Washington is not like Paris. People generally don't hang out at a cafe and watch the parade of life march by. Washington is more of a drive by in a car city than a stroll down the street city. But, that being said, there are opportunities for public watching/resting/eating/drinking. They are few, but they exist.

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If I had a house that was big enough to have large, empty rooms, like this, I would want to decorate it with Warhols, just like this.

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I have always been a fan of Warhol's. What a nut! What fantastic output! I guess it wasn't called the Factory for nothing. His images are our images. His experiences were our experiences. He was the Ultimate American. How many artists get shot by crazy fans? Not many. I can only count one: Warhol. How many artists find a way to make tons of money? Not many. I can only count a few besides Warhol. How many artists get famous enough to hang out with the Rolling Stones? Not many besides Warhol. He even had his own R&R band in the Velvets. And the Beauties! Don't even get me started on the Beauties. Warhol was not one of them, so he worshiped them and then gave them immortality. Cool trick, huh?

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In the morning the light is so soft and forgiving. In the morning everyone is in a rush to get there on time. Or get there early so that they can leave a few minutes early or have a longer lunch period. In the morning, there should be time to take it slow and reenter the world softly, but it rarely works out that way most mornings.

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Self Portrait

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He just didn't understand what the big deal was. He didn't understand why people didn't understand about killing. All killing was was changing a creature that moved into a creature that didn't. It was really that simple. He had been trained to kill since he was a boy and went hunting with his dad or uncles. Then he was trained as a soldier. It was just changing something that moved into something that didn't. God didn't have anything to do with it. When he pulled the trigger, or sank the knife blade up to the hilt into moving, moist muscle, it had nothing to do with God. God was not there then. It was only him and the creature, or him and the soldier. Him and the man. And then it was over and only one of the two remained alive. The other became a creature that didn't.

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Some signs from Saturday's protests.

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Some more signage.

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Much of the downtown area near the Mall was closed to traffic, vehicular and pedestrian. This is where the police were watching from. I think it must have been a long, boring day. In order to get from the Mall to an exhibition of Warhol painting at the Corcoran, one had to walk about 15 blocks around the blockades uptown, then stroll across and down. The Warhol could not really compete with what was going on outside, however. Reality is always much better than art.

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People came to excersize their rights of free speach this past weekend. It was a good thing to see and a good thing to be a part of. There was real diversity of age and of point of view and of goals and tactics. The police presence was low key. It was overcast and cool. It was good to be outside and among friends.

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Evenually, it all comes back to geometry, doesn't it?

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Happy Birthday Bill.

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DC Metro stop

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Self portrait with glass doors. Makes me look thin!

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She came here now to rest and to be alone with her thoughts. It was a quiet place in the sun and the green of the tended lawn comforted her. She craved the feeling of sun on her face, knowing that too soon it would be winter and the warmth would be gone. He had been dead now for almost a dozen years. For a long time she felt nothing at all; just passed from one day to the next without thinking about him or their life together. But, recently, she had begun to feel his presence. She could sense a nearness and feel the warmth of his breath on her neck. At first it frightened her a bit. She thought that it was maybe the result of something going wrong inside of her; a stroke maybe. Yes, maybe a small explosion in her brain. But, now, she felt otherwise. She liked to come here and be still and let the feeling of his closeness comfort her, the way it did so long ago. It made her feel. Feel what? Feel what it is like to be with someone who loves you, she decided. It made her remember what it was like to be with him and to communicate without talking, the way that people used to one another did. And that feeling here, while sitting on the bench in the sun, felt good.

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Wind flags. PG County Fair 2005: an abstraction of pure color.

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I guess you'd have to say that he was nothing but a hanged dog. Just a cryin' all the time.

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It's the stuff. It's all the stuff. The endless stuff that smothers you while you sleep so that you awake with a start, gasping for breath. The duplication of stuff that you already have; the stuff that you didn't need, or really, even want, to begin with. It's the stuff that's made cheaply somewhere else and then brought here. You are made to want it, to desire it, a need that almost causes pain. A deep, sterile, pain, throbbing; a longing, a want, a desire. Sometimes, its almost sexual, this gnawing need. No matter where you turn, or where you try to hide, it always comes back to the stuff. The endless, mindless, stuff. The itch that can't be scratched. The want that can never be satisfied. The stuff.

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Rubber Duckies. Some with Sun Glasses. Some without.

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It's hard work in a hot sun at the County Fair. This threesome are relaxing toward the end of their long day. The sunlight was golden and the shadows subtle. Looks like an ad for a beer or cigarettes.

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The Ferris Wheel, fenced in.

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This should have been something that Ed Ruscha painted. Maybe he still can. There's great saturated color here, as well as a mysteriously vague word. And colored lightbulbs. They're the soul of this construction. I am always sorry to realize how useless colored lightbulbs are inside a building, inside my home. They're much better used outside. The structure here is using a bunch of them. I didn't wait for dark to get the full effect. As it is shown here was good enough for me. TANG!

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Freak Out" Cold Drinks! Depending on the time of year, that's not a bad thing to consider.

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An America image for Americans.

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The Ferris Wheel is among the biggest rides at the fair. It casts a large shadow. Also, it's a tradition. Everybody, at some point, rides the Ferris Wheel. It's not a "puke" ride. It's a "make-out" ride. It also offers great views of the surround. It's great for Moms and Dads and youngsters and Grand Parents from out of town.

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Red Room. Or, RedRum. Whatever.

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Somebody up there is having a great time: The Prince Georges County (Maryland) Country Fair. When we were in Paris a few years ago, we rode on a Ferris Wheel in the Jardin des Tuileries. It was a very old Ferris Wheel and we later was told that when carnival rides no longer meet US safety specifications, they are shipped over to somewhere, like France, where they aren't so picky. The one in Paris we rode in had no restraining belts or bars; there was no door or anything that might keep someone from accidentally falling out. The carriage of this thing was round and open and swayed back and forth. As a result, the ride was very exciting. We could almost believe that we had cheated death. It was great! The view was nice, too. The Ferris Wheel pictured here, however, demonstrated all the latest safety features that we've grown to expect. The ride was great anyway. We did it twice.

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Self Portrait with Pontiac: I'm a sucker for antique automobiles. I can't explain why. It's just a "thing" that I have. The 50s were a time, it seems, when America was at the top of its game and the automotive companies, and there were a lot of them, battled each other every year for the best/sexiest/most innovative design; for introducing new features and luxury. My uncles and my dad all got new cars every three years, no matter what. One uncle always bought Chevys; another always bought a Ford. A family friend always went for Chrysler. He was super-hip. Must have been rich, or at least that's what we thought. There was no such thing as a "foreign" car back then. Volkswagens, I guess, were the first wave. Now it's hard to find a US made car. The whole new car thing stopped being exciting for me a long time ago. I guess they're pretty much the same, the only obvious difference being SIZE. I still like to look at the classics, though. They still look pretty good to me.

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This weekend was the annual Prince Georges Country Fair. I love the Fair. There's so much to see. It's one of the best places on Earth, I think, to people watch. There are rides to go on, junk food that isn't available at any other time or place to eat, stinky farm animals to talk to. I always look forward to seeing the GIANT vegetables, which are usually some variety of squash or melon. The chickens and roosters are a big favorite. Who would have ever guessed that these crowing and egg-laying critters could come is so many weird colors and with such outrageous add-ons, such as feathered feet that look like snow shoes? The Fair is very visually dense, with layers of shape and color. It's the only place to see an inflatable Tweety Bird standing in front of an inflatable Batman. What could, really, be better?

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She always wore red on Thursdays. This is something that she'd done now for many years. It was funny, but most people that she worked with and even friends of hers didn't pick up on this pattern in her life. They were aware, of course, that she wore red often, but they didn't focus in on the fact that the red wearing days were always on Thursday, and only on Thursday. She wouldn't have been able to explain to you, if you asked, why or how Thursday became the "Red" day. It just happened, like so many other things in life. It just started one Thursday, years ago, and then was followed by the next Thursday and so on. Now, she would no more wear another color on Thursday than she would leave the house wearing her bathrobe, or nothing at all. It was a preposterous idea to her now. Thursdays were Red days. That's just the way it is.

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I have never known exactly what it means to "have a leg up". But, if it is a good thing to have a leg up, I think this woman has one. A leg up that is. And I can't think that anyone would have it, really, any other way. She and her companion (who does not have a leg up) appear to be studying a map. Perhaps they are lost. These things happen. If they are from out of town, they may be trying to determine what those buildings are over there on the left. That would be Georgetown, as seen from the roof top terrace of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. But they didn't ask me.

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This is not something you ever want to see in Washington, DC. Not anywhere. Not anytime. This is a scary thing. Particularly, you don't want to see it where it is now: in front of the White House. What kind of emergency, do you think, would it take to call out the Secret Police Security truck to the White House? Especially considering how difficult it is to drive up to the White House Gates. There are guardhouses on each side of Pennsylvania Avenue. There are fireplug sized metal things coming out of the ground to stop cars, trucks, tanks for all I know. When someone, like the Secret Police Security Truck or those black Ford SUVs with the grayed out windows, want to or need to pay the President or his family or staff a mid-day visit, there are people to look at badges and who make the fire plug sized metal things slide into the ground so that they can pass through. For all I know, there are missiles buried under Pennsylvania Avenue to blow something that didn't get clearance to go through into the next life. So, if is far from comforting to see this homeland or other Secret Police Security Truck parked as if it came to a "screeching halt" on Pennsylvania Avenue in from of the White House. Maybe someone's plastic disposable camera looked a little too much like a WMD. Maybe someone said something not so complimentary about someone living or working in that house. Maybe it was a practice drill. Maybe it was an averted REAL Secret Police Security Emergency that we, because of the sensitivity of the situation, will never know about. Who know? Not me, that's for sure. I'm just a guy who likes to take a walk at lunchtime. That's all. I swear. And who are these Secret Police people anyway?

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The cranes are coming!

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The urban landscape, like any landscape, gets strange if it's visually compressed. This baroque scene is at the intersections of New York Avenue, H Street and 13th Street is Washington DC. I like the fact that the street light, looking like something that has survived the 1929 stock market crash, is the tallest thing in the picutre. Taller than the church steeple. Taller than any building around. Who says photos don't lie? They lie all the time!

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He got the call at the Kennedy Center. It really wasn't much of a surprise. He'd known that it was coming for some time. But that still didn't prevent the sick feeling that he got in his stomach when he understood who was calling him and what it was about. He'd both been running from this call and expecting it for months. It just didn't seem possible that he could escape as easily as it seemed, at first, that he had. They couldn't have known his number. Somebody would have to give it to them. They didn't even know where, exactly, he was. He had been moving regularly. But, they found him anyway. Just like he knew they would. Just like he always thought that they would.

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I love living here. You don't really ever need to leave in order to "see the world" because, sooner or later, most of the world comes here to see what's up for themselves. And when they do come to check out the living heart of the Free World, they come to the White House, regardless of who's living there at the time, to have their picture taken by a friend or family member. It is an ageless ritual; one of the few that's left to us. Someday soon, I will have my own picture taken there. I think that I've waited long enough.

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Captain Cook, Hawaii: Hotel TV room containing sport trophies

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Pahoa, Puna District, Big Island

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These folks live here now.

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There is, I am sure, a special place in hell for the folks who design and build airports. There's nothing that can be more dehumanized that these places. They are constructed to be as uncomfortable as possible: a punishment to those who dare to travel long distances. The senses become deadened; the mind dulled. There is no relief to the tedium of travel. You are merely meant to be herded in the right direction. The air is bad. The light is bad. The food is bad. The beer is expensive. The music is maddingly awful. The wait and the weight almost intolerable. This version is in Houston and is named, as a final insult, after a member of the Bush dynasty.

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