November 2006 Archives

Thompson Square Park

They had to go and make us wear lavender.

Thanksgiving was alright this year, I guess. It sucked that it rained all day and that I had to work. It also sucked that I had non turkey day food from a restaurant around the corner. Mostly, I missed my family, especially mami’s cooking. But at the end, it turned out ok. Two friends stopped by, one brought party favorites and a DVD and the other a bottle of wine and a plate of Thanksgiving yummies.

I was expecting a night at home alone but it turned out ok.

Last week my Photography teacher announced the class’s next assignment which resulted in a lot of gasps and looks of disbelief, including those of my own. Our assignment was to shoot 3-4 rolls of nudes or rather pictures celebrating the body.

We all thought the very same thing. How the fuck are we going to get anyone to take of their cloths for us, let alone have the balls to go around and ask people would they volunteer, without looking like a fucking pervert.

This was by far the hardest assignment ever given to us. The subject matter isn’t one always readily available (willing) and there’s also the entire element of discomfort with the naked body, that whole social taboo bit and our own hang ups to get over.

Needles to say only four people showed or rather had material to show. One had a series of out of focus Barbie dolls screwing. Another had a six scattered images of work, nothing overtly racy but there was a particular shot of undressed mannequins that was amazing, this other girl shot her friend in a gauzy sun dress but had a beautiful picture of thick well formed legs sporting sickening padded leather stilettos.

Then there was me, who took the entire thing where no one else was willing to take it. 36 self portraits, I dubbed The Red Light Series. Yusef wearing nothing but his birthday suit or maybe a little saran wrap. It was the hardest thing I ever shot or rather had the balls to share with the world. I was in fact so uncomfortable that I was at first only willing to show my teacher the series. My teacher and one of the guys in class talked me out of it and insisted that I had to show what my teacher considered my best work yet in two years. And so, shaking, I handed my memory disk to my teacher, inundated with self doubt thinking oh God this entire class and two professors are about to see my nudes projected on a six foot screen.

It was all so weird, me sitting there in the dark surrounded by strangers looking at me free of garbs and inhibition. I was nude but my body was viewed as art rather then object, even though objectified, but not necessarily sexualized. There were no signs of judgment or uninvited opinions, only shows of support and loads of kudos. My teacher said that I crossed the threshold and set a new standard of artistic daring that raised the bar for everyone.

I met an adorable little girl today at work named Mia. Mia is five years old and an inspiring ballerina. She made it a point to show me al of her moves like courtesies, stances and little clumsy attempts at pirouettes. She reminded me of a little boy I knew who liked ponies and tap dancing. I miss him.

At first, Mia was quite shy but broke the ice by displaying her uncanny ability to become invisible and became quite irritable when I didn’t at first realize she was using her super powers, and again when she no longer wished to use them but I was under the impression that she was.

After that she wouldn’t stop hugging me, asking how she might help me, and paraded me around the dinning room floor while clasping my pinky with her small hand.

She was disappointed that I did not sit and partake in some of her ice-cream and was super sad when it was time to go.

I want to be a daddy. I want a little wonderful child like Mia in my life. I think I would be a great dad. But what to do about fertilizing that egg…

I wish all of my customers were as pleasant and offered to share their deserts with me.

Memorable customers this week: Vera Wang, Duran Duran (twice), Marc Jabobs, The owner of Club Monaco, A Japanese actor whose name I wont attempt to spell, the CEO of Tommy Hilfiger, and a caravan of models (way too many to mention).

Work is fun. except for one not so likeable manager, soar feet, and the most federally taxed checks I have ever seen.

I paid my December rent yesterday, two weeks in advance. It feels so fucking good to know that I got that out of the way and that I do not have to worry about rent money for another 45 days

It’s late and I should be sleeping but I can’t. There’s so much on my mind, much of which is bothering me. I hate feeling this way but lately all I feel is this awareness of struggle, strife and a deep desire to make things better. I have a deep desire to fix pasts that can not be mended and alter the framework of the present built. There are so many regrets inside me and an awaiting void to be filled with the non lamentable.

Yet this is where I am, here, the now, this present. I would love to embrace it the way I do laughter, the day, music, art, but when I lay my head down at the end of day, the wonderful all becomes upstaged by that burning desire to be and have more then I have amassed, to be unburdened, part of something greater then myself, to be wholly accepted, forgiven, supported, embraced, acknowledged, to come as I am and have that be enough. I want to be loved. I want to know where home is. I want to be able to stand before hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, and close my eyes and picture a place, a face, and know that come what may come all is well because I belong somewhere, no matter the distance or chaos that nature and the heavens might place before me

The journey to self fulfillment seems so difficult to tread at times. I wish I were unattached to the high demands I place on myself, to be uncaring, worry free, a vagabond at the mercy of fate and the alms of the almighty. Often time though the difficulty of the journey makes one question so much of him/her self and one feels forsaken, cheated, lost and hopeless.

And tomorrow is another day. I will wake up and drape myself with clean pressed garbs and adorn myself with smiles and flatteries and commence my hike down this winding road that’s life. I rather it was hand in hand, with whispered words of encouragement, with more to look forward to then the continuance of the unpaved journey and no idea of where it is I am going.

Every time I feel like this, I remind myself of that journey 27 years ago. I was five and weak from days without water or food on that boat lost at sea for what seemed like an eternity. Nothing could keep me from letting go of that railing as the treacherous seas came down on us with wave after wave of reason for which to lose hope. But I held on, with the blind faith of a child who understood nothing of tragedy or regret, which blindly puts its faith on a world he knows will soon provide and no matter how bad a storm has the assurance that the sun is bound to shine.

I am that little boy this evening. Trying to make sense of things in the darkness, as life batters me with endless waves of turmoil; afraid, lost, and confused, holding on to the railing with everything I got, searching for the sun in the distant unseen horizon.

As of late my contributions to cubanizm have for the most part had a real fucking air of depression to them. I guess that makes you all victims of my victimized personal space. My apologies. Shit has not been all that swell as of late and that whole optimism thing doesn't always work out so well. Writing is a little therapeutic and at times I can often unleash wordy solemn entries.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do with this site when I first registered it. However, it quickly after I started it became apparent that slowly flourishing was a digital scrapbook and journal of sorts. I questioned whether putting myself out there was too much of a self invasive move and was not sure how much of myself I would really want to make public. Most importantly what to do with the fact that I do not live my life in the confines of a bubble but am in fact connected to a lot of stories that aren’t always mine’s alone to share.

It is not easy to always to be ethical or adhere to principles of confidentiality, or for that matter, principles period. Often time just being able to look someone privately in the eye and know they know you know more then they care for you to know about them, or even better, have the right to look at them and think, “bro, you kind of suck and you know that I know so”, is reward enough in itself. Only problem with that is that dissonance often makes assholes unable to assume any wrong doing and major assholes also often seem immune to the you-suck stares because they don’t realize they suck until much too late in life. Yet, even assholes of the smelliest and shityest type, should not have power to in turn make assholes out of you and me.

Hence, I limit myself to little metaphorical rants of wordy misspelled run on sentences that result in confusing narratives of considerable length which often time only make sense to either myself and those directly involved.
This afternoon, I lost myself to a therapeutic draft of epic length that started on what seemed like an elevated spiritual tone of tolerance, compassion and forgiveness but little Buddha lost his way under the joshua tree and it quickly became apparent that I would rather have been writing about the lies, theft, defamation, the self pleasuring of body cavities, cheating, sex, deceit, hypocrisy, revenge, mind games, blasphemy, tax evasion, elicit sex, prostitution, retribution, and crap that often surrounds a good deal of people.

I overanalyzed a whole lot on a lot of shit I have dealt with as of late and that resulted in me dishing out one continuous wicked spew of diabolical proportions. I started with the letter A and worked my way down to Z, mentioning and naming each and every single spite I have for every single last motherfucker that has rubbed me the wrong way or caused the burden of a chip to my shoulder this last and very difficult year. It was long. It was real. It was revealing. It was destructive. It resulted in elevated levels of serotonin and wonderfully creative imaginary scenarios of what such chaotic action might result in.

My Jiminy Cricket witnessed, gagged and bound as the cat kept watch. Behemoth played composer to an orchestra composed of the snoring sounds of sleeping little buddha, key strokes at much too fast a pace, the clanking sounds of Pandora’s box unfolding, the slow breathing of a man who had just snapped, the wails that came forth from the opening gates of purgatory, the rushing sounds of plasma and bombardment of cellular forms in my aorta, the sudden sporadic giggle of one too pleased with his own evil, the clashing sounds of angels and demons and the untimely buzzing of an innocent fly that crossed my path, ending the entire concerto with a deadly newspaper splat that landed conveniently on the forehead of the resigning Donald Rumsfeld’s featured picture.

There are times I write, as I have done so today and that there is no way in hell I could post what my little fingers spelled out along the keyboard. No matter how angry or lost I feel, I am never able to release all the gossip, stabs, twofaced antics, vengeful spews of verbal diarrhea, the names (the thought make me shutter), and dirty dirty little secrets that I am purview to, must never be unleashed. Least it results in the catalyst to a cataclysm that might result in the demise of the fashionable use of lamé fabrics, the use of “miss thing” as a term of endearment, Home an Garden Television, the spread of gonorrhea in truck stops, half the audience of American Idol, equal marriage rights controversies, the sell of Cher albums, Michael Jackson impersonations, tasteful eccentricity, the use of Rhinestones by anyone not called grandma, needless lip augmentations, the wearing of Versace paisley shirts, the consumption of fuzzy navels by anyone other then a high school girl, after-hours worth mentioning, etc; Pretty much all of homo homo-sapiens life as we know it.

But, I then hit the select all command and after a quick menacing laugh hit delete, took a long pensive breath somewhere between Nirvana and Hades before astro-projecting back to the Yusef, that often time isn’t as easy to be.

Good Prevails.

I love photography more and more each day. I cant describe it. There's an addictive quality to the constant search for the perfect image. I find there to be a meditative quality to photography. I transcend from ponderer to observer, recorder; a chronicler behind the lens as opposed to a game piece on the board. I forget everything in search of images that transform, inspire and express that which is often suppressed. I never been so passionate about anything in my life except maybe for him but even photographs fade. And yet passion doesn't.

I'm a photojournalist without a subject, still life sans object, and open aperture devoid of light. I am framed, out of focus, and underexposed, experiencing you via wide angled-macro senses, attempting to make sense of the distorted.

Yet, even the distorted comes into focus and all takes perfect sublime shape.