Over the last few weeks, with the direct help of no less than 50 people I’d previously never met, and still as of yet seen face to face, I’ve begun to set about rebuilding a spot for myself in a community for which sharing is it’s bedrock. The breadth of their offerings is staggering. And looking deeper still into the history of the community, the numbers of people who’ve had a hand in the process begin to grow.

What I’m listening to, isn’t just an out-of-their-minds, are-you-kidding-me?, “Eyes of the World” from September 8, 1973. But, forget for a moment, if you will, about the band and the music. That shit’s a given. When this music was originally played and recorded, I was a few months shy of four. And as I listen to it now, I can’t help but think of the long chain of hands that have passed it along all these years, doing everything in their power to keep it alive and propagating. People I will never meet, people who don’t know that I’m alive, but just in case I am, they’re going to make sure I hear every fat Phil bomb.

And believe me, they’re fucking gorgeous.

The kindness is not limited to Jerry and the boys, or even to music. Whereas the music fills me with joy and gives me a sense of grand illusion, a certain chain-of-hands event, recently delivered something just as beautiful, but truly humbling. So I’d like to say, “Thank you Anne. And unlike the tapers, and the guys who pour over a source tape and meticulously re-master the ghosts of Grateful Dead past, something tells me our paths will cross.”

Maybe I should start at the beginning…

I used to collect and trade Grateful Dead bootlegs on cassette tape. Hundreds of them. One of my all time regrets is that I stock-piled my Max Points waaaay past the date in which I could have redeemed them. I was saving up for the Corvette. Back then, had you asked me to pick my poison, I would have answered a Don King bowl and a twenty pack of Maxell XL-II’s. 90 minute or 100, it didn’t matter. It started out innocently enough, just among a few friends I went to school with, and a small circle of people I met through the previously mentioned poisonous pursuits.

Now, this wasn’t just music. I’m not sure if I can fully express the importance of these recordings. When I went on my Greyhound trips, I measured the miles between stops in how many bootlegs it would take. The summer I spent living in a VW Bus on an 80 acre plot of undeveloped Wisconsin forest, it was a rinky-dinky cassette deck and a handful of my favorite boots that provided the soundtrack. May 8th 1977, February 13th and 14th 1970, August 27th 1972, June 10th 1973. These are historical documents. And this might be resin-coated hyperbole, but they’re every bit as important as the Bible or the Bill of Rights.

Tapes trickled in. Each one fondled with loving fingers, my eyes pouring over the physical form of them, identical to the tens, the hundreds that would come before and after, yet so original to the night it captured. A date marking the unique character would soon become synonymous with a feeling or a mood. There were tapes for road trips, for chilling, for introducing those poor souls not-as-of-yet indoctrinated, and tapes for setting the hook. There were tapes for laughing, tapes for weeping.

And then the internet hit, and all of a sudden there were hundreds of lists posted on-line from fellow Heads all over the country. Next thing I know I’m dabbling in blanks plus postage, five for five swaps and not just any show will do any more, it’s got to be a soundboard, crisp and with documented lineage. But it was still a community. We’d get on-line in a Dead forum and talk, arrange trades, update lists. Then one day it stopped. It wasn’t immediately after Jerry died, in fact his death spurred a growth in my collection.

But one day the internet went from being a little sneeze, to a full blown disease. The community I knew, no longer needed to exist. Bandwidth, storage and applications evolved to replace it and trading became a thing of the past. My collection of tapes ceased to grow. They’ve been replaced not just by CD’s, but hard-drives, backed up as data on DVD’s. Now for the irony. I’ve been lamenting all this the past few nights as I’ve been out walking the neighborhood, plugged into my iPod, listening to live Grateful Dead.

Where it used to take a few weeks to get tapes in the mail from one of my trading partners, I can now download a complete show in a few minutes. But is it progress, or does it even get measured in those terms anymore because the world has been re-defined by this technology?

The irony continues.

A few days ago, I was made privy to (via the internet) a woman who was unloading a bunch of free, out-dated film. When I went over to claim it, we got to talking and she wanted to know if I wanted a few of her old Polaroid Land Cameras. They were in MINT condition, including original boxes, instructions, warranty cards and filters. I, of course, gladly accepted them. This, despite knowing full well, that in a few months time, if not sooner, I very well might not be able to buy the film intended for these cameras. Who knows, I might not be able to get it even now.

I thought about this too, on these walks I’ve been taking the past few nights. The reason for the walks have been caused by the recent influx of live Grateful Dead music I’ve been acquiring, and despite not taking a camera with me, I’ve still been “seeing” pictures I’d like to take. So it was, I went out last night, with my camera. My digital camera. The very same beast partly responsible for the demise of Polaroid and the film I could have used in those Land Cameras.

And what do I take a picture of? Well, irony of course.

Who needs this clock anymore, especially as it was only 11:30? And why is it still lit? When was the last time anyone used this clock to tell the time? Had I really wanted the irony to pour from this, I would have taken a picture of it with my cell phone. Convenience indeed.

But, BUT! At my very core, I guess I am a romantic, a wistful practitioner of nostalgia, which explains the reason I kept 47 of my all-time favorite boots on cassette. I still pick them out of the old wooden Coke-a-Cola box I stored them in, though I haven’t listened to them in years. I love to look at the set-lists faithfully written down on the carefully crafted, home-made, custom tape covers I made for each show. On photoshop no less. And I still love to set the hook in those poor, unfortunate, as-of-yet indoctrinated souls. So, SO! Should any of you reading this wish to begin your collection, let me know, I have a few shows you need to hear. I’d gladly do a B+P (blanks plus postage) for you, or hell, I could even email you them.

I bring this up only as an observation about place. And how it can change despite a permanence to the things that make up a place. Sun, light, people, trash, snow. An unknown amount of variables determine the feel of a place. I could go back and stand in this same spot ten times, a hundred times and get as many shots.

There’s a scene from a great movie entitled “Smoke” with Harvey Keitel that pretty much sums up what I’m trying to say. Rather than try to explain the scene, I’ll just suggest watching the movie. And in the meantime I’ll offer this and all the ways it could have been different.

To be honest, I’ve been aware of the impending one year mark for a few days and have been thinking about how I’d mark the occasion. What I decided on was something akin to a “Greatest Hits” record. The kind that comes with a new, previously unreleased bonus track. Or something like that. Anyway, consider this post the linear notes to this compilation.

I started this thing with a mixture of curiosity, purpose, and a desire to share not only the images, but the 1,000 words they’re supposedly worth. I also wanted to meet some other like minded souls out there who’s work inspired me and to see if I could return the favor. I consider myself to have succeeded on both counts and look forward to another year of doing just that. When I began this blog, it was very much akin to standing alone in a room with a lightbulb and a microphone. Slowly, people began to show up with their own light bulbs and decided to stay, but when that was I’m not exactly sure.

So what I’d like to do now is, link to a few of my favorite moments from the past year in case anyone missed and/or cares to check out what might have gone down in this place before they showed up. And I’d like to sincerely thank those who’ve brought their own light to this party and left it on.

•Funny Story

•Looking Back

•Race Car Driver

•Her

•Pablo

•Emmy and Her Camera

•My First Leica

•Maxxx

•Memory

•The King

•Another One From My Pops

•Chalkdust

•Eulogy

•Wild Geese

•Bonus Track

So, I was out walking around the neighborhood the other day at late dusk. It was a dreary day, wanting to rain, but too lazy to get it together. I saw a bit of color and this was it. Spring…?

And while I won’t talk to you about the specifics of my spirituality, I will talk to you about my religion, for you see, music is my religion and that dear friends, is not something we should keep to ourselves.

I’ve always been into music, despite the severe handicap of having no older siblings to turn me onto their records and a father who thought Ray Conniff and Johnny Mathis were the shit. Which will have to explain why I still harbor a deep love for Neil Diamond and the Moody Blues, considerably the hippest albums in his collection.

Despite those limitations, I was able to make a few discoveries early enough in my life to turn the tide of Pat Boone and similar cardigan toting crooners and lead me down a much more righteous path. The first vinyl I bought with my paper route allowance was The Specials, “The Specials.” And that was a compromise with my mom who wouldn’t let anything labeled, “The Sex Pistols,” into our home. And you can flat out forget the Circle Jerks.

Since that first purchase; I’ve gone to, and done, some crazy, ill-advised, desperate and devoted things to see, hear, and experience the music I loved. All of which I’d do again in a heartbeat. These alters that I’ve worshipped at spread from Tijuana, to Maine. 100,000 seat stadiums with flying pigs and 100 person capacity bars with flying hair, flying beer, and flying people.

I’ve stood on stage with Kurt Cobain, watched Carlos Santana bow down in reverence to Stevie Ray Vaughn, and earned battle scars in a Ministry mosh-pit. The people closest to me are the ones whose own musical threads and passions weave brightly through my life’s tapestry. Their colors shine so much brighter and radiate a passion that seems to make most everything else dull and listless by comparison. Black Sabbath to Bob Marley.

And then there’s the Grateful Dead. If music is my religion, the Dead are the Sermon on the Mount, the Holy Trinty, the Ten Commandments, the Old and the New Testament. Not to mention the burning bush. So much went into my experiences with the Dead, that it’s impossible to say why exactly I feel this way. The music, obviously, is the starting point as that’s the thing that brings everything else into the frame.

Sometimes it hurts, just a little, knowing I’ll never see them again, or be able to share that experience with my children in a first hand sort of way. But I’ll always have this to remind me of one little part of why the Dead, music, and the people who feel the same way I do about it all play such a critical role in my life.

Amen.

*Taken following a Sunday Afternoon show in the parking/camping lots behind the venue. Autzen Stadium, Eugene, Or. 06.19.1994

First Set
Touch of Grey
Walking Blues
Brown-Eyed Women
El Paso
Shoe Fits
Bird Song

Second Set
Scarlet > Fire
Samson & Delilah
Way to Go
Playin’ in the Band>
Uncle John’s Band>
Drums>
The Other One>
Wharf Rat>
Good Lovin’

E: Heaven’s Door

That shit is dope.

Anyway, so it was that I went off into the 30 degree night, iPod pumping, camera and tri-pod in tow to look for some more inherently cool goodness. And this is what I found.

• Walking alone without a care as to how goofy you look grooving to Krazy Fiesta is inherently good.

• Hand-made wool skullcaps that are big enough to fit over the headphones pumping Krazy Fiesta are inherently good.

• The sight of your breath shrouding the darkened windows of the houses you goofily funk your way past while geeking out to Krazy Fiesta is inherently good.

• Standing alone, in the middle of a frozen field, looking at a massive tree, under a sky of stars, with a camera, tri-pod and Krazy Fiesta pumping in the headphones worn snug under a hand-made wool skullcap as your breath joins the atmosphere, knowing that your pillow at home is cool and the blankets are heavy is inherently good.

But it prompted me to think about things. Life things, and the dichotomy of said life. Something I mentioned a few days back, about the pure bliss of a simple existence, has been brewing in me, and as it happens, my wife. The traveling bug has hit us again and this time very hard. If only because at this point we are helpless to do anything about it. But the bug don’t care about any of that, it just knows the quickest way to your blood and sets its teeth into your flesh while it waves your passport in front of your watering eyes. Boats adrift.

The yang to this yin then, is the tie down. The security of knowing that despite the currents, the winds and any other external forces that might bear down on your vessel, there is a strength that you are tied to, steadfast and true.

When you have children; heath insurance, heating oil, a stocked fridge, all weather tires with a healthy tread, and magical monster dust, are the tie downs you require before you lay your own damn head down at night. There is no drifting when babies are snoring contentedly in rooms down the hall.

I would, at a moment’s notice, give everything for those 2 babies of mine. There’s an amazing line in what I feel is an amazing song by MGMT, “Time to Pretend.”

“This is our decision to live fast and die young
We’ve got the vision, now let’s have some fun
Yeah, it’s overwhelming but what else can we do
Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?”

Other than the dying young part, I’m on board. We’re going to need a bigger boat.

The morning was simple for the sole reason that all we had to do was exist. Life should be more like that, all the time in fact. Wake up, lounge in bed, eat a great meal, dress appropriately, make sure the cameras have film, and choose a direction. Explore, love, laugh, find a pastry shop and eat whatever your heart directs your finger to point at in case you don’t speak Czech. As long as you learn Prosim (please) and Dekuji (thank you) things will go fine, just remember to order coffee with those pastries.

Belly full, new friends made, promises to never forget and off to make more pictures. Simple. The way it should be.

When I started this blog, I had no idea who would come. I have been very lucky to form some friendships with other photographers, and through mutual appreciation of work, I’ve been given the chance to see some great imagery and share some of mine.

I am in no way qualifying the contributions of others, as I deeply appreciate everyone’s kind thoughts when they are so moved to speak about my pictures. I’m just pointing out that it has been Anne’s words that have taught me the most about my own photography.

And what I mean by that, is I had thought the series of pictures I made at Bowdoin College, while pretty cool if I don’t say so myself, were just images of some goal posts on an athletic field, it was Anne who opened my mind to the possibility that they were much more.

A friend of mine in college wanted frogs in her backyard. She built a pond. I asked her how she knew frogs would come. She told me they always do, just build a pond. Sure enough, a few months later, she had frogs. Much in the same way the 1919 Chicago White Sox materialized out of an Iowa cornfield.

So, it’s come to this. I have a goal. I am building it. The voices in my head have yet to make their presence known, but I have a feeling they’re just biding their time, and I want to avoid them at all costs. Unless they sound like Jerry Garcia and play a mean Dire Wolf.

My goal, is to write and direct for film.