A Free Man

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One of the few great albums of the ’80’s, Camper Van Beethoven’s “Key Lime Pie” is available from  .

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Broken Social Scene’s self-titled album is available from .

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As you very likely know, Dr. O’C has taken on a chunk of the writing duties here at A Free Man while your underwhelming correspondent is burning the employment candle at both ends. What you may not know is that she’s largely taken over the photography duties as well. Pretty much any photo  of Baby Z in the last month or so that doesn’t also have Dr. O’C in it, was taken by Dr. O’C. And I must say she’s getting pretty good at it. This photo of Z is one of my favorites to date.

Now, I may be overthinking this, as it is my tendence to do, but I think I see a darkness in these shots. It may be the literal darkness - dark clothes, high contrast. But my fear is that there’s something more. It’s a fear I’ve had since I found out Dr. O’C was pregnant. The curse of being a geneticist is that you can’t help but think about everything in terms of heritability. There are a number of traits that I would rather not pass on to my son. Dark obsessions, addictions and compulsions that I have fought my way through but only after years of struggle. Since, Dr. O’C fell pregnant I’ve hoped that her genes were just a little bit more potent than mine. That rather than my fierce introversion he gets his mother’s easy sociabibility. Rather than my introspective depression he gets his mother’s level headedness. Rather than my tendency to self-absorption he gets his mother’s generosity of spirit.

Or maybe, at the very least, he could get the alleles that give the men in her family a full head of hair into their old age. Maybe sometimes a photo is just a photo.

I couldn’t decide which version of this Will Oldham song I preferred, the Bonnie “Prince” Billy original or Johnny Cash’s cover. So, I’m sharing them both. They’re both spectacular.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “I See A Darkness” and Johnny Cash’s “American III: Solitary Man” are available from .

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“I fancy this, I fancy that
I wanna be so flash
I give a little muscle
And I spend a little cash
But all I get is bitter and a nasty little rash
And by the time I’m sober
I’ve forgotten what I’ve had
And ev’rybody tells me that it’s cool to be a cat
Cool for cats…”

-Squeeze

And by cat I, of course, mean hep cat in reference to your underwhelming narrator. The kids are still using “hep cat” these days, aren’t they?

I’m finding that sitting in front of a computer for ten plus hours a day and writing for a good part of that time leaves me pretty dry for the old interwebs. And hell, it’s been well over a week since I’ve run a gratuitous baby photo….

Dr. O’C, as a kindness, occasionally sends me photos while I’m at work.  I love getting them. Little glimpses of her and Z’s day. From what I can tell, they eat a lot of ice cream…

…are working on basic vandalism skills…

…and seem to be running some kind of dog fighting ring. I’m missing out on the best of times whilst working.

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“It’s loud and tasteless
and I’ve heard it before
You shout it while you’re dancing
on the whole dance floor
Oh bop, fashion…”

-David Bowie - “Fashion”

Some of you may have thought that I’ve lost interest in Baby Z’s musical education. I’ve not done a Z’s Music Monday post in ages. It’s not that I’ve stopped playing music for him, quite the contrary, it’s just now that he’s mobile he doesn’t sit still and allow me to subject him to whole albums anymore. He also sleeps throught the night now, so there are no more Sunday pre-dawn listenings. He’s developed his Mum’s attention span - listens for a song or two and then heads off after the dog or a passing wallaby. I managed to sit on him long enough the other day to force some David Bowie on him. He bolted as soon as my attention was diverted, so it’s hard to know how much he enjoyed it, but Bowie got some chuckles during the howls in “Diamond Dogs”. That’s as close as we get to approval these days.

I don’t know what made me play him Bowie. I’m not a huge David Bowie fan. I certainly recognize his place in the musical pantheon. But really he was at his creative peak before my time. In the 80’s, when I became aware of Bowie, he was a megastar. Don’t get me wrong, he did some wonderful things in that decade, but even in my teens I had enough musical taste to recognize that his duet with Mick Jagger (and the accompanying video) was a crime against humanity. I never really forgave Bowie for “Dancin’ In The Streets”.

I got by happily for most of the 90’s with just the greatest hits compilation, “Changesbowie”, which spanned most of Bowie’s career from 1969 through the late 80’s. This compilation always makes me think of my time in Seattle in 1994 & 95. I had come off a pretty disastorous relationship, one that threw me around a bit emotionally (fragile flower that I was). After it ended, I made the decision to shake things up a bit in my life and try my hand at something I had always been vaguely passionate about - photography.

I started off shooting little known local bands, actors and the like for free or cost. I was not particularly good, but I tried hard and got a couple of breaks - magazine work and the like. Buoyed buy the taste of success and ample amounts of mind-altering substances I made the decision that the only thing standing in the way of me being the next Annie Leibowitz (other than male genitalia and a notable lack of talent) was my full-time job. I showed up one day, told them where to stick their job and walked out a bon-a-fide freelance photographer. I rented some converted warehouse space in the Pioneer Square neighborhood of Seattle, hung a shingle and waited for the money to roll in. It didn’t happen that way.

Seattle in the 90’s was a hot bed for music, and I did a fair bit of work for bands, most of whom had no money. Getting paid in CDs, beer or pot was OK for a while, but it didn’t pay the rent. In an effort to branch out a bit, I stumbled into fashion photography. Fashion paid well, but was extremely competitive. For someone with only a mediocre talent, I still found myself short at the end of the month. I also found that I had no head for business. When I got paid I usually reinvested my paycheck not in film or equipment or advertising or even rent, but in the closest night club or drug dealer. When the party stopped a few days later I found I had no money and started from scratch again.

This lack of both business acumen and notable talent resulted in me sharing my studio with two other photographers. The ebbs and flows of the fashion business meant that at various times all of the three of us were working in the studio space and sleeping in bunks that we built above our darkroom. Our studio was sandwiched between a couple of gay fashion designers on one side and a tweaky crystal meth dealer on the other. See, if I had been a better businessman, I would have marketed a visit to the studio as a one stop shop for all your modeling needs.

David Bowie was one of a handful of tapes that the three of us owned and the only one that was really appropriate for shooting fashion models. (Some of the others included Alanis Morisette’s “Jagged Little Pill”, The Beastie Boys’ “Ill Communication” and Alice in Chains’ “Dirt”. See why we used Bowie?) So on the days when all of us were working we might have heard “Changesbowie” ten times. Even “Ziggy Stardust” gets a little tiresome on the tenth listen, nevermind that piece of shit “Heroes”. It’s a testament to Bowie’s talent that I can stomach him today.

Two of the three of us in that Seattle warehouse were mediocre at best. But one of us, the one whose photos I’ve used to illustrate this post, was an excellent photographer. After a couple of years in Seattle he made the jump to the big city. He’s been working in New York since the mid-90’s and from what I hear, and see, is doing pretty well. Check out more of his images here.

I know that I’ve drifted away from the stated theme of this post which, in case you’ve forgotten, was David Bowie. I now own a half dozen or so Bowie albums, particularly those early Glam/Sci-Fi records. Most of these have been acquired in the last two or three years. The first thing was hearing Seu Jorge’s wonderful covers of Bowie tracks in “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou” (Anne-Marie, do all the interns get Glocks? ). The second was living in Britain. My three years in the south of England gave me a greater appreciation for a number of British artists. I still can’t quite put my finger on it, but seeing the passion with which the apparently passionless English hold for some of their musicians makes you see them in a different light. This was certainly the case for Bowie. I still don’t class myself as a super fan, but there are days when nothing will suffice but “Aladdin Sane” and I certainly want the boy to hear Bowie when he was at his best.

Image credits: All photos are by Mark Veltman as featured in the New York Times.

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I’ve always had a dream of living near the beach. I grew up in a town in Florida that was about as far away from the beach in a state nearly completely surrounded by water. I went to graduate school in a school that was pretty close to the geographical center of the U.S. I thought that the move to Britain, a very small island, would be an improvement. Much to by chagrin, I realized shortly after arriving that you can’t get much further away from the sea than Oxford.

But now, at long last, I’m nearly there. Happy Valley is a mere 15 minute drive to some gorgeous beaches. Not quite close enough (I’m looking for a five minute walk) but I’m headed in the right direction.Here’s a slideshow of my favorite South Australian beaches…so far.

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There’s something in the air or the water or the sun here that sucks the creative juices out of me as soon as I pass U.S. customs in Orlando. I’m having trouble coming up with the goods for two blogs this week never mind the other bits and pieces. So, I’m going to go all wordless on you guys and on a Wednesday no less, to demonstrate the fruits of Dr’ O’C’s haggling. One is Mum’s choice, one Papa’s - can you guess which is which?

Oh, and by the way Jamie, that grass ain’t nothin’ but Florida Sunshine and the crushed skulls of the Miccusukee.

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Someone in this photo has a new toy and it isn’t Baby Z. So look for the quality of photography here on CDV.com to improve.

But the hero of the day was Dr. O’C and I’ve got to brag a little bit on my special lady friend. She watched a TV program a while back called “Don’t Get Done, Get Dom”, the premise of which was that one should assert oneself when negotiating the price of things; that the list price is always artificially inflated. Acting the dom, she’s already gotten us a better deal on Timmins’ trip to Oz and shipping our stuff. We had made the decision to go ahead and shell out for a digital SLR while we were in country and could pay with feeble American pesos, err dollars. When we went shopping today, Dr. O’C came armed with a print-out of Amazon’s price for the camera package we wanted. I had pretty much dismissed her chances of repeating her bargaining successes at Best Buy. I mean, this isn’t some shady fellow selling “Genuine Rolexes” in a market stall, this is a giant multinational chain store.* I was so convinced of her imminent failure that I wandered over to the music section to see what was big at the Best Buy. But as I was flipping through CDs, my ears perked up when I heard the sales boy say, “I’ll have to check with my manager, but I think we can probably do that.” What? And my jaw bounced off of the tile floor when I heard Dr. O’C reply, “Well, I think that you’ll need to beat that price or else we’ll just order it from Amazon”.

Long story short, Mistress O’C got it for $20 less than the Amazon price, $120 less than their sale price and $250 better than the list price. Those poor little Best Buy boys didn’t know what hit them.

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* They are also assholes who charge you 15% of your purchase price to restock an item even if you return it the very same day. All the more reason that I am in awe of Sinead today. Sticking it to the man.

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Shotover Country Park sits a few miles east of the Oxford city center. The south and west faces of the hill are wooded and engraved with walking, riding and cycling trails. And, on a rare sunny January day in England, it was our destination for a morning walk.

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