choice of job-path. Normally, I try to avoid telling people I was once a photographer (and still do it part-time, only out of necessity or obligation), but many times someone else is there who loves to chime in “David’s not a contractor, he’s a photographer.”

Fewer things boil my blood.

I surely don’t mind talking about the brilliant photographer I worked for in New York during the Spring and Summer of 2003, Rodney Smith or other photographers who I found interesting during college such as Ralph Meatyard. In fact, I think those were the only two. I may have feigned interest in others but these two were the only two who really drew me in.

I think much of my disdain for the visual arts — photography, painting, sculpture, etc — stems from the fact that outside of pragmatic reasons, I find them entirely futile endeavors. I also became increasingly cynical after so many fellow students and/or self-proclaimed “artists” who I met along the way were lazy, talentless hacks who spent most of their lives not working and being productive members of society while constantly churning out exceptionally poor visual art. “I just wanna be an artist!” they’d proclaim, while I thought to myself “You stink. Get a real job”.

Eventually, I took my own advice.

I’m bitter. I’ll admit it. It bothers me that I spent nearly a decade and untold thousands of dollars on something I was at best, pretty mediocre at; my only hope these days is that I don’t ruin someone’s wedding and on the off chance I get an editorial, I hesitate to even send the files in as I fear the editors will hate them. I wish I could have spent my twenties building something worthwhile rather than flushing them down the toilet. I’m a few days from my 31st birthday and I have little to show for my life. I could have had a family and served my community and instead, I served only myself and learned how to use people and places for my own worthless and selfish pursuits.

Realizing this and starting over at age 30 isn’t the most wonderful of conclusions.

But, hey, you gotta start somewhere.

blast from my 1995 past (jenny krieder and the autumn/anatomy of a bowl cut).

896 & 30

There was a magical time in my past when I’d show up somewhere, do nothing, and girls would swoon. Perhaps it was the allure of my bowl cut. Or the oversized flannel and jean shorts; to be honest, I don’t know, but in the Summer and Autumn of 1995, two younger, exceptionally cute girls from Solanco High School fought over me. I met both through my summer-time friend Tim, and though the details are fuzzy, I’m pretty sure I met one of them at the Fireman’s Festival and the other at the Fair. Every afternoon, I’d get home from school and they’d both call me at some point. I’d hide in my downstairs bedroom on the analog phone, talking, and intently listening for a *click* in the background that would signal that one of my snoopy sisters had picked up the other line. After a few weeks of these time-intensive phone calls and hangouts at the high school football games, a 15 year old boy has had enough. He just wants to be left alone and he puts the kaibosh on both; in retrospect, 15 year old boy is decidedly a fool, but that is another conversation for another time.

I think I ran into Jenny Krieder the summer afterwards when me and Sean Rossi were at the Festival.

Then I saw her at the Quarryville grocery last Saturday and all these forgotten memories came flooding back.  I was too shy to say “Hi”.

I wonder what she’s up to these days?