You'd move to the desert?

To a high desert, maybe, but if I were to move to a desert it wouldn't be for a blistering sun.

Back from breakfast and reading the paper, a quick photograph to document the two cent drop in the price of gasoline, my waitress presenting me with a bad (bag - Freudian slip? - full of apples, two giant walnut cookies and a bag of small candies. She says she has too much at home and I assume she's happy to have me as a daily customer who tips pretty well or she's thinking I'm too skinny now and she's trying to fatten me up as she's much too young for it to be true love. Still, it reminds me of my working days and all the temptations working in a large office provides in the way of food “gifts” and such. No way to go wrong with apples, but bags of candy and walnut cookies (the size of these) will quite quickly do you no good.

Bitch, bitch, bitch!

Oh, maybe. You come back through the door from breakfast, you sit down to write, the stuff you're musing on in the early morning comes pouring out. It's a journal, my son, no need to overly edit. Yes, try to keep the sentences smooth, but otherwise don't worry too much. A spelling mistake here and there and awkward usage are the only things that can really drive me up the wall. Convenient logic though.

Overcast, by the way, you can see it in the new gasoline price linked photograph, but I'm pretty much out of pictures and I'm going to walk later with my new and improved set to lungs and take more, of what I know not. But pictures none the less, no matter their quality or the imagination I'm able to conjure up in the making. Hup! Hup! Hup!

Later. A walk down through the Grand Lake farmers market mid morning to take a picture or two, the guy one of the few here yet in the early morning listening to the band, the woman sitting behind her stall knitting, two standard poses, two standard photographs of no particular distinction, but photographs in my style anyway. In many photographers' styles unfortunately, but they're fun to look for and satisfying when they turn out even modestly well. A similar photograph of a guy and his dog, lone figures lost in their own thoughts.

A cup of coffee out at a table in front of Noah's. I generally skip going into the Starbucks right next door as I don't routinely drink coffee with all the various milks and creams and such and Noah's, at least in the context of the two, is less slick and slightly more funky. Between the two, anyway. A couple of photographs, the one of the fellow on crutches, probably not very good and always skating at the limits of taste and exploitation, reminiscent of a famous Life magazine photograph of the forties, a picture of a World War II victory parade, the troops returning home, taken through the crutches of a one legged man that touched the national consciousness, a picture of victory and its costs. The other a photograph in my subject looking off into the distance obsession, he or she occupied with whatever might be on their minds, of no particular distinction, but again, fun to look for, satisfying even with a minimum of success in its final execution and form.

So a good walk for the morning. I'll walk down later today after the mail arrives, hopefully to deposit a check. The Grand Lake theater has a new political message on its marquee. I agree the result of the decision will make what is a catastrophic situation even worse, although I've been persuaded by Glen Greenwald over at Salon the decision is correct on First Amendment grounds. Greenwald agrees the power of corporate money has massively distorted our electoral system and something has got to be done if we're to survive, but done on grounds other than limiting the reach of the First Amendment. I'm a First Amendment freak, have been since I was a teen, so I'm comfortable with it, totally uncomfortable with the results.

Greenwald thinks the barriers to corporate money have already been so eroded this won't make much difference, they've already bought the Congress, the Presidency and most of the courts. I suspect he's right, but you never know. Or, I guess, we'll know now soon enough. The Chronicle had a story today about our local utilities company, P.G.&E., spending sixteen million dollars on a campaign to bar local municipalities from acting as energy buyers and supplying power to their constituents at a lower price. Good for the P.G.&E. stockholders maybe (I'm not sure financial company stockholders get any benefit from their executives’ bonuses for instance), but not for utility rates or the municipalities with the gumption to protect their people.

But we're into politics here again, are we not, pictures to politics? You'd think you could get away from all that crap going out with a camera in hand. Here in Oakland.