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Look up.

S

heesh. I started this post and forgot about it. Until now.

I try to post at noon my time. Obviously, I’m late. Very late. Sorry about that.

Let’s talk about stupidity and failure.

There is a guy who posts as NOLAphotoguild on Instagram. Today he wrote an eight page screed about freedom. I bet you know where this is going. He is calling for an end to all protections, all testing, all vaccinations for all things Covid. He wants FREEEEDUM.

A little research, starting on Facebook, revealed that he has started a number of photo-oriented ventures. Everyone of them failed. He started what amounts to a collective on Instagram. It earns no money but it has a lot of followers. He finally has one thing. A platform.

He’s bitter. He has a platform. His bitterness is going to kill someone like me.

What next?

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Shades of gold and brown.

W

hat a weird, but peaceful day. We did a lot of cold weather cooking. But, mostly I slept. And slept. Here’s how it went in the afternoon. I thought I would rest my computer eyes and read something on real paper at around 4pm. I awoke at 8:45pm. By the time my head cleared it was around 10pm.

Sheesh.

I guess I must have needed it, but I’m working at 11pm. I wonder if I’m going to sleep at anywhere near a more normal time.

Maybe what I did read caused me to pass out, not sleep.

T

his latest surge is averaging around one million people a day being diagnosed with CoVid-19. For now. There are all kinds of predictions about when it will peak. It’ll peak when people stop insisting on being stupid.

Although I wasn’t out in it, Christmas and New Year packed the French Quarter. I didn’t see a mask in any picture. Even my friends who mostly listened to music were hugging and kissing with no masks. They’d just better hope that some experts are wrong and that being vaccinated does protect them from this latest variant. I wish them nothing but the best, but come on y’all.

Of course, there is the coming Mardi Gras. A lot of people are whining that the city will close down the parades again as if that was the most important thing in the world. The city has modified parade routes because of a lack of staffing among NOPD, NOFD and EMT… due to CoVid issues.

Unless the spread is terrible the city isn’t shutting down the celebrations. We need the money.

We all need the money.

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Into the fog.

F

inally. It took a few days to find my footing but I knew that it would eventually come. So, as far as I’m concerned this is my first picture of the new year. It’s headed a little more in the direction that I’d like Storyteller to go, for as long as Storyteller exists.

I figured out what bothers me so much about This WordPress – GoDaddy thing. Steve Jobs once since said that computers and computing should be tools. They do the work while we create.

I’ve been messing with changing one simple thing for at least ten days.

What a waste of time.

Apparently, things have changed. There is a governing body call ICANN that controls who can actually touch a website or its code. This is an attempt to control hacking, to control illegal use, and theft.

Let’s face it. That horse has left the barn long ago. Most privacy is a lost cause. So, all they’ve done is made it harder for the rest of us.

WordPress is laughable.

They say in big advertising balloons. Create a business. Earn Money. Change your life. All the while tying our hands. Want to change your extension? Good luck. Want to design a page that suits you? Good luck while we change the block system every chance we get. Want to talk to a human being? There are no human beings.

Sunday thoughts.

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The Sandias.

C

ome darkness, come light.

The photograph comes from New Mexico. The words come from Virginia. They seem to cover most of my life for the last 15 years.

On this Christmas Eve and — soon to be — Day, I’d like to wish every one of you a Merry Christmas and a wonderful new year.

I cannot tell you what 2022 will yield, but I’m pretty sure that if we stick together even the bad things will turn a little good.

As many of you know, this has been as busy a year as I’ve ever known. So, I’m going to take a break. I’ll be back on January 1, 2022.

I promise.

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The view from above.

C

hristmas magic.

We need it this year, more than ever. This year sucked worse than the one before it. Still. The next year is gonna be worse. After all, it’s 2020 Too.

All I know is what they taught me once. The important things are simple. The simple things are hard.

This seems simple. Beat the hell out of every version of CoVid19 and Christmas 2020 Too will be better. That’s hard. Of course, if I have to deal with one more anti-vaxer I may make their journey real simple.

Meanwhile, in the other world, another culture bearer left this mortal coil. That’s three in a week. I’ve already been told that if I get sick walking in a jazz funeral the next one could be for me. Yeah, musical miss is a hard case.

That’s what you want.

Trust me.

You do.

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Christmas balls reflecting in the low dusk light.

W

e’ve been very busy. So, I keep forgetting. With two days, there is no more forgetting. There is only Christmas. So, I’ll start with an elderly picture that I made on the avenue. I’ll build from there.

There is good news.

Music is magic. The short people are here on their way to Disney Park with everyone else. We work. Sorta. On Christmas day and then we play. Mostly.

How magical is music? We subscribed to the Disney Channel via Hulu mostly to see The Beatles “Get Back.” The short ones are excited because they can see all sorts of stuff.

But.

They are watching The Beatles with mama and papa. They are singing note for note with The Beatles to songs that they’ve never heard.

Magic.

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At the edge.

I

t’s funny. I meant what I said. I don’t seem to be able to make a picture, or at least a meaningful one. Even this one. It’s just a bunch of old pictures stuck on top of each other.

I have no idea why I can’t seem to work. I’m sure two years of a pandemic has something to do with it. I’m restricted in just about every way possible and yet I have to keep going. I’ve been in New York to promote Norah’s Christmas music. I didn’t want to be there. I’m not so sure that she did either. But, it’s what we do.

The strange thing is that everything makes me teary. I’m not that guy, but even happy music either makes me sad or brings back deep memories. The kind I can’t just get rid of without a lot of effort.

Am I a classic mess?

I don’t think so. I think I’m just really, really exhausted.

Let’s hope that 2022 is a better year. But, I don’t think it will be. The virus rolls on and on and on.

All that I know is we have to start looking after each other a little better. We have to start now.

Peace.

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Clear and clean.

T

his has been a nightmare to post. For some reason the computer crashed. I had to go into recovery mode which dropped all of my passwords. Of course, everything that I needed to load took forever.

WordPress, which is always a problem, got worse. Spell check stopped functioning and try as I might I can not load the proper version of this picture. I put a border around the picture because it was blending into the page. Do you see a border? I can see the picture with a border on my desktop, but WordPress can’t see it.

I’m planning that during the first week or two of 2022 to make a lot of changes here. My numbers have dropped through the basement floor. They are as low as the first day that I started. Obviously, I’ve either reached my threshold or my work just plain sucks.

I’m pretty sure that I’ll pick one of the three options, I’ll post every other day, twice a week or not at all. I don’t need the grief of fighting with technology that I never wanted to learn in the first place. I don’t need to watch most of my friends make good process while I spin my wheels.

I thought that I made and produced a nice picture. I don’t think that right this minute.