vignette #4 - The Hardest Thing

It isn’t even the song, “The Hardest Thing” it’s the song “Orange County” but the first points to it but Orange County sings it.

Music is always soundtracking my life… When I was young it was cassettes and live music, then the radio. Many people listen to the radio, when I was young there was one radio station, K-15, an AM station and the DJ was Johnny D. IF, I listened to the radio, it was at night, late.

But I went to the school of the Clash, Joe Strummer politics, he taught me how to think about the poor, how not to be prejudiced, how cool punk rock was, and attitude, how reggae could be woven into punk rock sound blending genres, but with verve. 

DEVO making futuristic anti disco dance music. Funny, I’ve been to dance clubs they played DEVO, but the not DEVO DEVO songs, hard to explain, I say Whip it Good might be a start but give the past the slip, ok?

Kraftwerk was killing it on the other side of the globe. I remember hearing Autobahn in my freshman year, I don’t listen to the radio but I heard it on the radio. It’s a really long song and it was late night, I think I was fourteen or fifteen. I remember exactly where I was at, I remember it was warm, summer, I remember knowing I liked this new type of music, nothing like anything going on at the time. Just a few years later, before any of us had home computers, they wrote a song about meeting love online through a computer. The internet wasn’t even a thing but there they are not only having written about the future but playing their music around the world.

I meet my wife online, Computer Love, imagine that, they did and my wife introduced me to the Gorillaz back in two thousand four. One of the coolest things about her and she’s the thing that this song is about.

But the hardest thing, or Orange County, but the hardest thing thing going on in the new Gorillaz album, it’s the thing. I can’t figure it out. That’s what good music does to me, it makes me think, it makes me happy, sad, melancholy. It drives me to the next thing, it’s on my mind. If I live in the living room, it’s playing in the kitchen, I can hear it playing in the background but it’s in the kitchen where I cook things up to live in, the living room. Where I remember and write. Music is in the kitchen, life is in the living room and outside in my car, the sound continues.

It’s the hardest thing to figure out how they continue to do it over and over, spinning over, over and over.

I enjoy reading the lyrics secondary to listening to them. The hardest thing about this song is trying to get the ideas out of my head and into this iPad, The hardest thing in the kitchen is Orange County or is it the hardest thing.

You know the hardest thing
Is to say goodbye to someone you love
That's the hardest thing

You know the hardest thing
Is to say goodbye to someone you love
That's the hardest thing

Every face you forgot
Father's jaw, they suspend the clock
Another start
Get another chance to love
I hear you now
I understand you lost the day to get tomorrow back
But what of the toll?
That's the hardest thing we've been through

I'm not your enemy
Your legacy frightens me
Will I keep it gold
Or will it spoil
Before I get the chance to go?
I don't know if I can take this anymore
So why you tryna break me?
I don't know if I can stay on boards (on boards, on boards)

You know the hardest thing
Is to say goodbye to someone you love
That's the hardest thing

I'm not your enemy
Your legacy frightens me
Will I keep it gold
Or will it spoil
Before I get the chance to grow?

You know the hardest thing
Is to say goodbye to someone you love
That's the hardest thing

And I'm not your enemy
You're out and gone, you stand alone, and everything you gave
To someone you love
That's the hardest thing
That's the hardest thing

That's the hardest thing

I don't know if I can take this anymore
So why you trying to break me?

That's the hardest thing

The Gorillaz feature other artists. Their albums are filled with all kinds of artists. 

…and art.

Some of you may know the story within the story of the Gorillaz. There are many. Jamie Hewlett, fifty seven years old, a comic book artist, Damon Albarn, frontman for Blur and primary music man together with Jamie Hewlett make up the Gorillaz.

The first time I saw them was like going back in time. I told you they featured artists. Mick Jones and Paul Simonon, half of the Clash on stage! Holy shit! The Clash are legend and broken up but there they were, up on stage with my favorite band. We all deserve this. Damon did not play up that he had the Clash playing with them, they are legend, they were playing in the Gorillaz, that’s the hardest thing to know that I was there, experiencing this with them but that’s what artists do, surround themselves with artists.

I figure I have maybe twenty more years of life. I’m retirement age, an old man, a bonafide official old man. I don’t think I am but I am. I’ve live(d) a wonderful life, an amazing life and I’m not done. I feel like I’m just getting started but that’s just wishful thinking. My kids are grown, my youngest going to college, I retire so soon, next years calendar is the last work calendar.

Orange County is probably about death, either of a life or a life together. But it’s an upbeat whistling song, something I’ll be happy to listen to on a long drive. Next week I’ll drive to the Petrified National Forest, cue the Mountain, play it again in the vastness of the Painted Desert. I’ve lived and this is all I know, to find adventure on my own, hiking alone, backpack with the best old school Nikon glass, find the ancient artist, that’s the hardest thing.

AF VR Nikkor 80-400 f4.5-5.6 D

AF VR Nikkor 80-400 f4.5 - 5.6 D

s/n: 472634

I sold the AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 G ED VR FX. It was a great lens for sure but sort of too good. It was staying on my D780. It had low end and it had legs! It shot wide and long, 300mm long. On the wide end, I have lenses that I prefer, the AF-S Nikkor 14-24 f2.8 G ED FX in particular or the AF Nikkor 20-35mm f2.8 D. Even the AF-S Nikkor 28-70mm f2.8 D, I want what I want on the low end, so I shook things up.

I sold nearly all my gelded lens.

Spoiler alert for me, I purchased a DEFOCUS 105mm F2 D.

Huh?

Anyway, why purchase a 80-400? 

It has an aperture ring, VR and it’s a sturdy lens. I need a longer landscape lens for hunting distant petroglyphs. I also want to try some birding and well, I’m going to photograph the Tovrea Castle. I can’t get very close, but with a 400mm lens, with VR I can. 

I didn’t set out to buy this particular lens. It presented itself to me on a Marketplace in social media. It was relatively inexpensive compared to auction house and national online camera stores. Pretty quickly I committed to it. We worked out the logistics and a few days later, it’s in my hands. 

I use combination of baby wipes, Q-tips with a little lighter fluid and Maguiers plastic polish to buff out the tiny scratch on the focus distance window. The cleaning and inspection went well. I first mounted it on the F6 and it quickly sought focus. On the D780, same thing. 

It’s going to be a great lens to use hand held but man, it’s heavy. I’m going to get a LowePro Toploader for it to carry in the field. The extra 100mm is a big deal, the weight isn’t. 

The four above images are the first four from this lens after cleaning and mounting on my D780. I simply went outside and took quick shots to check out detail and acquisition. I will add in a few images once I take it on an assignment.

Resources

Ken Rockwell: Nikon 80-400mm VR FX AF-D f/4.5-5.6

Steve Danielsson's Nikon AF VR Nikkor 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED Test Review

NIKKOR - The Thousand and One Nights No.35

Nikonians: Nikkor AF 80-400mm/4.5-5.6ED VR Review

camera | lens | film | flash

Death

It sounds so final.

Frightening.

Taboo, you just don’t talk much about it.

Why would I want to?

Because it is a part of life and everyone will experience it. 

No one will escape it.

There have been three or four times in my life that I was close to it, really close. Twice I accepted it, once I fought it. Once was way up in the sky all by myself. I was losing control of my hang glider and I was very cold. I began to cry, sobbing because I was not going to die quickly but it was going to be a violent spinning out of the sky impacting the ground miles away from anyone. Obviously I didn’t die, but it was an event that happened and it was not over quickly, it was an hour long battle to live.

A few years before I was on the West shore of O’ahu surfing big waves by myself. I couldn’t make it out of the tube and was forced deep. I could hear rocks banging around on the bottom and I did not know which way was up. At the surface, the foam was thick and I couldn’t get a breath before being mowed down by the next wave. I began to get warm and I relaxed. I knew I was drowning and this was the only thing I knew to do, relax and go with it. All of a sudden, I found myself at the surface. Big breath, no wave, pull in the long leash and paddle, in.

The next one was Covid, I had it early. I couldn’t breath, my heart racing, my skin, anything that touched my skin was pins and needles. I tried to sleep but was so miserable. I closed my eyes one night and thought I would rather die than to live in so much pain. But I did not die, I woke up. I started walking the next day and began to get better.

The last time was a few years ago. I had a read on an X-ray that indicated a possibility of incurable aggressive cancer. For about three days my mind spun. 

The thing that gave me peace was that everyone dies. The choice for me was what I was going to do with the time I had left?

Work.

Help others.

Helping others makes me happy and it made sense to me. It kept my mind off of feeling sorry for myself.

The CT and exam came back negative. That one hit home.

Death is just a part of life. The only way we can escape it is by living right. Living right would be to live with integrity. Being honest with yourself, your family and everyone around you. Not wasting your time, being productive the best you can be.

I’m going to eat ice cream, bacon and eat what I want, in moderation. Everything in moderation. I’m going to practice controlling my thoughts. No hatred of anything or anyone. I’ll practice getting better at my interests. I love taking pictures, writing, cataloging my thoughts, my pictures, my life. I often look back at what I’ve done.

In this case, this web site is a year old! Feels like a lot longer. That’s a desired effect.

I never wish my time away…

But what happens to us when we die?

I don’t know, I’m too busy living.

Bento Box

My Bento (lunch box) given to me by a friend in Japan

I enjoy Japanese culture. My first visit to Japan was in 1985. I was in the Army, a combat medic in the infantry. This was a period of peace. There were no global conflicts. The Vietnam war was over. The quick US invasion of Grenada was over. It was a relatively peaceful time and my trip to Japan was a joint training exercise with the Japanese ground forces. I stayed at a Marine base at the base of Mt. Fuji for about a month. We did the things that the infantry do, we went to the range and honed our skills in targeting with fully automatic weapons. Practicing our land navigation skills and receiving a brief about our time off. We were told that we would see Japanese protesters along the perimeter fence, they would hold signs and chant anti-American armed forces things. We were told that would stop about five p.m. and we could leave the base at six. There were several Japanese bars, restaurants and Izakaya within walking distance.

You will be sharing those places with the protesters…

And it was true. 

Japanese people are some of the best people on our planet. Politics are ills of a necessary evil, the government. We are people, friends of the Japanese people. We were off work and it is time to enjoy a beer, maybe a little food and talk about our interests. We are not the enemy. We are people first.

I learn about humanity and the human condition from Japanese culture. We are people first, citizens next and protesting peacefully is absolutely necessary. Speaking of being people first, if someone is a supporter of the current in power administration of the United States government, they are not people I want to share my time with. They can fuck off. My time is far too valuable to spend with people that do not support diversity and law.

This being said, later, I travelled to Japan two more times as a fisherman. I meet with old and young Japanese fishermen. We traveled to the mountain streams to enjoy a little trout fishing here and there. I travelled from one group to another sharing stories of my own culture and drinking, celebrating life with my friends. Rarely did we talk politics but when we did, the government was always referred to as necessary, usually not good and not well run. Mostly we spoke of each others time growing up, our families and what it was like living in each others country.

Japanese culture is interesting. It is central to the human condition. In busy areas, people are polite, if someone drops something, people help pick it up. Because everyone is helpful, the seemingly chaotic crowded streets are not so random but contain order. Everybody everywhere is doing something different but everyone contributes to the whole by operating with a simple set of orderly politeness.

It is an amazing thing to participate in and understand.

My bento box was presented to me as a gift. I use it for leftovers from dinner for lunch the next day. It is made of wood and natural cloth. The joints are pinned with wood, there is no metal and the lacquer covers the entirety of the wood.

It is a traditional Japanese item used everyday and every time I use it I am reminded of just how cool the Japanese people are and how they look at humanity.

The Arizona Biltmore

The Arizona Biltmore

Nikon D780  ~ AF Nikkor 20-35mm f2.8 D 

I’ve always wanted to photograph the grounds. As a young teenager, my friends father, Tommy Reed had an orchestra. I would help him set up his father’s equipment in the ballroom. I just remember the place being so opulent, beautiful.

This is the first time I’ve been there with a camera. I’m definitely gonna go back, but if anything, I’m gonna go back and have a drink, this place is super cool. I live in Phoenix, I want to stay here for the weekend. If not anything but to have dinner, relax by the pool and just live for a moment in luxury.

FrankLloydWright.com Though the extent of Wright’s involvement with this project remains unclear, the Arizona Biltmore Hotel and Cottage complex is generally recognized as a collaboration between Wright and Albert Chase McArthur, a former draftsman in Wright’s Oak Park studio.

It is amazingly aesthetic, magnificently luxurious, the staff are accepting and nice. I pulled up to the guest check in with my Forester, “Hi, I’m here to take a few photos…” and the gentleman pointed a few car lengths away, “Park there” and I grabbed my stuff. “Keys please” and I asked him for a tab, “ Your taking pictures, you don’t need a receipt.” We laughed and I tossed him my keys.

The Arizona Biltmore