Dan and Me
Dan Bonnell and Me, c.1976, photograph by Stephen Ward
I ran across this bit of ancient history looking through some negatives. Dan was my best friend through jr. high and high school, I’ve mentioned him before. The Triumph 650 motorcycle belonged to my brother Stephen, and the Harley belonged to an pretty infamous member of “The Righteous Ones” motorcycle club named, coincidentally, “Biker Steve” (no relation).
I earned a “courtesy card” from Biker Steve by photographing him and his bike, which I later learned would have gotten my ass kicked if I would have shown it around. I am more amused by the copy of Camera I'm clutching. I think this was perhaps more the root of my downfall than hanging out with bikers.
No Dummies
Como Park Conservatory, the fern room
Krista and I went to visit the gardens at the Conservatory in Como Park yesterday afternoon, and we took some pictures. I do that a lot. A guy was passing by some people taking turns making pictures of each other; he volunteered to take a picture of the entire group. Some people are nice like that; people volunteer like that when they see Krista and I out shooting pictures together too, although we never really take them up on it. We generally make our own pictures.
Talking to Kyle Wyner (the infamous truck driver in the video for “Ballad of Bill”) and Rex on the phone last night, some interesting issues were raised. Kyle was pissed that no one bothered to tell him about the tribute concert (where his face was on the screen every five minutes) for Slim. We got to talking about the people we’ve lost in the last few years and the impact that their absence has. Athough we really don’t know each other, our friends overlap in bizarre ways. I didn’t know that he used to date Suzy, for example. I’ve met Kyle several times over the years, and he has a unique take on things—I enjoy it every time we talk.
Rex and I were talking earlier in the day, also, regarding the way that the recording of events changes your memory of them—if someone produces a video or takes pictures at a place you were at, you tend to remember the media representation of the event more than your own physical, sensory memory of it. Trusting someone to tell your story is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. When you hand someone else the camera, you’re implicitly trusting them to be fair to the scene before them—a trust that shouldn’t be violated. Though technically the person making the recording has the rights to it, copies of copies cannot be copyrighted. No one owns the scene in front of the camera either.
No one can know the full picture. To try to “surround” the event takes more than one perspective. We talked a lot about doing something about that, hopefully soon. A person’s memory should not be left to fade after it ceases to be “newsworthy.”
Wall Street
The Wall Street Alley, Bakersfield, CA, c.1987
I was racking my brain trying to remember the name of the Californian photographer who Slim hired to do the cover for “Here Comes a Lily.” It was Ed Homich. Thanks to the Californian for digging through their file; they published several other images from that shoot. The Californian has done a remarkable job of printing facts rather than hearsay about Slim. The article by Robert Price will probably expire soon, so if you’re at all curious I’d read it now. It cuts through the melodrama to more tangible facts. It was a good memory jog. I forgot that Phil Lutrell gave Scott the name “Slim DeWayne”—I went to Foothill High with Phil, and later worked with him at Sun Stereo. Price implies that Phil was the source of the Hank Williams allusion. Not as I recall; that was Scott’s own modification of the gift, dropping the “DeWayne” in favor of “the Drifter.”
I didn’t know Ed Homich, but I remember that when he put his Leica M6 up for sale other photographers from the Californian warned me against buying it—“Ed just drags his cameras on the strap behind him.” It’s strange the things you remember; I couldn’t remember his name, but I’ve got a picture of him shooting pictures around here somewhere…
It’s also strange what you can find around here. I was looking at the Half-Price Books on Ford Parkway and ran across Bakersfield Picture Album compiled by Chris Brewer and Don Pipkin in 1986 from various sources. There were a few interesting shots there; including some of the infamous Wall Street Alley.
Quaking
Put me down as a whatever
St. Anthony Main
Suzy
Suzy Shelton, c. 1992
I think this Kodak moment (courtesy of HS Infrared) was from 1992. I’m not quite sure what show it was. I think it might have been the Zeros at Mannequins. Suzy snuck up behind me while I was photographing in the pit and pulled this stunt. She wasn’t as wasted as she looks; she was just screwing around, trying to disrupt my concentration.
I hadn’t thought about Suzy in a long time; when I knew her she was Todd Thompson’s girlfriend. My most vivid memory of both of them was when they strolled into Cheney’s bar around midnight singing a neverending song—seriously neverending, because they wrote a ton of new verses every time I heard it—called “Kill George Bush” (senior, not G.W.). The whole crowd sang along with gusto, on the chorus at least. Anyone could get that.
I don’t get what happened. I was looking at a post about Slim on Bakotopia and saw her name. I had to pay for the back story on the Bakersfield Californian web site:
Father's Day
My father and my oldest brother David— both deceased
Blues
Ron Thompson, 1994
Making every effort not to confuse the living with the dead, I wanted to resurrect a couple of old pictures. I thought it would be fun to go see Ron Thompson. He’s sort of a journeyman blues guy who always puts his all into his performances. I shot him back in 1994; Krista shot him last Saturday. My heart just wasn’t into it this year.
Oops
Ghosts
A while back, I noticed that the podcast for Rock and Roll Dance Party (my favorite radio show) quit updating. I emailed Michael, the disc jockey. He returned my missive with the short version of why you can download the show, but it isn’t available as a podcast anymore. Michael signed his email “stay sick and turn blue.” The expression seemed familiar, so I googled and was regaled with the story of Ghoulardi. Dave Thomas made a strong case that this Cleveland TV show was the reason for the creative surge of bands like Devo and the Cramps. This weird bit of cultural ephemera simmered at the back of my brain for these past few months until it surfaced again today with memories of other horror shows. Goulardi’s final show with Joe Bob Briggs in 1991 was way past my formative years.
Drunk Squirrel
Peter Will
Pete Williams, a.k.a. Peter Will
Slim used to joke that one day he might just die on stage. That didn’t happen, except in the sense that he was always dying, just a bit at a time. The first clue about that was Slim’s suicide attempt around 93 or 94. Pete and Rex were really upset about it; I’m sure it was one of the contributing moments to Pete’s song Herrington Park. To listen to Pete and Rex, it was as if Slim had personally wounded them instead of himself.
I was really surprised to find out (via google) that Pete Williams died in August 2005. Pete was much younger than Slim, and when I knew him, much healthier. I don’t know what killed him, but unlike N.L. Belardes I don’t really think that it was the Bakersfield music scene. When I knew him, Pete had found a way out. He traded Bakersfield for San Luis Obispo. I didn’t know him well, and we only collaborated for a shoot or two, but the disillusionment of creative people is not geographically specific. Although Bakersfield is a more depressing place than some, I found myself as disillusioned in Arkansas as I ever was in Bakersfield. Pete and Slim changed venues, but almost always ended up back there. Not me.
Adult Books
Sioux City was a productive and bizarre place to stop.
Home again. Time to hit the books.
4,000
We crossed the 4,000 mile mark in Iowa.
Kansas
On to Kansas
