Upset About It
I've just returned from shooting a Korean Independence Day parade over on Telegraph Avenue here in Oakland, my usual arrive early and photograph the people as they go about their preparations. They were well on their way to Oakland City Hall when I returned home. It turns out Oakland now has, I don't know, maybe it's always had, the largest Korean community in the bay area, and this is the first year they've decided to have it here in Oakland rather than over in San Francisco. I read this in the paper at breakfast this morning, thinking, well, what the hell, it's just down the street, I'd better go. I think it turned out well.
Mayor Brown, ex-governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Mayor Brown, the mayor of Oakland, not to be confused with Willie Brown, the mayor of San Francisco, arrived as the parade was forming up to give an interview with the one lone television crew in attendance. This is not one of your high profile parades, you understand: no topless women on Harley motorcycles, just a sparse line of spectators along the sidewalks waving the occasional Korean or American flag, no more than five or six "Miss Korea Pageant Princesses" decked out in traditional costume, so there wasn't much media around and I was one of the few photographers. The parade was getting under way as I left and I'm thinking, sitting here after two hours of humping a camera rig through the crowd, my day is over. Let 'em do whatever they've planned to do at City Hall, I'm pooped and I'm not following after.
Much later, back after a long walk along the lake and then over to the cafe near the Grand Lake theater for a Coca Cola and a baked blueberry something before walking back to the apartment. I stopped at the video store where I rented the Japanese film Woman of the Dunes that I have not seen since I first saw it on the big screen at the York Theater in San Francisco some twenty five years ago. Woman of the Dunes, one of the world's great movies, black and white, made in Japan, English subtitles. Amazing. I wonder what I'll think about it tomorrow, after I've seen it?
Wuss, by the way, good old Wuss, has managed to pee in my lap. Pants, shorts, into the wash. He's been pretty good these last couple of weeks or however long it has been since I described his last episode here in the journal. Not good, but shit, I'm tired. No sense in getting upset about it.
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