Unwritten Notes, Joshua Tree

Maybe it’s cliche at this point, what with everything good left in the world turning into fodder for aspiring influencers, but I’ve always felt like Joshua Tree was one of those places that absolutely changes you, or one of those places you could really care less about. I am definitely one of the former. It is directly responsible for my somewhat secret love affair with the desert.

No. 0249_24A - Joshua Tree, 2013.

We stopped in Palm Springs for a night and made a loop through Joshua Tree on our way South. The outskirts of the park feels like one of those places that everyone just decided to forget about. Seems like the desert is full of people that were just passing through one day in 1987, got a flat tire, and never left. The park it self is too strange and bizarre to describe with any accuracy, and if I’m honest, I’ve had trouble making photographs there over the years, it’s simply too overwhelming. I try to go back as often as I can, but it’s been some time now and I’ve got the itch again.

I’m a city boy through and through these days and have been for a long time, but after that first visit to Joshua Tree I’ve had a strange longing to one day just get a flat tire in the middle of the desert, set up shop, and never leave…

Excerpts from the series “Unwritten Notes” - Photographs Made Elsewhere.

Comprised of work spanning nearly 15 years, the series is largely autobiographical and draws entirely from images made on the road, away from home...

Prints available upon request.

The Diminishing Returns of Free Spaces...

As the saying goes, if the product is free, you are the product.

We had myspace, and that was kind of a weird thing, then Tumblr happened and it was amazing until Yahoo absolutely destroyed it as they absolutely destroy everything they touch, then Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all these platforms that were once interesting slowly (and sometimes quickly) turned into absolute sewers.

My most popular instagram post of all time. Four thousand views. Less than 8% were my followers.

I’ve kept a website in some way shape or form for near 25 years now. I learned HTML and CSS way back when and hand coded sites and eventually got into wordpress and published a whole bunch of wildly erratic, esoteric, hap-hazard versions of what I thought was an interesting web presence and integrated it all into social media platforms. It was fun and new and I enjoyed it and it gave me the feeling that not only was I sharing my work but creating something interesting online that people might enjoy.

But alas, net neutrality died and “social media” was sold to the highest bidder and the days of tumblr and flickr and blogspot and all the other platforms that simply provided a space just went away, bulldozed and corrupted in the pursuit of capital. So it goes, and we’re left with ever more intrusive apps on the black mirror that want nothing more than all our content and all of our attention for free, and in return they show us ads and memes and pornography and garbage, generating incomprehensible wealth for everyone but those who are actually creating things.

Artist, dies of exposure, film at eleven…

“Content.” A funny concept these days. If I’m ever referred to as a content creator, please euthanize me.

We’ve been giving these platforms (multi-national corporations) our content (creative works) for free for so many years and in return we’ve been sold to, censored, shadow-banned, spammed, deleted and shit on. Destroyed by a simple change to the algorithm. Shutdown for speaking our minds. Banned for sharing out creative pursuits.

It is now perfectly legitimate to claim that immigrants are “pieces of shit” but the human figure remains obscene and unacceptable in the public discourse. How far we’ve fallen, with an array of pay to play platforms that now prioritize hate speech over human beauty to generate revenue. I find it difficult to take seriously the musings of a man that wears a million dollar wrist watch. He’s only in it for himself, and the entire thing has become untenable.

I’ve decided to extract myself from all meta platforms entirely. Instagram and facebook, have become unbearable and quite frankly are of no benefit to anyone aside from the owners and shareholders. At the end of the day, I own this space, my own space, which I’ve bee publishing to for near 25 years now. It is a record, one that will remain, regardless of the whims of billionaires, at least until I stop paying the bill.

If I’m honest, the returns have been far greater in my small corner of the web than I’ve ever enjoyed on any platform I’ve ever been a part of. I’ll be posting here almost exclusively from here on out.

There is a shift. Own your space. Say what you need to say. Publish the things you wish to see in the world. That’s what the internet was built for. Take it back.

Unwritten Notes, Los Angeles (again...)

I obviously didn’t know it at the time, but I met my wife on February 25th of 2012, on what was to be the first, last and only online date I ever went on. We met up at the Irish Bank, a divey little bar in San Francisco and several hours later ended up rather drunk on the Embarcadero water front, telling each other dirty jokes. I think I put her in a cab about 1:00 am. Years later she told me she was pissed I didn’t take her home.

No. 0249_10A - Joanna, Los Angeles Hotel, January of 2013

We took a long road trip about a year later, through Los Angeles to see some family, on to Palm Springs, through Joshua Tree, and down to Baja California in Mexico where we somehow acquired small beach dog, but that’s another story.

We stayed at some swanky hotel in LA for a long weekend on the way down, visiting her father in Pasadena and a close cousin of hers that was in town from the east coast. I didn’t find out until about 10 years later that she’d actually flown her cousin out to meet us for the purpose of vetting me. I guess I passed. We were married a year later.

Excerpts from the series “Unwritten Notes” - Photographs Made Elsewhere.

Comprised of work spanning nearly 15 years, the series is largely autobiographical and draws entirely from images made on the road, away from home...

Prints available upon request.

Unwritten Notes, Los Angeles

I do not like LA. There is entirely too much concrete and everyone drives like petty children on methamphetamines. It’s no good for my blood pressure or my mental health. Nonetheless, I seem to find myself down there more often than I’d like, for whatever reason, and it certainly is a target rich environment for both my judgmental nature as well as making pictures...

No. 0172_50 - Los Angeles, Ca. 2010

On the way home north from Palm Springs we stopped at Hot Wings Cafe on Melrose Avenue, apparently notorious for painfully spicy food, an old haunt of an old friend when he was living down in LA. My buddy and his wife ordered, as did I, and when our wings came out the waitress asks “who ordered mild?” When I replied they were for me, right out of the holster, with no hesitation, she says at full volume “wow, thought these were for the chick…”

Always fun to be emasculated in public by a 19 year old.

I do not like painful food. I really do not like LA.

Excerpts from the series “Unwritten Notes” - Photographs Made Elsewhere.

Comprised of work spanning nearly 15 years, the series is largely autobiographical and draws entirely from images made on the road, away from home...

Prints available upon request.

Unwritten Notes, Palm Springs

I had never been to Palm Springs before when a good friend asked me to be his best man, also a first. I was absolutely flat broke and very recently single and had almost no interest in being a part of anything so wholesome and festive as a wedding, but I agreed. They were getting married at the Ace Hotel, which we lovingly referred to as the “hipster compound.” I stayed at the Motel 6 next door, split between 2 credit cards. It was a weird time and I was in a bad place.

No. 0170_29 - Denny (the Bride), Ace Hotel, Palm Springs, Ca. 2010

The groom tried to set me up with a friend of his from back east that was moving to San Francisco in a few months. She was cute and funny and we hit it off immediately but I was drinking vodka gimlets like they were water and she made the mistake of trying to keep up and ended up sick in her hotel room by about 7pm and I went home alone. Like I said it was a weird time and I was in a bad place.

No. 0172_00 - Self Portrait, Motel 6, Palm Springs, Ca. 2010

Funny, I never fancied myself a Palm Springs fan, but I seem to end up down there at least once a year. These days I stay at The Ace instead of the Motel 6. All the same hipsters are there but now they all have kids and hybrid cars much like myself. The Ace Hotel bar still makes a mean vodka gimlet though.

Excerpts from the series “Unwritten Notes” - Photographs Made Elsewhere.

Comprised of work spanning nearly 15 years, the series is largely autobiographical and draws entirely from images made on the road, away from home...

Prints available upon request.