Monday 27 October 2008

MacSweeney's Blackboard























Recently, Dan, a friend of mine died. It wasn’t sudden, and I’d expected it for about a year. Dan suffered. He’d suffered for years from OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and had tried to medicate it with alcohol much to the friends, families and wife’s despair.
When Dan was 15 his brother died from a brain Tumor and he always told me that as his brother lay dying slowly he’d pray by his bedside so that God would not take his brother. He told me his brother woke up once and said in his Wigan drawl,

“keep the praying down will ye?”.

The morning before Dan had got married to his wife he'd taken me to his brothers grave, blue plastic bag wrapped tightly around 3 cans and a fist. We drank two, the third was for his brother, pored slowly over his grave with scant words, and off we marched before the emotion.
  
Although Dan had the casing of an average northern working class Wiganer, inside was the mind of a genius who I loved more than I can possibly describe. He always called me his brother and I would say the same of him, but in the final year I’d lost him. I put up a lot of money to try and get him to go to a rehab clinic, but he always refused for some reason out of fear that the neighbours would find out. Eventually when the end came in the form of a phone call, regret was the first thing that came to mind.  

Could I have done more?

I remember once driving from Manchester to Liverpool on my way to source a short documentary and thinking, ‘I could go to see Dan or I could do this documentary’. I chose to go and see Dan. I remember going into his house, always the door open, and seeing Dan sat at the table with his back to me because he felt ashamed. And I walked up and just put my arms around him and he burst into tears.  

Regret is a terrible thing.

I regretted the thought I had when I knew the end that would happen a year in advance. ‘Maybe I could document Dan in this terrible time’? But I chose life over the recording of it.
Sounds a bit fucked right? In some ways yes, but in reality it was a privilege to have Known Dan regardless of how it ended. My conversations with him, some just musings others more specific about how he thought Caravaggio was a genius and Rothco a madman, or that the Who are still the greatest band, will never leave me and always aided me, made me in fact.

Where’s that a positive all American ending, well hold your paint brushes, I’m not done yet.

When I finally reconciled that Dan was gone I started to ring our old friends from art college, I even at one point tried to ring him to ask him what some of their numbers were. Shit technology, it has no feelings I thought, looking at his number that has no answer.

Before the funeral I went to see him in an open casket and sat with him talking to myself and crying. I stroked his head and even took photographs of him. I mean, I didn’t prop him in the corner of the room with a can of cider and a packet of Space raider crisps, which he probably would have wanted, they were just images to help me conceive this.

At the funeral hundreds of people turned up, our old college friends, his work mates from the post office and of course his drinking buddies. The Vicar freaked out with his wino nose and bumbling sermons that Dan would always laugh at. The vicar even said, “Dan was a generous man who gave to a cancer charity”, and I nearly burst into fits of laughter remembering Dans’ Derek & Clive impersonations.

Though this wasn’t the end of Dan to me, even when the coffin started to descend into the grave on top of his brother. Fuck, was this the absolute end, the cold blackness, the nothing? I wanted to pull the coffin out and drive off with it, ‘you fucker God, he suffered enough’, I thought. But you have to let him go. Go back into the Earth; let it absorb his pain and his personality that filled that body. In that final moment I turned to his father who, without tears, just looked at me, nodded, and turned away. Dans body was now gone.

Yet, to me, there is no end to Dan, no finality. I think a person you love always stays with you even when they are gone and you pass this crosspollination on to other people you meet without even knowing it. On that rainy day of Dans’ funeral I re-established old friendships that shared a common love of Dan and that lives on today.

To end, Dan always quoted Francis Bacon, who said,

“Life is only distraction from death”.

To which I’d always say in return,

“Yeah, but with you around what a bloody distraction it is”!

Friday 24 October 2008

Incidentals USA

Dressing gowns, van drivers and stupid photographers. - I was trying to get some long exposures in the pitch black at the Big Sur, when i heard someone running towards me, when they got to 3 feet away i could make out it was a man in a dressing gown. "Holly shit, you scarred the shit out of me" I exclaimed where as the guy jumped and stared at me and continued to run past when a breakdown van pulled up at speed.  They argued and he got in and they drove off.

"Hey what you got in your pocket!" one shouted,

"get out of here" I replied

"Hey I'm about to shoot you!" came his reply

"Get out of here" I said and stepped into the middle of Abbott Kinney Boulevard where i figured if I'm going to be shot I'd rather someone saw it, and thought if i run the bluff wouldn't work.

Sergeant Harris described himself as an officer with shoulders like an American football player over the phone, but in reality he was a shareholder in a donut shop. He arrived at my "Jolly Rancher" hotel after two guys had tried to rob me at gun point.

'Wig in the street' - What had happened the night before i'll never know but i talked to a homeless woman and her boyfriend here. I always remember the woman smoking even though she was pregnant, but i didn't judge her, just talked. She then said as she walked away that i should wear a coat in the SF fog, I laughed and thanked her and thought wow, she told me off not me telling her off.


Police officer LA ©timothyfoster





Girl with feet on windshield whilst reading book ©timothyfoster

Mother showing toddler her phone, San Fran ©timothyfoster

















Man with 9/11 tattoo at Hoover dam. ©timothyfoster
















God bless our armed forces at Hoover dam casino ©timothyfoster















Wig on floor in old district of San Fran ©timothyfoster









View from Getty museum ©timothyfoster




Van pulling over in Big Sur ©timothyfoster












Portraits USA

Portraits USA ©timothyfoster

Pimp selling watches. SF  "Say, that's an old camera, you want a watch?"Pimp pointing selling women, SF. "yeah, yeah, I get you somethin?"
Portraits USA ©timothyfoster
Rob, with hood up, hungover on Venice Beach, LA.  "Yeah, yeah, man.  Dancing and chatting but my days of Coke are over".
Portraits USA ©timothyfoster
Guitar player, Venice beach, LA. "hey come on man give me a buck for my picture, see look I can play with my teeth, surely that's worth a buck?"
Portraits USA ©timothyfoster
Chinese decorator, SF.  "No, no I no want my picture taken".
Portraits USA ©timothyfoster
Homeless man with head in hand early morning, SF
Portraits USA ©timothyfoster
Beggar in Sn Diego, "I'm waiting till I turn 60 and the government give me $1000. It ain't much but it'll do".
Portraits USA ©timothyfoster
Body Builder, Venice Beach area, LA.  "You want me like this, like this, hows this?"
Portraits USA ©timothyfoster

Haircuts and Machine guns



I would say that it’s hard to be a man and not know what machine gun you would like to fire, and when presented with a wall full of guns in a gun shop somewhere in outer Vegas wearing only a yellow tee-shirt, shorts and a pair of green flip-flops, I know my dress sense is chosen by Fido the rabid dog, but know exactly what gun I want to fire.

“I’d like to use the MP5”.

“Use sir? We only shoot here sir”

10 minutes later I’m choosing what target id like to use, ranging from the image of Osama Bin Laden to the image of Mexicans with knives or bizarrely what looks like your average gardener with a hose. I opt for the image that goes with the gun, a terrorist wearing a balaclava in a UK Embassy which is so out of fashion but in psyche of every 30 something’s subconscious.
I’m introduced to Derek and assistant at the range and shop, who shouts in my face at close quarters as were both wearing ear muffs covering me in spit, and I immediately notice that hes also armed and my heart rate rises. What the fuck am I doing here? Its saying with every beat.

We walk into a chamber with two Japanese tourists already firing an assault rifle and taking pictures of each other. BOOM BOOM, BOOM, hahaha, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM… this place is a fucking mad house, this state is a fucking madhouse and im a fucking nutter being here!

“Now son, Derek shouts brandishing the MP5, you might have got in here with a haircut like that but do you think you’d have got through customs with one of these?!” Were both laughing this is good, but I can’t help thinking I’m laughing through my ass.
“Now when I hand you this gun, continues Derek after running through how to shoot, it will be loaded and ready to go”. He begins to hand me the gun and then it happens. A moment. Very slight, but definitely there, hidden but not completely hidden in his smile. It is a moment of no return where he is handing me a loaded rifle that can kill him and myself and no one could stop me. Like were heading to a car crash in slow motion and there are no breaks. It is a moment in that corner of his mouth that I see and I think, 'He’s seen this before.

I freeze, laugh and hold the gun. It’s cold to touch and surprisingly light or is it that my adrenaline is flowing that it feels light? I shoot one then three then ten, then twelve then two and two more and click, click, click. It was that easy? Jesus it was so easy, too easy. I fire the second and last clip quicker this time and chat with Derek, who has friends in the Navy Seals who tells him about action and guns, and I think this guy is lonely and can’t wait to leave. Maybe I have an overbearing sadness from the drop in adrenaline, or maybe the it's realization I'm left with that I feel sorry for Derek who probably sleeps with a gun as his only companion and friend. I put the shot terrorist in the boot of my car whos rolled up and contained only by an elastic band and drive off into the Neon night.

Biking in LA







Biking in La is less an occupational hazard and more of a posing hazard. I was told more people crash looking at themselves in their purposely angled mirrors than they do from T-boning.
LA has two big meets every weekend depending on the weather. One at Neptunes Nest on the PCH (Pacific coast highway) which is mainly occupied by Harley riders or Potato mashers as they are known, and the other is on the Mulholland Highway at the Rok Café which is occupied by sports bikes or Rice rockets as they are known.


Both camps don’t mix well, it’s like the counties of the north of England, you never mix Lancashire and Yorkshire because theres always a fight if you do. He Potato camp is full of leather-heads and older men drinking beer and then riding their fat ass bikes at 3mph everywhere, whereas the Rice camp is full of younger kids still in the Army wearing nothing but tight jeans and tattoos, driving as fast as possible as though it were their last day before they are sent to Afghanistan.

Sunday 19 October 2008

Vegas

42 degrees, jesus, 42 degrees Celsius. so hot that even the crows fly with beaks open panting with this heat. Getting out of this car feels like an occupational hazard and i avoid even the thought of it let alone the actuality. With the air conditioning blasting I manage to stick my hand out of the window only to be greeted with a blast of dry hot air that feel like it will melt my hand like acid. But it's so beautiful here that you forget about the possibility of death in this land of the young, and your eyes glaze over as you marvel at the colours of the Mohaby desert with its umber and mauve tones.

When you do venture out from the mobile oasis of your car and into this epic scenery with Havana flip flops you crunch through under growth you think could be teeming with scorpions and spiders and suck in the heat which equals the saunas of Islingtons swimming pool complex. God, to make this road all the way out here, their bodies must have been made of leather and stone to work here, let alone their minds to even conceive the idea of doing this.20 Miles out of Baker heading north on the 15 to Las Vegas from the 7 lane motorways and down to just the 2 lanes, I'm accompanied by tourists in SUVs eager to spend thier exchange rate bonus, and polished trucks carrying their loads of army tank as we all drone collectively towards the bright lights of the Vegas madhouse.

When i arrive at the bad Ecalibur Casino its bright and lurid everywhere, but there's guys on bmxs hanging out in the car parks just off the strip. Nothing but smiles from some as I take their picture while the heat weighs more heavily on my shoulders than the old C330 camera around my neck.



Inside the oxygen is pumped in providing a light head and plenty of gambling from all the guests. In the lift a couple start chatting, "hey will you marry my daughter in Oxford, she needs her green card"? we all laugh and I realize everyones heres pissed.
Later on in the evening at the strip a car pulls up with a smart lady in the driving seat, she passes me and winds down the window and Hollars, "hey, wanna fuck ya'll?". Y'all??? so I answer in typical English manner, "no thanks, sorry".