May 17, 1990
Slim at a downtown Bakersfield street fair.
A couple of weeks after I first met Slim, he turned up at a street fair on Chester avenue. I was there to shoot OP Stylee because Paul and Daniel liked the photographs I took at the Moonlight Lounge and invited me to do more. The entire course of my photographic career shifted in those few weeks. Prior to this, I was mainly working on a conceptual project and just plain drifting around town making pictures. I still enjoy photographing large gatherings, I think. I just haven’t done it in years.
These old pictures of Slim make me remember his sense of humor; it’s interesting to see some of these because I didn’t print them at the time I shot them. I was working on so many different things that I didn’t dwell on any of the individual sets for long. Now, it is really fun to see them as a slide show.
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.”
April 26, 1990
The night I met Scott Sturtevant, the brightest light in the room was a 20 inch T.V..
I made photographs; this one is of Daniel Burt (drum machine in the back), O.P. Stylee, Scott Sturtevant and Mike P.
Click either image for more.
June 28, 2007 1:55 AM | Comments (4)
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.
June 27, 2007 11:41 AM | Comments (3)
Karaoke Cowboy
Watching the video of Bakersfield by Social Distortion (via Bakotopia) I decided to go ahead and post the entire “Karaoke Cowboy” tape from Slim the Drifter. My copy was in this DIY case—Scott and Mary dragged a bunch of spraypaint art down to Cheryl Mestmaker’s shop and shot it with her Polaroid passport camera. They ran Xeroxes onto label sheets and cut them down to stick on cassettes. Most things Slim did were homebrew collaborations among friends; I figure friends who google Slim might find some of these posts. I could be wrong about the titles; he seldom wrote them down.
The songs can be found below the fold.
June 25, 2007 12:59 PM | Comments (1)
Stripper
N.L. Belardes has written a “history” of sorts of Slim. There are a lot of grating inaccuracies, particularly the reshaping of Slim in the image of Darby Crash. That’s wishful thinking on somebody’s part—at least Rex tried to call him on it. Too bad he didn't listen.
Am I as pretty?
“Am I as pretty as Peggy Lee?” Slim, c. 1992
Slim and Mary
Slim and Mary (c. 1993) — Smoking isn’t what killed him.
Old friends
Mary, Pete, and Slim (1993)
