Austin Formula 1 Expo (Photo\Video Essay Car Porn)

As I've blogged before, Formula 1 is coming to Austin! As a way to stir up interest, a 2 day expo was held at the Austin Convention Center. Having already bought my (pricey!) ticket I wanted to see if I could find out more about the race. My first stop, however, was not at the Expo but at the track being built to the southeast of Austin.

Wide open on Texas highways!

Farm to market Road 812 leads you into the track. Roads leading into the track are sparse to say the least. Except for those owning Personal Seat Licenses, personal parking will not be permitted at the track. Everyone else will go through a shuttling system to get in.

Finally I'm seeing some construction work being done. My previous trips down had only seen earth moving going on.



This little store just outside the track entrance hit the jackpot! Workers stroll over there all day long and it's landed right in the hotbed of activity for races. Surprised they don't tear it down and rebuild it into something nicer.

Surrounding land sure is for sale!

Here's a short video of track construction:





I got in early as I could to the Expo. Naturally, the track had a presence there. I listened as their salesman hawked the PSL option to anyone who would listen. From what I understand only 30% of the PSLs sold are local to Texas. F1 is a worldwide sport.

My seat is in the grandstand there on the left at turn 12

Plenty of simulators were on hand. You could "drive" the actual track - if you were willing to stand in line! Some other F1 sims were also around to feed the endless appetite for racing fun.







I took a video snippet of the sims in action:



To take your own three laps around the circuit, check out Codemasters’ awesome video below:



Pretty cars were on hand to delight the eye, with Lotus having a heavy presence. The exotics added to the air of elitism and exclusivity that goes along with the Formula 1 scene.

Four Lotus in a row

This beastly McLaren with close to 600 bhp retails for about a quarter mil.

A few British vintage cars were on display as well.

Legendary AC Cobra

Gorgeous Lotus Esprit

Car porn!

One really cool feature of the event was the wall of Formula 1 images from over the decades from Sutton Images. You can purchase your own copy at their website. Spanning from the early Sixties right up to the present, they have an embarrassment of wealth of pictorial racing lore. I wanted to take the whole wall home with me!

The great rivals Senna and Prost! No love lost there.

You could also transpire your own pit stop, changing out an F1 tire just like the pros do with an air gun and the single nut attachment. Pit stops are crucial in F1 and are by no means to be taken for granted to be routine. Wheel nuts are improperly placed all the time, with tires sometimes flying off right in the pit lane as the driver attempts to exit.





Here's one guy's brave attempt at changing a tire (a good time in race conditions is under 4 seconds) :



A good stop can bring you victory!



But do you have the right stuff to be a driver or even a pit lane member? Take the agility test and find out.



Random lights flash at various points and your reaction is tested. I taped a family trying it out.



I wandered around to various booths and displays.

Uh, nice go kart!

Another treat for me were some vintage Formula 1 cars from years past. I overheard these and others like it will be raced after qualifying the day before the race. I will probably stick around for that.

I was excited and surprised to find world champion Alain Prost's car. But this was not a championship car and was in fact a poor example placing no higher than sixth that season (1980). Next year, the legendary Ron Dennis took over McLaren and turned it into the powerhouse it remains to be to this day.



More interesting was the late Gilles Villeneuve's Ferrari. The display sign gave the pertinent info:

Ferrari 312-T5 (1980)
2991cc Ferrari Flat 12, 510 bhp@12,000
After winning the Constructor's Championship and finishing first and second in the World Drivers Championship in 1979, the team of Ferrari, Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve struggled in 1980. The 312 T5 was a make-shift ground-effects chassis hampered by the flat 12 cylinder engine which was never adequately developed. In truth, the car was a virtual spare-time effort while everyone concentrated on development of a new turbo-charged engine and car for 1981. The irrepressible Villeneuve was a joy to watch as he willed the uncompetitive car to the front with supreme skill and passion.

Best of all was Mario Andretti's championship Lotus from 1978. Still a very popular driver, he has been named ambassador for the Austin race.



Lotus 79 (1978-1979)
2993cc Ford Cosworth V8, 475 bhp@10,800
This stunningly beautiful Lotus 79 followed a long tradition of break-through design by Colin Chapman. It was the first true "ground effects vehicle" which provided Mario Andretti with the perfect car with which to win the 1978 World Drivers Championship. Team mate Ronnie Peterson was second in the Championship and the team's six race wins earned another Constructor's Championship for Chapman. The Lotus 79 was the culmination of three years of effort by an R&D team led by Chapman. This together with Mario Andretti's enormous experience, intuitive sensitivity to his car's behavior and his dedication produced a car with conquering performance.





7 time champion Michael Schumacher was represented by one of his winning Ferraris (no stat sheet on it).

Note the rain tires as opposed to the usual racing slicks

But a few more modern beasts were on hand too. The proud and rich name of Lotus has only recently returned to the Formula 1 circus and that makes me happy to see. Lotus was a pioneer in the sport when the rules and regulations were more wide open and they took innovation to the next level leaving tradtional powers flat footed. Now if we could only get Maserati back!





The real treat for many, though, would be the Red Bull car greeting visitors right as they entered the room. Red Bull has dominated the sport recently, winning the championship for the past two years and still in hot contention this year.





I'll leave you with a 360 video of the Red Bull car. All in all a fun event though it begged to have more of an official F1 presence to it. The race iself in November is expected to cause chaos in the Austin area with hotel rooms already going for several hundred dollars per night. Celebrities, actors, rock stars - you name it - will be on hand for what promises to be a landmark event in racing. Can't wait! See you there!

"Look! Moron Can't Spell Debree!"

I heard the muffled giggling of the two girls behind me in my eighth grade English class. Our glorious teacher had unburdened herself of the chore of grading by having each student pass his spelling paper to the person behind to duly score. Apparently, the girl grading my paper was so amused by my alleged idiocy she was sharing it with her friend. Life is like that.

I heard the whispers. "Look how he spelled it. Deb-ris! Hey, Debby, how do you spell your name?"

"Must be D-E-B-B-R-I-S!"

Laughter ensued. Didn't help that Debby was a hot cheerleader to boot. Worst part of it was I knew I had no way of defending myself. Since I was helpless in my desire for their soft, smooth bodies I resorted to the least feasible defense of all: The truth.

"It's from France," I nervously explained. "That's how they spell it over there."

"Does this look like France to you? What a dork!"

Laughter ensued.

"We spell it the same way here!"

"Everyone in France is fucking gay! You gay too, bitchboy?"

"I'm telling you the truth!"

"We're telling you the truth too, bitchboy!"

Laughter ensued from one end of the classroom to the other. Stupid ass teacher stepped out and left me at the mercy of the animals.

"This is like a fucking nightmare, man! No one listens to a goddam word I say!"

"Who gives a shit what you think?" retorted a defensive Debby.

Debby always wins

Then the boys joined in, hoping to gain female approval by mocking me further. Many who were already insecure of having any smarts jumped on my supposed inferior ability to spell by repeating the same lectures they heard at home for poor grades. Other boys who were envied friends of the girls openly wondered how a retard like me would ever be able to reproduce. Farmboy in the back even wanted to fight me after school he was in such a need of a victory over somebody.

By becoming the lowest of the low, it was as if I had suddenly become a mirror. Convinced I could not possibly know the truth, each person in turn revealed his or her self to me as open season was declared upon my intelligence. I saw their fears, their ugliness, their tortured thoughts and even their strengths around the edges. But dare I say anything of what I see? Do I tell them it's obvious to me now what keeps them from accepting love?

As perpetual prisoners of the ruling nooky, the boys naturally took it too far as a pair of them stood on top of either desk beside me and started urinating on my head. They asked me if I enjoyed the rain. I told them yes and that made the girls giggle - I too am bound to please them even to my own detriment. The Lord of the flies has no eyes.

But most in the room were actually silent - the silent majority so to speak. They either knew outright or rightfully feared I was correct in my spelling but did not want to subject themselves to the same treatment I got. As I sat there dripping in piss I couldn't blame them and I severely doubted I would have the nerve to stand up to the vocal crowd either. Popularity trumps truth.

A few of the moderates - those pretending conviction - were easily shouted down and my case was sealed: the girls were correct in mocking me and the boys' piss duly justified. A sort of celebration followed as my accusers found relief in the sight of a lesser being in whom they could treat as they wish and the silent ones congratulated themselves on wisely sparing themselves my fate. And I wondered: what's the goddam fucking point of anything?

Maybe these fuckers were right after all: the truth is what you make it. We're all competing for love and approval in the end. What does the actual truth matter without it? If I had to choose between Debby's luscious legs and the correct spelling of 'debris' which would I choose? Why cling to a truth that doesn't get you laid? Goddam God doesn't care what's true - why should I?

Mired in such thoughts it was at this point the teacher returned to the room and gathered the papers. Her craggy face became more and more vexed as she perused the papers, singling one out from all the others: mine. She held it up announcing to the class I was the only one to spell the word 'debris' correctly. She also stated she was disturbed by the fact many had marked out the correct spelling and replaced it with 'debree' instead. She asked me to come up to the front to pick up the only passing paper.

Out of a sense of self-preservation I refused. My previous tormenters were now exposed as losers unjustified and unwarranted in their deeds. Dreams of endless sex and rising popularity imploded behind eyes of hate boring directly into my head. I heard murderous mutterings of: "Look what he did to us, that motherfucker!" and "He thinks he's better than the rest of us!" As for me, I was calculating the different ways of committing suicide since life is not an option.

Then a loud bang burst from the back, scaring the shit of the entire room as the smell of burnt gunpowder invaded our nostrils. Farmboy had been packing heat and took the teacher out with a single deadly shot. My loserdom was his only possible salvation to achieving a status worthy of love but as long as the teacher lived farmboy had no hope. The truth must die. Only problem was he shot the teacher after the truth had been revealed, detroying their illusion of victory.

I could see the question marks forming over my classmates' heads. "Does this mean we don't have to honor the truth now after all?" While failing to realize they could not "unknow" what they knew, they decided instead to think themselves clever and live by only what they would admit to be true. I, however, was still a threat as I clearly knew of their fraudulent path. That's when I heard the sharp razor voice of Debby speak out to me in her prosecutor's contempt.

"Hey, bitchboy, how do you spell 'debree'?"

"D-E-B-R-E-E."

"Good! Now bend over and take it up the ass, dummy, 'cause that's all your good for!"


------------------------------

CODA: Farmboy grew up to be revered as a dauntless hero by the Tea Party as he assassinated one "liberal liar" after another ("Suck my dick, Gandhi!" a popular bumper sticker). Masters of mob rule, the two assholes who pissed on me ended up as CEOs of the largest investment houses in the country. After their bailouts they blamed their problems on the poor who don't pay enough taxes ("They need to give us more, the useless fucks!"). Cheerleader Debby started a wildly popular religious organization: Buttfuckers for Jesus. "God wants you to fuck me in the ass!"

As for me, I'm still living at the mercy of the lords of the flies, blackmailed for food, sex and shelter or anything else that might me of use or desire. I thought it was my job - everyone's job - to speak the truth as much as possible. But I'm not rich or famous or popular so what can I ever know, right? "This is like a fucking nightmare, man! No one listens to a goddam word I say!"

The Sheriff Shoved Me So I Had To Shoot!

First you stop living. Then you start dying. Then you start crying. But to keep it all going you must always be lying. It's like having money stop coming in, living off your lifetime's savings. Seems the same to the outside world but an internal clock starts ticking down to That Day when life comes crashing down. Whatever you do, don't tell anyone of this horrible condition. Most of all you've got to keep it from the kids.

"I am nothing. I can have nothing. There's nothing I can do."

Big Man Daddy hears this every day in his mind's life. He wants to scream for help, to be held by understanding arms, to come in from the cold withering wind. But that's not what a real man does. He stands tall in the face of adversity - even if it's of his own making (especially if it's of his own making). Here in the frontier of what would one day be called the Old West, hard men were required to tame the land. Anything less and you were coward of the county, an unperson.

Big Man Daddy's tears expanded with the years. His wife died, leaving him to raise his two sons. A terrified and cowering soul on the inside, the hissing "nothing" voice convinced him he wasn't up to the task and never could be. His sons must accept him as he is: the image of a strong man lacking truth. But his sons were hurting too. They wanted to scream for help, to be held by understanding arms, to come in from the cold withering wind. But a good father shows no mercy.

And thus the dying cycle continued. The oldest son - the favored child - drowning in feelings of perpetual inadequacy driven straight from the heart of his old man had committed suicide. Publicly, Big Man Daddy mourned him  - while whispering of weakness. In truthfulness his nights were dominated by guilt monsters reviling him, mercilessly driving him further into his nihilistic mindset.

"But I'm standing tall against the wind. I'm still alive. That proves I'm right. Demons go away!" This everything the demons wished to hear.

His younger more sensitive son remained, only he dare not lash him as he had his brother. If only the boy had survived the whip! Big Man Daddy needed his sons to be as he is more than he needed life itself. He had to gamble - gamble his son would love him even without the insecure whippings. But this sensitive son more than anything else cherished his father's strong man image, praying the lie of his older brother's weakness to be true. I must believe in my Daddy. To think otherwise far too miserable a thought.

At 19, the boy was considered a man in the Old West. Ready or not, time to buck up on the rodeo of life. He felt ill-equipped to face the world having never received the nurturing he required. But he would be strong like his father, carrying on the proud family tradition. When he drank in the saloon, all the men bragged on how strong they were and if he were to lose that image of strength he'd be drummed out of town. By such thin threads did the boy's life hang.

Big Man Daddy's spiritual back was broken. Just a matter of time before he stumbled and fell for all the world to see he could not get back up. This daily fear racked and ravaged him as he fought back with whiskey and black outs. "You've got to learn to drink to be a man, son." But like all of us, his son had rather learn to live.

Finally, That Day came. Big Man Daddy was part of a committee to run the Sheriff out of town. The Sheriff was a fair but gnarly old cuss who didn't hesitate to use his gun. He was not just the image of a hard man, he was one. But times were changing and where the town once needed hard men in the beginning it needed the money men now, men who were political and calculating in nature. Naturally, these kind of men were afraid of the last hard man in the form of their Sheriff.

Banding together, they confronted the Sheriff, telling him he had to resign by force of a paper they had drafted. But the Sheriff merely scowled, tearing the hapless paper in two. This act of defiance - an act Big Man Daddy had needed to commit for decades - ripped right through his soul. Flashing through his mind was the picture of his own son standing defiant against his own lie, revealing Big Man Daddy for the fraud he is. That was UNACCEPTABLE. He must stand up to the Sheriff.

"What do you mean you won't resign? There's talk around town about you! Talk about you sleeping in the beds of the wives of the men you killed. What sort of freak show are you?"

Next thing Big Man Daddy knew he was lying on the ground with a sore jaw and stars spinning around his head. His head clearing, he put his hand on his gun as the Sheriff readied to mount his horse. Noticing this, the Sheriff looked back and sneered. "Go ahead, Big Man Daddy. My back is to you, just the position you like." Then he rode off in contempt, Big Man Daddy frozen in fear.

Don't fuck with me!

Later, mad denial rushed through Big Man Daddy's brain like a runaway river. "No, it didn't really happen! No one thinks you're a coward! Your image is still alive! No one knows you're broken! You can keep on just as you've always done!" Yet, any part of him still connected to reality found no respite in the present facts of his life. The slowly dripping dream-into-nightmare of his life raged in full fury as a broken dam of long hidden love. Then sentence was pronounced for his crime.

"I'm moving out, Pa. How could you let him do it? How could you let him hit you like that? You just did nothin'! Couldn't even get off the ground."

Having lost one son Big Man Daddy could not afford to lose another. He was in a literal life and death struggle. Knowing the true state of his crippledom, life would be unbearable alone. It was already unbearable even with his son! First, he tried one last grasping try for the lie.

"It'll be OK, son. It's not like you think. I...I slipped and fell. You see..."

He was failing miserably, unable to convince even himself.

"I just can't face 'em, Pa. I just can't. Whole saloon - whole town'll be laughin' at me." The son's eyes stayed averted to the floor, unable to look upon the freak show standing before him. Like his father's previous flash of horror, he just couldn't get it out of his head how the men at the saloon would mercilessly mock him, branding him a loser by association. Of all possible things in the world, that is the Last Thing he could accept in his formative larva stage.

Fully panicked now, realizing he'd lose his son forever, Big Man Daddy's mind resolved into pure insanity, thrusting himself full bore into his lifelong hard image determined to let nothing stand in his way. Today, the image would become reality and the world would be saved.

"I promise you, son, you won't ever have to be ashamed of your Daddy again. I give you my word on that."

That's when Big Man Daddy grabbed his rifle, walked out the door and went hunting for the Sheriff. But not in a direct way.

Big Man Daddy had to win, but facing a true hard man he had no chance. He needed an edge - even if a coward's edge. All that mattered in the end was a dead badge. So he perched himself behind the curtain of a second story window right on main street where the Sheriff was sure to walk. Big Man Daddy would cut him down with the voices of a thousand delighted demons screaming in his ears. At least somebody approved of him!

But he'd been spotted carrying his rifle with a stern and twisted look, word spreading like an arson fire. The Sheriff put down his drink, shaking his head at the drastic measures men took to save face. He'd bring Big Man Daddy back down to earth, removing the melodramatics from his mind to let clear thinking back in. He sauntered in deliberation fashion right into the middle of the street until finally he saw the rifle poking out of the window. He also saw the eyes behind the rifle - and those eyes his.

The Sheriff's stance was unwavering, forcing Big Man Daddy to ask himself: "Do you really want to do this? Is this really the answer?" Excited demons exhorted him to shoot, insisting that was the path back to life and love. "Do it! DO it! Be a man at last!" But those cold grey eyes of the Sheriff held him in a trance until finally Big Man Daddy's nerve left him as the cold water of truth spilled over. Killing the Sheriff would solve nothing. Still, the demons must be somehow appeased.

In his deliberate walk, the Sheriff made his way up the stairs, knocking on the closed door of his would-be shooter. The Sheriff knew already that to be a true hard man you had to be able to cry. In his mind, Big Man Daddy was learning this lesson and life would go on. Reason will win the day just as it had done for him. All in all, this entire incident a blessing.

But what the Sheriff saw as the Beginning, Big Man Daddy saw as the End. The demons relentlessly insisting he'd be never be any kind of man without pulling that trigger, Big Man Daddy's nerve failed once more, aiming the rifle into a fatal position of self-inflicted wounding. Did he have the guts to face life on life's terms? The worm inside still hissed its initial prophesy that began the downslide of his life: "I am nothing. I can have nothing. There's nothing I can do."

The shot exploded in the room into, both honest and lying hearts hearing it. Big Man Daddy's fellow cowards shivered in fear of a shared fate, whispering words of "weakness" about him. Honest hearts lamented the waste of a soul sitting on the verge of a great truth.

Like all wars, it had been a war for love. Some running to it, most running from it. To lose the war is to sit outside of love in a forever wasteland, haunted by those lost to you. These Wasteland Men make up their own false rules of life claiming death to be true life, fighting amongst each other in futile defiance, vowing never to capitulate wearing imagined crowns of glory. But the battle for love can never be won. The only solution is surrender.

---

Losing My Head Helping bbd Move

In me dream tonite...

My abode/camp/disaster area has steadily eroded into a place of wolves, night badgers and roaming packs of vicious dogs. It is not a hell where one lives or even can survive but merely a place where one waits to die. One does not "Invite people over" or most likely tell anyone about your plight at all. You simply endure in silent terror because you know no one can help (and those who claim they can are vampires in disguise hoping to find you in a weak moment. Monsters all!)

In temporary escape I visit the warm domain of bbd who has stuff strewn everywhere as he's in the process of moving to a faraway place. To be presentable I had to stop off at a public restroom to clean up as there's no time for such niceties in my day-to-day existence. "Normal" is a word I must appear to be but never actually reach.

Books/albums/movies are what my eyes always zero in on first in any house. Where's the art? Barry has a monster amount of these and it's in the midst of this hustle and bustle I find a temporary home rummaging through huge boxes of goodies, hoping to find items not worth the effort of moving.

As I do this, Barry's wife notices some of these long stored items and it triggers long ago memories from when she and Barry were first starting out. They had started with nothing and from what she was telling me they have been on a continuous journey of building up their life until they had this present day mansion of a marriage. It was tough for me to hear since my life has only gone in the opposite direction.

Sure enough, I find a Japanese novel in Barry's collection and in my excitement he lets me have it without my even asking. I start thinking my tastes might overlap enough that there might be some more treasures in store! I feel as if I'm digging for gold as Barry and his wife continue the laborious operation of packing and organizing. Once again, I must get by on the kindness of others.

I compartmentalize in moments like this, pretending my life is normal when in fact it's a raging fire. I have no home to go back to, my health is failing and I so dread heading back to the wolves and vampires who know I must return. At this very moment I'm living in Barry's moving box all the while hearing the ticking clock. I must steal these few moments even if they remind me of what I do not have.

Then I come across the mother load: "FUSHIMA". A giant Japanese novel perhaps a foot wide and 18 inches in length. The thickness must be a good 7 inches. It's covered in an extremely overpadded yellow bound leather. What an ancient relic to find! I told Barry I had seen the movie of course but never even knew it was based on a book. I wanted to hold it and hug this transfusion of life.

Fearing her husband to be too gracious in the face of my vast but narrow enthusiasm, she quickly pops up, "Oh no, you can't let him have your FUSHIMA book!" Looking at it further I could see all sorts of writing on it tying it to the time the movie was released in 1983. I'm thinking, "Oh shit. This is not just a book but an heirloom, a momento of their past, of a time and place." I felt duly ashamed for my insensitivity.

"Haha, I'll give you a nickel for it!" I said. That gave Barry an obvious offer to reject so all our faces could be saved. I wondered what the story was behind the purchase of the book, a purchase of obvious passion to have spent so much money at a time when they probably had very little. Embarrassed, I wandered onto the rolling acreage easily the size of a park surrounding the house. I can trespass here now because I know the owners but soon this land will be forbidden to me like all others.

The day is clear and bright as I wander through the landscaping implemented over the years, bubbling creeks and concrete divides. My mind is compressed into tears but I tell it I've got to enjoy this moment however fleeting regardless of my having no future. God, I wish I could rest! The day begs for it as I'm haunted by decisions of my past. I can't go on like this. I can't go on. The sun hides behind a sudden cloud.

Back in the house, Barry's wife strikes up a friendly conversation with me perhaps worried I might have been offended by her protection of the family memento. She spoke of some piano wire she had bought but my mind was still lost outside hoping to find refuge from my inside. I made an absentminded comment and realized I couldn't hide here anymore. Damn, I want a home of my own.

Hoping to elongate the period of distraction I immediately start my search for the FUSHIMA novel. But back on my own, the pressures of the day cloud me into confusion. Seems the book was part of a larger collection. Or was the whole collection called FUSHIMA? I couldn't tell as I looked at this roundabout of Japanese books in futility at a street corner bookstore. For some reason simply looking it up at Amazon was impossible too. I was never going to find that book again.

And thus ended the time of my distraction, returning me slip-siding back into hell. I begged for more time but I knew the search for the book was hopeless no matter how much I wanted to believe the lie. The wolves, the pack dogs, the vampires descended from the darkness, mocking me, asking, "What are you going to do? How can you possibly survive with no purpose, no love, no retreat?" They hold no conscience or scruple - nor even see a reason to. Just a clear, focused devouring of my life their sole commitment.

Alone and abandonded I scream out for help but all the humans have packed up and left. Like a drowning man lunging for the surface I wake up, hair wet and heart pounding. That's all my life is, I realize. Distractions and dancing to the music of others. For a time, through an effort more enormous than the Normandy invasion, more steel willed than a one-legged marathoner I can achieve a facsimilie of normality. But I ask you: How does one find restful slumber under the blade of a guillotine day after day?

Downtown Night Rain (Photo Essay)

If I could fly
I'd pick you up
I'd take you into the night
And show you a love
Like you've never seen - ever seen

It's 2 AM on a rainy night in downtown Dallas and I've got no place to go. Not many 24/7 joints around downtown - not ones I'd like to visit anyway. There's a 7/11 where all sorts of wanderers drift in and out. Lots of cops drift in too - must sell donuts there. A McDonalds stays open round the clock but if you come near it as an outsider be prepared to be hit up for some cash. (FYI, walking around with a camera on a tripod signifies you as an outsider). But the reason both of those places stay open is because of their proximity to the bus station.









Despite all the advances in modern technology over the past 80 years, the bus stop is still a focal point in any large city. Trains, planes and automobiles have encroached mighty heavily on its once towering domain but for many it's still a vital mode of long haul transportation. Even at this ungodly hour, cars and trucks pulled up to unload passengers into the pouring night rain. But while the bus stop remains a solid fixture on the American landscape, the romance of it is long gone.









No one actually verbalizes it, of course, but let's face it: socially speaking when traveling by bus you are an undeclared second class citizen, people who live only in the corner of our eye. Where else would you find a smoking area defined by a spiked, high rod iron fence? When foreigners think of America do you think they picture this? The amount of ugliness we hide grows by the day. We are as sick as our secrets.



Across the street a megabank parking garage. It seems as faraway as a foreign country, its users though never giving a second thought to the plight of the nearby bus riders. We've all learned to step over dead bodies with eyes closed, silently praying we don't join their ranks - which guarantees we will.



Deep Ellum is the entertainment district. One street over on Elm, night clubs are still going strong but here on Main all is deserted.









The rain gods had no mercy on this nighttime photographer. We're all homeless boys and girls in this world that gives no quarter. The lawyer in his $2,200 a month loft works 70 hours a week, a willing teeth-gritting slave to his opulent lifestyle. The 7/11 night clerk watches others come and go as they please while he's trapped behind a counter ringing up Twinkies and cigarettes. And we streetlight people live day and night on society's front lines of actuality.



But in the end we are like drops of rain who fall to earth, some to soak the ground and breed life, others only to be washed away into the gutter never to be seen again.



Click on any photo for a larger version. Click here for the entire set.

Iron Bars And Iron Hearts

A man can't live without freedom. No point bein' alive without it. I can't find me no freedom in this world. All I got left is willing myself to death. Freedom ain't when you got nothin' left to lose, it's only when you got something to live for you got freedom. How does someone live for iron?

The nightmare trial keeps playing in my head like a movie you already seen but keep hopin' the ending will change. It's got to change or nothin' means nothin'. It started with that judge eyeing me like I stole her lunch money. I knew about her already, the Slut of San Antonio. They say she won't say no to no man no time. You know what a woman like that is doin' to herself? She's raping herself.

So guess what happens when a man goes up before her accused of rapin'? She gotta prove how much she hate rapin' or they gonna take away her robe, her car and her fancy downtown condo. She thinks she can fool God by foolin' herself. The paper said I was on trial but truth was she was on trial and was guilty, guilty, guilty! I got handed down the maximum sentence for her crime. They said that was because she loves justice so much.

Minute I got my conviction all the guilty feeling, unconvicted rapists come runnin' out of the dark. They got this vexed look on their face tellin' me courts never make a mistake, godly jury of my peers, wish they'd hang me like in the old days. They spittin' on me 'cause their mothers can't love them. I can still see their angry faces popping out of the shadows, somehow thinking I can save them. If I hadn't been in chains I'd of stepped on them miserable little worms good and save the world.

"The courts are never wrong I tell you!"

Boy, that district attorney sure hated my guts. He was talking about me like he knew me his whole life. Where does he get off talking with that kind of authority? How is he so sure he got the truth inside him? It was like watching a man get drunk, more he drink louder he gets. Don't he ever think about what it mean if he be wrong? I never in my life wanted to kill a man so bad as that! That man is like a knife in the world, cuttin' lives to pieces, making it so we can't live together. Funny part is, that exactly what he said about me.

Yeah maybe I hit my sister a few times when I was young but I never done nothin' to no woman no matter what that lady on the stand says. It just ain't in me. But listenin' to that attorney talk about me, saying I'm vile and vicious like he's speaking God's own truth. He said it so hard he got me believin' it. Got me thinking back to my Sheila, how I hurt her when I ran away from her love. I was angry then and I don't know why but I pulled up our flower of love to die. I'm feeling that same angry all over again in the courtroom.

That attorney man got me feeling so guilty I couldn't fight back. Would Sheila stand with him or with me right now? Would she say I should be sent down the river? Part of me just can't fight what she'd say. I always wanted to be somebody but I ended up a bum. Maybe if I'd married Sheila this hell wouldn't be happening to me. You just wouldn't believe the kind of thoughts go runnin' through your head when your life is on trial by eyeless strangers.

And so I got slammed into the belly of the iron beast, buried alive, buried alive. My reward for bein' dragged over the burning coals of the court was to be thrown right into the fire. I must live now the worst fate of all, to have seen the true heart of my fellow man. No one should have to live with such a knowing. No child should ever suffer to be raised by them. There's no God in these iron bars, to who do I appeal?

At night I go out my mind. I grab the iron posts of my bed holdin' on for dear life, like I'm gonna fall off a cliff if I let go. I never make it even two hours sleep before I scream myself awake, always with my hair dripping wet and my jaw sore from the clenching. Waking from the sleeping nightmare to the waking nightmare don't make for much relief. It's like that when you live in a world where your words don't count.

Ya know what gets ya most the most? The stillness. It's heavy and solid, like you can carve it into blocks and stack it. It's got a real high pitch whine to it, it never varies or gets louder or softer or higher or lower. Just always the same, like the universe is dead and you're the last living object in it.

I got me a small clip on reading light. Sometimes I turn it on then back away to the corner of my cell where it still dark. I look into the light to see if anything gonna happen. I wait and watch, glad I'm not the one in the spotlight now. Bad things happen when you in the spotlight. People think they can do anything to you.

If I could be like a free man, I'd take this stillness and bottle it up. Then I'd take a bottle of it and throw it inside that San Antonio slut's home. Like I said, it's heavy so it'll run along the floor so when she gets up her feet will get stuck in it and she can't move. She can yell and scream all she wants but it won't make no difference. She gonna find it takes two to break a stillness and there ain't no way around that now or ever. Feel your own fate, bitch.

I can see why them guards are in prison, they deserves to be here. They's animals because they think they ain't. One of the new guys was laughed at by one of them animals when he tried to tell them he'd been raped by a prisoner known to do that. But I knew this guard to be a church man, taking his family every week. So I quotes him what Jesus says, "What you do unto the least of you, you do unto me." But then his eyes turned narrow and red and he punches me in the stomach. "You're not Jesus!" he says walking away. I'm thinking, "And you're no Christian!"

I hears another animal on the radio saying I live in a country club. You ever hear of a country club in Texas without a goddam air conditioner? Bet that son-of-a-bitch couldn't make it a day much less a summer without it like we do. Most we can have is a fan and of course ya gotta buy it to even get it. But there's these folks who will give you one if you can't get one on your own. They don't ask if you guilty or innocent. I cried when I got mine.

So I think I'm gonna stop eating. I'll make it look like I am but I'll just get weaker and weaker and finally get the hell out of here. God don't like it God can do somethin' about it. A lady of the light wrote me once, to be my penpal. She made me breathe again, made it so I wanted to live. She said such wonderful words to me I saved every one. But my feelings got so deep I knew as long as we friends there'd be no way I could kill myself. She can't get me out of here either so I was mean to her to run her off, so I could have hope. Been hearin' that attorney yellin' in me head ever since.

I'm going mad inside this iron tomb. What's the point of all this hell? To die alone, a life unexamined? The truth dies with me, never meaning nothin'. I hope God will love me more in the next world. Seems somethin' happened here beyond my understanding. My mind is blank, my heart is squeezed in agony, the light dims inside my soul. All I have is questions without answers and nothin' to believe in. Please let me die.

---

In the post above I speak for no one but myself. College student Tim Cole died in prison after being railroaded by the police and prosecution. He was falsely accused of being a serial rapist but the truth did not die with him - thank God. In the video I took below, his brother Cory tells an absorbing, terrifying and even a heartbreakingly triumphant tale of Tim's odyssey into hell.

Thousands more are out there, huddled in their cells feeling alone and abandoned. Justice can never sleep or we all fail.

The End Is Fear

The countdown has begun. 30 days to doom. Un-fucking-believable. It's too unreal to be true. It's too real to be false. So this is how a condemned man feels.

I'm looking at the notice and I swear I've never seen such an angry piece of paper before in my life. I understand: you want me dead. No wait, I don't understand. You're not really going to do this are you? What crime have I committed that I should be banished to the streets in slow agonizing death? You people...you can't really mean this!

This is a movie, right? Something always happens in a movie so the unthinkable never comes true. I'll get a magical job offer, or an inheritance or maybe find some money by the side of the road. I've read about that before, you know. Some couple out walking finding money. I'm going out of my mind. I don't know what's left to do dropped in a dark well to die!

***

It's been a week now and no word on anybody joking. I can't sleep at all. I have to wake up to escape the nightmares. Sometimes I dream I count after all. No one's going to kill me just because I ran out of money! But when I wake up and see the burning notice I scream in my apartment, praying for God to hear me. Some woman said she prayed and God helped her out. Well, you better get on the stick, asshole God!

I walk around looking at everyone's face, wondering if I really am seeing the faces of killers. I feel like showing each person this tragic paper, asking them if they really mean to do me in. But I know their eyes would only turn away, telling me they can't help me. I'm just an inconvenient corpse to be stepped over, a dreaded non-person never to be acknowledged or spoken of. Yes, it really is all a conspiracy.

I try to hold out hope but I wish I wouldn't. It's maddening to still cling to faith in my fellow man. When I read about us coldly killing from the sky in other countries it takes on a whole new meaning now. Now I'm the one targeted for termination. It really does happen. Who are you people?

***

It's passed the halfway point and I feel like I'm falling off a cliff waiting to hit the hard ground. Everyone thought I was OK before but really I was just using up my cash reserves, putting on a front. I made myself believe too, going to the movies as if I still belonged, laughing in the face of love as conning coins jingled in my pocket. That was my morality, my proof I deserved to live. Now comes to light my fraudulent ways.

Maybe if they're going to treat me like a criminal I should act like one. What have I got to lose? But I'm not even committed enough to my life to even do that. I just want to be left alone, to live. No one questions the judgement I should die. The minute you're out of money they turn against you, calling you traitor for betrayal of the Holy Lifestyle. It's people like me who fuck it up for everyone else, they say. Just got to get rid of my presence reminding them of their conscience.

I can't make it through the night without dripping in sweat. My hair is soaked, my body drenched. The smell of an outcast. My skin decays into unsightly sores, making me too ashamed to face the world. The more I rot, the less I can share myself. The less I can share myself the further away the possibility of hope. Snarling wolves surround me, waiting for the feast - and I grow only weaker.

***

I start thinking about trying to enjoy these last few days indoors. I don't sleep at all anymore at night. Or rather, I sleep off and on around the clock, always slipping closer to the terrifying edge, always silently screaming "Nooo!" The clock marches mercilessly forward, sometimes I drown only a few minutes, sometimes a few hours, always coming back to the surface to check the time left. Insane thoughts run through my mind.

I take off all my clothes, peering through the blinds at an alien planet. I'm going to run outside naked and show them all who I am at last, sores and all. Come see the freak you've created! They will give voice to my screams, pulling their children away later telling their trusting minds the beasts had no part in my demise. "If anyone dies, it must be their own fault. The world is perfect." The beasts are afraid of the world they made, they dare not speak against it.

Oh, God, have you no mercy? Round and round goes my head. Killing, hating, dying, loathing, begging, caring, loving, dreaming, blanking out, staring out, falling out. Nothing makes any fucking goddam difference! Mob rule - God's god - rules the day, demons in suits walk without fear in the sun. Henchman in hard hats steal with impunity. I should have been one of them. I'm being punished for my dishonesty. I should have admitted I was a killer too instead of posing as a Moral Man. But still, I cannot bring myself to kill.

I can't take it anymore. The more I live, the more ready I am to die.

***

Doomed to an invisible jail in the streets, mocked by clever cunts blind to their own demise. I burn cool with rage, my glaring eyes spitting on your stay of execution. You gave me no way out and by such determination have defined your own fate. Clock ticks loud for my destroyers as well. No phony currency will save you. No army, no position of power can make you safe. From within explodes the final answer of life or death.

But here now and afterwards in the great beyond I know I will do one thing will all my heart and all my mind and all my soul: I will pray.

I will pray this planet dies. I will pray you suffer a hell not known since the beginning of time, that you bury your children in despairing misery born of your ways, never knowing a moment's peace from your treacherous neighbor. I pray every ounce of judgement is squeezed out of you till either you repent or die - I don't care which. I will pray you drink twice the portion from the cup of righteous poison you so zealously served to me. You will plead, "How could we have known the end of him was the end of us?" But I will say, "How could you have not?"