21 February 2024

St. Claude x Deslonde St. New Orleans, 2012

 

12 March 2020

11 June 2019

21 January 2019






































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03 February 2018

31 January 2018

29 January 2018

06 November 2017

06 October 2017

LET ME BACK UP A LITTLE HERE.
Lets you take the pull down seat in the trunk section in this blue '79 Caprice Station Wagon that faces the "back" window, but since you have let me back up a little here, you'll see bumperstickers (I’D RATHER BE 300 FEET BEHIND YOU!) where it was meant to see windshields and I am stepping on it.  You find it funny and worrisome at once, for this is real rear wheel drive, and my acceleration in reverse gear gallops over the raised and bumpy railroad tracks so the Caprice goes airborne like some major motion heckova hunkova truck commercial and your pants moisten, you have suspended breath and your adrenals could sluice no better if a flaming volkswagen beetle had to be lifted to save your own little bundle of joy, for I have not turned my head to see the road in front of you; I am using the rearview mirror and this is what I meant by let me back up a little here.

Not to worry on this lightly travelled straight and mostly flat road lined with a lot of nothing but cotton fields and the occasional telephone pole should I lose control. I won't, I promise, reassuring that shy of a steep embankment, it is almost impossible to roll a Caprice Station Wagon.  I did not want to scare you so though and feel bad that your bladder has involuntered, how pale you are, so now we coast.  You take a deep breath in a relief that I appreciate as most of all it is audience that I need for this little backing up of mine.

Why don't we visit the drive-thru just like this: you go first, I'll let the electric window down and please order me a coffee along with whatever you like.
Do not try to escape or I will close the electric window on you, its one of the few things General Motors was doing right in '79 and you would be wise to take my word for the python like grip the window crank motor is capable of stopping you with - go ahead, get a Chalupa if you like and I promise to go slow while we eat. Thank you for witnessing my backing up a little here, please buckle up.







17 September 2017



13 June 2017

20 January 2017

17 April 2016

21 August 2015

Preview
Purchase
Po Boy New Orleans









































"Mere Nola got me. It's the first poetry book in a very long time I read cover to cover and felt bad that it didn't go on. It's a hell of a book, memoir, diary, journal, told with perfect pitch, great ear, perfect spoken Ingles. Tremendous writer, truly, master of the new Nawrleans lit, if not a chef d'ecole."
-- Andrei Codrescu







I Wuv My Van
DIY Couch Demo

The Mona Lisa Contest

Flower Photography in the Nineties

Queenie
Penny



Rivers Paw


Fester

The Garage Door Storey

The Coffee Shop Photographs



There Is A Foot on Geary Street



It's in the Muni bay in front of Martell's Liquors at 20th Avenue; these pictures began in 1987 and end 2003. The last time I checked in 2011 it was still there, collecting its whathaveu. Nathan tries to correct me that Geary is not a Street, but a Boulevard, and a Grand one at that - its mail codes go from 94108 to 94121. But "there is a foot on Geary St." was the mutter that directed me to click my shutter the first time (after three years of notice) and this is what I mean by Language Photography...I recall my mild concern in 1997, when it was marked with orange paint as a defect to fix by a public works employee, but they never got around to repairing this impression made by a shoe cast in wet cement.


GREAT MOMENTS IN MEDICINE

Colour Night Real Estate Photography


Corners and Napkins




in the end a pen takes to brick and flails

in the beginning, next to portions of four bricks

is a filthy paper waiting thumbnail, a napkin

chats about waiting in chairs at a reading to hear

then, turning the page a door slams

eardrum pulsing last cigaret looks

these are real corners you could encounter in the world

close at the scale of napkins, inside and out

what I have found, is a wave form

of course,  lunar lighting. stubble of stucco -

I could tell you plenty about Stucco, but Corners and Napkins

is not concerned with stucco, some corners trap

some corners - we do not know

some corners we do, for they Deify light

lime says cool

orange invites lizards to cross

green on the produce sign says notice

napkin relieves, assures

napkin will take a bullet for the Chief

napkin signed verifies invention

napkin tapping at corners of mouth

now decide if to lie and emphasize

cloud billow sail

perfection can be  routinely achieved in the photography of napkins

these resin coated colored 4"x6" papers are satisfying to compile

for the napkin photograph solicits its surface to write on and

i love cycles of perfection to ruin

some of these corners are severe

they are hard and promise it is a cold cruel world

corners you would not like in a prison guard

we like the corner that wanders for god

that cant, that wiggle, is ours

10 Covers of Triton



TEN DOLLAR BOOK! 


Inspector Wear Skirts

Hypermiling Saved My Life

   My Life in the Photo Booth

Sqibb City








20 August 2015

I W C W I A C

I W N B D I T H

I W N L W T T C M N


Randy's Discipline

Teacher dictated the lyric to Randy transcribed it 25 times.
It was exhibited in 1989 at New Langton Arts in San Francisco,
"Special Collections."

From a collection of mostly handwritten papers gathered by William Passarelli
Including a distressed loose leaf by Randy with a no two letters alike handwriting:

1. I will come when I am called. I will not break dance in
the halls. I will not laugh when teacher calls my name.
2.
(x 25)

I heard, and became a colony of its refrain...

Chris Sullivan April 2009 New Orleans




17 July 2015

August 21 2010

Jack once examined my drywall work and said

- What did you do, put it on with a fork?

I'd learned some since then but it was still more irony than spatula spreading mud over a ceiling repair at K’s house that afternoon, when As The World Turns rose into my ears and grinned for a full minute one character was called “Spot you are one of the most amazing men I've ever met and you deserve..."

 

Scott, actually. 

 

As to the leak in K's ceiling the short of it is I detected in the apartment above a failed bathtub drain seal that required a journeyman plumber to replace because it was a terrible fitting in a dangerous spot.

 

Longer, ducked through a short door to crouch into dim filthy hunched under the tips of 19th century nails 110° attic stuffed with cast iron sewing machines, a 45 inch plasma tv box, Canon windows 95 desktop computer, printers, guitars, teddy bears, old water heaters, floppy discs, clothes, stacks of circa 1960's magazines, blankets, obese bags of Mardi Gras beads, building materials, knick knacks, kitchen gadgets, souvenirs, curly corded telephones and reel to reel audio tapes.

Or, hazards to clear before tradesmen enter.

 

So gathered & collapsed cardboard boxes (despising styrofoam), filled six large debris bags while reckoning my sweat drenched labor would soon fill the van with 1200 miles west and that was not bad at all.  Behind all this was the last thing, a fancy shopping bag, from the department store Lenox “Gifts That Celebrate Life”, containing two large ziplok baggies, enclosing two paper bags covering two plastic snap lid quart jars.

I am a conscientious sorter and this attic built in 1870 was made of no telling, and also known to have included access to a Person of Interest in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Opened one, not unmindful it could fit a copy of the real Zapruder film (pre-seen in an 8mm metal cannister marked RZ).

First thought: bath salts?  Closer at the other.

Calcium (grey, flecked with white, I did not look long) of particle sizes I recognized, that sudden as a lash, released a faint, indefinably dreadful odor.

Remains.

A hit of nausea.

I took a break and went home to cool and shower.

Returned to K an old guitar he'd asked me to look for and kept for myself a fleece white Christmas teddy bear with a blue sweater.

He didn't know about anyone's ashes, saying must have belonged to an old tenant.  Over 40 years, there were too many to recall.

Probably shouldn't leave them there I said.

Oh no, K agreed, they could be haunting the house.

 Maybe you could spread them in the garden.

He didn't know about the gang of ferals that take my flower bed for a cat box.

 

That evening I'd go to the  Mississippi, five blocks away.

Meantime, where to keep these?

Not coming into my house.

No! Stated bike cargo basket.

The old green Coleman cooler under the house agreed, and there I placed them, careful to separate the lid from that much need to get out.

A refrain from Jimmy Dale Gilmore for what my 53 years had done three times before.

Tonight I think I'm going to go...

 

 

So, long ago left by tenant unknown two polyethylene snap lid quart urns containing cremains, the light is waning but bright, you ready?

 Would I be surprised to learn August 21 was the day you were born?

I don’t think it works that way.

I held another's once. I'd guess you were woman between 120 and 140 pounds.

That you were alright, cared for inside those bags, and perhaps too sudden or much or heavy for someone at one time and their month to month lease.

But you are finally going out tonight.

In the black shoulder bag Rebecca gave me in 2003.

A fine ride that has transported beach stuff home from the Gateway to the Spirit North America.  Kept camera, composition notebook and pen along a finger stick blood glucose monitor and medicine.

 

Ah...sorry.

 

A funny time at the Greyhound Bus Station in Atlanta, buying a newspaper when a strap got closed in a dispenser and not but four more quarters giving it up. Of course I had none and it took 10 minutes sawing the strap with a key but I caught my bus!.

You tug my shoulder.

About... 4 lbs?

What about Washington Square Park?

I don't have a clear picture of the Big Muddy.

Kind of Sedimentary?

Consider the palms and oaks shaded winding path to the Nola Aids Memorial.  Engraved names on granite bricks before a wall of glass faces by memorial benches, long leaves and purple flowers.

What about some grass then?

This bright and sunny lawn where dogs are constrained. Favored by running children, tossed frisbees, strummed guitars,  blankets, naps, novel readings and picnics, that sound alright?

No it had not occurred to me there is a law.

Pardon I did not greet this day considering your resting places.

 

I met the park in October 2005 as it was being taken over by commune hippies and barefoot doctors. They spent days clearing brush and opened the Welcome Home Kitchen for a traumatized four fifths vacant city that gained a little week by week.

Yes, it was like a village and I felt an ease to be among ruins much greater than mine.

800 meals a day, a place to congregate and convene. Free peanut butter and clothes and condoms. Meals Ready to Eat. Nice vegetarian dinners. Community washed dishes, so much that the Property Owners along the street got upset and shut it down after Thanksgiving...

 

Lets walk down Frenchmen.

I'd like a beer from the Deli.

Where Mama answers the phone to say, FremenDeliMayHelpYou?

In seven tenths of a second, I have recorded her greeting. 

Did you know my middle name is Impulse Buy at the Checkout Line?

A Peanut Crunch bar I'll enjoy just for you.

Two all smiles pretty young girls in little dresses and chubby arms just came in.

You like this kind of evening don't you?

Warm, golden hued, those racketing insects in the trees. I don't know. Perhaps you were an entomologist? Cicadas, crickets...

Passing Check Point Charlies. One guy playing to none, some wah wah 70's funk guitar, lets keep going.

Tugged Shoulder says you have been ready for a long time.

Sunny Side of the Street is being performed at the Balcony Music Club, formerly Oswald's Speakeasy.

No! We won't go down Decatur.

Left along the Mint. Right through the Market. Is closing now, just a few vendors loading vehicles. A bantering goes on. He's saying: That is None of Your Concern. 

This is about seeing him next Saturday.

Marvin Gaye on the PA, but isn't that sweet?

Past a courtyard where there's a live "and when we Kiss… Fire"...segue sax solo…

 

This last left delivers the river. Smells a little like Singapore past this restaurant. The waiter is on his game and a big round table is happy. Its great smelling and eating tasty things, don't you think.

 

So this is your view. Gov Nichols Wharf to the left, Jackson Square to the right, Algiers across the way, and right now the Bridge looks like a Joel Meyerowitz photograph.

 

We took our 2nd walk in Nola here. A Saturday afternoon in June.  I was staying in a big three story house otherwise unoccupied and that night she went to a wedding and returned a bit past tipsy.  We slept upstairs in the corner bedroom where a tribulum, clear as Chehvov, leaned against a wall. Some nights we tried the next bedroom over, it was like changing sets or inhabiting a beautiful painting.

 She said she loved me and it wasn't just the drink saying.

Well it was, but I did.

 

Anyway, this is where I made a buddy movie with Denzel called Déjà Vu.  Right there in Algiers. I was National Guardsman Buck Private DUNN. $75 a day and good food. I felt like a dope in the uniform, but at least I didn't have to wear those silly sailor white bell bottoms. I had a back story but it's a little grim for now. Board the Ferry with a few dozen sailors going to New Orleans on leave for Mardi Gras, we were directed to act uninhibitedly excited and happy.

Yes I had a hard time getting into character.

I did, and he gave me the Stink Eye for staring. 

I believe it was a moment of seclusion on the dock to puff a cigar that he wished for.

Oh he is definitely a lot of charisma, I could feel it from 40 feet away.

 

So let's do this. I'm climbing down the levee over big rocks.

I'm so grateful being able to walk and balance and hop and carry you.

Now there's a little sandbar. I'll put my feet in the water.

First Jar. You are a cloud of powder drifting away from the scatter. You are a white plume in the water. Sinking and filling in the ridges of sand. Now I'm walking a few yards away in the direction of the Bridge. I've tried to throw you farther, another cloud of powder has drifted away from your scatter.

 

A young man is stacking or writing with rocks on the sandbar. A couple walking along the Levee. A man sitting up there saying last week the water was this high. Pointing to where he sits. The young man with the rocks says yeah, it can go down fast. Pause at the trash can.

I'll keep your jars. Rinse them to keep my mother of pearl shards,

If you won't mind.

Walking back a band is playing Chaka Kahn.

Tell Me Something Good.