SEE VIDEO HERE
Back in 2003 I traveled to afghanistan for Time Magazine. Besides Afghanistan I also went to Hong Kong, better described as a giant repository of shopping malls, the Philippines, Japan and India, in that order. Afghanistan left the deepest impression because it truly felt like a country in flux. I have always been attracted to countries which are somehow trying to make something of themselves, however poorly or half hazzard-ly.
I feel at home in such places because they obviously reflect on my own personal peregrinations as a person. Adding to the mix is the sheer beauty and anvil like strength of the surroundings and Afghanistan becomes hypnotic in its quiet chaos.
I generally do not feel the need to videotape anything, outside of my boys, as any proud parent should, but Afghanistan was the exception to the rule. I borrowed a video camera from an AP photographer and drove around with my fixer for a day; in between shoots. This video is unedited apart from removing my fixer’s face from the mix.
Given recent events in that country and in Iraq, involving anyone perceived to have been somehow associated with Americans I do not want his identity to be revealed online, and have him suffer the possible consequences. I chose not to edit it partly because to do so seems unnecessary. The running sound track is from my fixer’s musical collection, Kabul radio, or our conversations throughout the day(yes we communicated by singing to one another). You can download it to your Ipod or your desktop and look at Kabul and its surroundings as I saw it and felt it, without any further intervention on my part.
Suggested reading if you are interested in the history of Central Asia:
“The Great Game”, by Peter Hopkirk.
Dear Diary,
I bought these lovely ladies at the Papeete airport, in Tahiti, French Polynesia. These images I presume shot in the mid-80s, remind me of my days in the south pacific(see previous entry). For those of you who might be tempted to vacation in that part of the world, these sumptuous maidens are not to be easily found outside an airport gift shop, but may be you can, on your next assignment propose to seek their ultimate existence.
If only the editorial world would let itself be convinced that they would make for a good spread; a “where are they now” sorta thing. But really, where are they now? Are they married, do they have kids, are they still collecting royalties?
I purchased these last August on my way back from a well deserved vacation in Rangiroa and Huahine, but was there mostly to dive and eat “casse croute”, that’s french for sandwich. Casse croute is actually the old school way of saying “sandwich”, since that word is only really used in parts of the world where, long ago, the French used to hold court over their colonial brethrens. Meanwhile, a Polynesian “casse croute”, consists mainly of a thirty five foot long baguette filled with mayonaise and reconstituted hamwich, not unlike spam but frothier, sorta like a pork merengue. They can also be found stuffed with fried fish, which is more palatable; but what will I stare at, if I eat the freaking fish I traveled so far to ogle.
Speaking of ogling, there was not much of that to be done as I spent most of my time underwater. While on land, I surrounded myself with Italian divers, whom I must admit were far more amusing than their french cousins. True to their nature, they were fun and burlesquely entertaining; while my compatriots lurked in the shadows, covered in salt water sores. As for the Polynesians they manned the boats and kept mostly to themselves having been stripped of their culture and health long ago. “Aye, Aye captain Cook”. Actually, subsequent visitors did the real damage, but who’s counting.
While brazzenly purchasing these cards I happily stared down newly minted grooms returning from a lifetime of fornication in Bora Bora.
While their femmates paid the powder room a visit, these presumably oversexed, mostly American men, feverishling pawed through the merchandise until their bride’s blood diamonds flashed their impending and unwelcomed return from across the terminal.
I suppose I should talk about why I am attracted to these images, lest I be accused of having baser instincts, not unlike those of my afore mentioned flightmates. Owing to the fact that in the months prior to my second visit to Polynesia I voraciously read all I could on its history and culture; and I cannot tell a lie: I find these girls extremely attractive. So, not unlike my other great love in life, African music, it’s all fun and games until you finally understand the lyrics, it’s happy on the outside, miserable on the inside. My kind of art.
Born:
In France, in Lille, France, October 2nd, 1964.
Wild ass is slaughtered and turned into sausage to celebrate afore mentioned nativity. Quadruped’s name withheld from public records.
I shared this date, but not the sausage, with Mahatma Ghandi, Sting, Charlie Chaplin and umpteen other bitches.
Important dates:
Summer 1970: Buggers first goat as rite of passage in Milaria; a leper colony bathed several hundred nautical miles in the Mediterranean sea. Goat is subsequently butchered and polished off by villagers in bacchanalian feast reminiscent of Pliny the Elder: A roman historian whose claim to fame was his pyroclastic entombment in Pompei; not to be confused by the ” Pyro-Classics”, Virgil’s first poem -a four books lyrical odyssey, ostensibly about farming, which he wrote during the terrible civil war following Julius Caesar’s untimely death in the BC (that’s hip hop, for Before Christ).
1968 to 1979: Suffers the wrath of God in numerous Jesuit schools but survives with personality cult intact, besides his being easily medicated and plagued by minor neuroses. Psychosis avoided by vacationing with fairy grandparents, herds of Bovidae, honey bees and like minded urchins; in pastoral mountainous ranges.
1979: Ships to the United states as wretched human cargo in container ship from Le Havre, France, to Brooklyn shipyards; escapes from said metal box with mini blow torch, like creme brulee, but harder.
High School in Millbrook, New York.
Enjoyed Physics, Biology and rearranging ice flows on frozen Hudson in failed attempts to communicate with clouds that looked like hamsters.
Became very cross country runner, masturbation a must. Great loss of DNA.
English language mastered; further DNA disbanded.
Education:
Skidmore College
BS in Art History
Class of 1986.
Graduated Magma Cum Laude in Art History, but dem bitches did not award a prize for that, so no cigar for this record.
Magma cum MaryJane. I’d like to thank the Otis elevator company for providing me with a safe and secure place to smoke between classes. Je voudrai m’excuser aupres des handicapes.
Failed philosophy twice, some photography classes….
Graduate with a 1.7 GPA; I tried to do better but my subsequent corporate sponsorship with the Otis elevator company conflicted with regularly scheduled classes.
Ate large amounts of cream of wheat; cause: no money. It’s nutritious and nourishious.
Bring water to a boil, dump in stomach size lump of cream of wheat, cook until good enough to consummate, flavor with glucose heaps, eat 3 times a day. Ruminate.
Lived in the woods in turquoise 1978 VW van but sometimes parked on school property. Showered irregularly.
Employment:
1986-1993
Managing Editor.
Ax Grinding Quarterly: A Journal dedicated to the use of hand-held implements used for felling trees or chopping wood.
1993-1993 and a half:
Publius Ovidius Naso biannual festival coordinator and CEO:
Duties included discussing Ebonics with or without Bernard Henry Lévy, french philosopher and noted intellectual. Often referred today as BHL, Lévy was born in Béni-Saf, Algeria on 5 November 1949. He became part of a group of French intellectuals who were disenchanted with communist and socialist responses to the near revolutionary upheavals in the France of May 1968. It articulated a fierce and uncompromising moral critique of Marxist and socialist dogmas years prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Frequent and often epistemological arguments lead to a palace coup and to his forced removal as Chairman and CEO of Publius Ovidius Naso.
Publius Ovidius Naso filed for bankruptcy in 1994 under a cloud of suspicious financial wrong doings, money laundering, and naive realism; itself a phenomenalist aberration rooted in empirical relativism.
1993 and a half- 1995
Special economic adviser and compliant side kick to his Majesty King Taufa’ahau™ (since 1965). The Friendly Republic of Tonga™.
Duties included shouting down Samoans, berating Tahitians and belittling those fools on Easter Island. Could have gone as far as deriding the “Good People of the Galapagos”™ but there is some kind of sanctuary there, crawling with leaf eaters. Adroitly advised the King to stick to bipeds, a euphemism, of course.
My position was terminated after a vicious, all out, tropical food and flotsam fight during Sunday service at ” Our Lady of Perpetual Desalination”. I was mercilessly set adrift on a jute raft from Nuku’alofa as punishment for my crimes but was picked up by a drunken Russian freighter plying the Cook Islands, trawling for signs of desperation.
Due to their severe inhibriation I was mistakenly identified for a wahine but once again managed to escape their advances by leaping onto a nearby Korean shrimp farmer. Those years with the traveling circus finally paid off as I became their favorite pet monkey; a perfect leap into the unknown but a brilliant career move.
1995-2001
Executive Pet Monkey to the Korean Ship farmer ” Atlantic Platypus”, a semi-aquatic bottom trawler with Liberian plates.
Duties included, pretending to be a coconut, peeling plantains, curling both lips to reveal a set of comedic brown teeth, massaging a wary crew with fish oil, collecting algae for the tender, which housed a magnificent exclusive spa and retreat. Other duties included translating “in screeches”™ what the lookout thought he was spotting, far off on the horizon, as well as delivering much needed supplies to Afghan refugees marooned on Christmas island (unfortunately, the irony was lost on our mostly Buddhist Kampuchean crew).
2001-Present
Managing Editor: ” Punjabi Represent”™,The Cole Valley Middle Aged Men’s Secret Society Magazine.
Duties include: Mixing bleach with ammonia, befriending pigeons to further my communication skills, shouting liftoff to my avian friends all the while encouraging them to reach for the sky, trampling underfoot and marching with penguins.
Special Skills:
Using agricultural metaphors in political speeches for the advancement of the hard of hearing and the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender community.
Making life deliberately hard for friends and family, so that they can redeem themselves through labor.
Legal latin. Try this at home: “Ab Initio, it should be said that there is a good prima facie case for my decision to forgo this curriculum vitae”.