Statue in Fremantle
Flower power!
Snapshot collecting is a trend in Berkeley CA
[Note: In an effort to enhance the reading on the humor scale, this column will be found to contain trace elements of braggadocio and fabricated verisimilitude.]
Due to the fact that a member of the Fortyniners did his imitation of Bill Bruckner style clutch performance twice in one game last Sunday, we are obliged [It’s never fun to lose a bet] to start this week’s weekend wrap up by plugging a blog (www.franknicodemus.org
{did she say it was the Cadillac of blogs or a blog about Cadillacs?}) for a Giants fan and then proceeding on to our regularly scheduled ration of amazingly perceptive and insightful political punditry interwoven with unique observations about pop culture.
Are the mainstream media pundits pointing out the absurd spectacle presented by the fact that a year long cavalcade of clichés proclaiming that the most important Presidential election ever? It is starting with a concerted effort by top Republican personalities to discredit the two leading candidates. How dare the Republican rank ’n’ file voters think that they can select the nominee! Isn’t the core principle of a Republic that only qualified persons (such as men who own land) can vote? Well then only folks like Bob Dole and Karl Rove should be consulted when it comes time to write a news story that will refer to “the Republican frontrunner.”
If it ain’t gonna be Romney or Gingrich, then who will it be? If the experts on the weekend shouting matches can’t tell you that, do you really expect the World’s Laziest Journalist to make an accurate prediction which will spoil the surprise? Here’s a hint: what totally qualified Republican has the initials: J. E. B.?
The Republicans lately have been rather insistent about starting a tiny, quick war with Iran. The Republicans always harshly criticize everything Obama does. If President Obama starts a war with Iran; will that force the Republicans into making a tough fielder’s choice decision? They can either cheer him on in the conduct of a blitzkrieg in the Gulf or they can denounce him for doing what they wanted to do.
Even if President Obama starts a new war they really want, and even if he personally goes into battle and wins a Medal of Honor and the war is won in thirty minutes, the Republicans would sincerely ridicule that as being a despicable inept spectacle that has brought shame and dishonor to the country.
Where can we get a photo that contrasts flower power with a soldier’s weapon to illustrate the dilemma facing the USA this week? There was an iconic Sixties image that showed a hippie guy placing the stem of a flower into the barrel of an M-1. That image is rather common on the Internets, but we won’t use it because we don’t know who owns the rights to the famous shot, so that makes getting permission to use that shot a moot question.
Berkeley CA is rather synonymous with both flower power and anti-war demonstrations and, as luck would have it, to promote the current production at the Ashby Stage (home of the Shotgun Players) a relevant new mural is being used to tout it. It is a graphic design featuring an M-16 with a flower dangling from the gun barrel. Click. Voila! We now have in our possession, a digital file of an image that makes getting permission to use it seem like a schizophrenic’s soliloquy .
Who knew that being an online columnist would eventually require a fellow to acquire a stockpile of stock photos and a handbook full of information about the art director’s job?
(Most columnists online or in print journalism have probably never heard of Alexey Brodovitch, let alone aspire to his level of art direction achievements in page layout and photo illustrations to supplement the text on the page.)
Did other political pundits report that on a fundraising visit to San Francisco, the columnist’s old grade school classmate Joey Biden suffered a verbal malfunction that revealed his lack of sports expertise show? The gaff landed Biden on page one of the San Francisco Examiner the next day for saying that the Giants were going to the Superbowl. Wouldn’t a photo of the security detail assigned to the Vice President be an example of an anemic illustration for a weekend wrap up that runs more than a week later?
It’s tough enough to get up early, pound out a column that the writer hopes is entertaining and informative augmented by (occasionally) topics that are subsequently used in the main stream media, and then go to a public library to get access to the Internets to post it; but when you add on the duties of a photographer and an amateur art director to the “to do” list, that makes it all the more time consuming. Herb Caen, who wrote a daily column in San Francisco for sixty years never had to spend time finding a photo that was relevant to his column, did he?
What if the columnist’s stock photo files have some nifty photos of Bon Scott’s statue in Fremantle Western Australia, but he didn’t get any images of the Occupy the Cal Library news story during the week? Will UCB students be upset that the library story wasn’t covered by the photographer? Do kids these days even know who Bon Scott was? Well, such a shot would be sure to draw about one Google searching person somewhere in the world to the site every day for years to come. Unfortunately no American website would be willing to reimburse the photographer for the expenses that would be incurred in the effort to get such images.
What if the journalist’s trend-spotting radar picks up a regional anomaly? If snapshot collecting is not becoming popular anywhere else but in Berkeley and if the columnist gets caught up in the “hobby,” does it deserve to be a trend-spotting column topic? Is a decades old photo print considered to be in the public domain? Would the topic of snapshot collecting be a valid excuse for running an intriguing old snapshot with no caption material?
The columnist seems to find images featuring old automobiles irresistible even on a tight budget. Someday, if we ever write a trend-spotting column about snapshot collecting, we will probably have several eye-catching images to go with it.
A homeless writer in Berkeley CA caused a bit of a small sensation online this week by challenging Mitt Romney to do a Prince and the Pauper routine and trade places. The Berkeley fellow, James Richard Armstrong II, is on Facebook and looking to expand his fan base by adding more readers to his list of friends, so folks who want to follow his progress can go to that site and send him an invitation to be an e-friend. A good portrait of him would have been a good photo illustration for this column.
If Corporations are going to have the same rights and privileges as people, then when will they be permitted to compete in the Olympic Games? Wouldn’t the New York Yankees kick ass in the baseball competition? Life magazine has collected the 100 best sports pictures for a gallery on their website.
We were introduced to a fellow in Berkeley this week whose claim to fame was being “Louie the Turkey” on some Frank Zappa recordings. Unfortunately we didn’t get a photo of the fellow.
On Saturday, Occupy Oakland is planning an event which, if the World’s Laziest Journalist goes, might provide some acceptable accompanying news photos for a weekend warp-up column that will get posted next Friday.
The quest for good photos will continue . . .
Alexey Brodovitch has been quoted as saying:
A. “This disease of our age is boredom… The way to combat this is by invention – by surprise. When I say a good picture has surprise value, I mean that it stimulates my thinking and intrigues me.”
B. “A good picture must be a completely individual expression which intrigues the viewer and forces him to think.”
C. “If [an artist] is to maintain his integrity, he must be responsible to himself; he must seek a public which will accept his vision, rather than pervert his vision to fit that public.”
D. “If you see something you have seen before, don’t click the shutter.”
E. All of the above.
Now the disk jockey will play “Kodachrome,” Ferde Grofé’s “Grand Canyon Suite,” and Ferrantey and Teicher’s “Canadian Sunset.” We have to go find a movie theater showing “Hugo” in 2-D. Have a “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera!” type week.