“I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.”
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.”
― Jack London
Journal Entry: March 30, 1999 / Marathon des Sable / Morocco / Sahara Desert.
“This is our fourth day of covering the Marathon des Sable; so far we’ve managed to lose our way, we’ve been blasted by a sand storm, we’ve run out of toilet paper and are now surviving on granola bars, turkey jerky and hot bottles of Coca-Cola. I have no idea how many miles we have traveled or how many times we’ve managed to get stuck in the sand. My driver, Nouh, speaks no English and smokes three packets of Marlboro Lights a day. He’s also fond of breaking wind each time he exits the Land Cruiser.
What I can tell you, should you not already know, is that the Marathon des Sable is a stage race that lasts 7 days and covers 243km/151 miles. To make things even more difficult, each competitor has to carry everything they may need for the duration of the race (apart from their tent) on their backs in a rucksack – their food, clothes, medical kit, sleeping bag, etc. In addition, runners’ water is rationed and handed out at each checkpoint.
The backdrop to this event is the Sahara Desert. Not only is the Sahara the largest desert on earth, covering an area of 3.5 million square miles, (which amounts to 8% of our planet’s surface area), it stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west across half of Northern Africa, to the Red Sea. It then extends down to the highlands of Ethiopia with temperatures recorded as high 40° +Celsius / 120° + Fahrenheit. The Sahara is a great leveller, making all men equal regardless of their station in life. So, when you come across another soul within this vast arena of sand, you stop, share, and remind yourself that here, we are all brothers.
Depending on whom you ask, the estimated population of the Sahara Desert varies from 2.5 million to 4 million people – so you would think finding a singing rabbit would be easy. Oh contraire.
The singing rabbit is competitor Derek McCarrick of the UK. Mr. McCarrick has been running marathons for Leukemia and Breast Cancer Research for the past 20 years and is still going strong at the age of 73. Mr. McCarrick has personally raised a staggering £200,000 ($ 319,920.00) for charity, an achievement which is all the more impressive as he has completed each race dressed as the cartoon character, Roger Rabbit!
Eureka! On the horizon we spot a lone figure of a man with the head of Roger Rabbit tied to his backpack.
‘I’m the only rabbit in the world that’s run across the Sahara,’ Mr. McCarrick once told me. He also added, ‘People think I’m bonkers!’ In 2008, this former coal miner was awarded the MBE (Order of the British Empire) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. For those who are not British, an MBE award is one of the highest distinctions that can be gained by a British citizen. Not bad for a chap from Minster on the Isle of Sheppey.”
Like a still image, a song can transport you back to a moment in time that has been forgotten. For instance, during the wild fires of Southern California in 2009 I had a very real flashback when Shakira’s song; “Whenever, Wherever” blared out from the radio while driving on the Glendale Freeway. The smell of a burning hillside mixed with fumes of diesel, the thump, thump, thumping of the helicopters overhead transported me immediately back to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. Music is sort of a synthetic acid, which enhances flashbacks of one’s own memories. Scans of the brain show that when people listen to music, virtually every area of their brain becomes more active. Which may explain why I have overcome a learning disability with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.
Strange as it may seem, when I listen to music as I am doing right now, it forces me to focus and keeps my ADD at bay. Growing up, my parents could never understand why I would play music when reading or studying. They would just shout at me to turn the record player or radio off. But, instinctively I need this learning aid to focus .. go figure! Music helps me concentrate. Once I sit down, play my music I fall into a Zen like zone and my brain slows down to a crawl so that I can concentrate. If it were not for music and the computer I would probably be selling used furniture in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
But when you combine music and dance it can bring back the passionate fire of our youth and the peacefulness of our softer and more graceful years – maybe they are never expressed more fully than through a song and a slow dance. It is the medium of music and dance that is tangible to our soul and expresses to the world who we truly are and who we can be. The best part of music for me, is when my arms are wrapped around a woman and I can feel the beat of her heart to the tempo of the music. We become lost, yet together in sync as the lyric’s nourish our souls. Unaware of time and space we dance losing isolation to become a bridge of kindred spirits as a karmic connection begins to blossom between us……….would you like to dance? Hit it Bobby.
BOBBY CALDWELL – What You Won’t Do For Love (1979)
Busking impersonators portraying super heros from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and coexisting with numerous Captain Jack Sparrow have worked on Hollywood Boulevard for decades. They collect tips posing with sightseers for pictures and performing along the tourist filled corridor of the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman’s Chinese Theater. In recent years competing for prime location in front of Grauman’s has become very contentious. Recently, Los Angeles paramedics responded to a battery call when a fight between Catwoman and an Ozzy Osbourne impersonators had ended with Ozzy getting pepper sprayed. It was reported that Jack Sparrow of “Pirates of the Caribbean” as being the victim but that report turned out to be false. Even superhero’s have been arrested, Spider-Man was arrested on outstanding criminal warrants after an incident in which he allegedly slugged a man. When LAPD officers arrived, they encountered four different people dressed as Spider-Man. The officers eventually got their man.
For Ritchie Rodgers who captures the spirit of Jimi Hendrix his challenge is to clam a spot away from the mayhem just west of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Ritchie relies on the power of his music to bring the tips in and he has nailed Jimi Hendrix not only with his guitar licks but in Jimi’s vocals.
A trips to Hollywood Blvd is a wonderful opportunity to study American culture – I have never been disappointed for the lack of subjects.
Related story : Jesus of Hollywood, https://davebanks.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/jesus-of-hollywood/
After a midnight shoot at The House of Blues in Hollywood. I packed up my camera gear and headed back to my car parked on Sunset Boulevard. Just a block away, I came upon the Saint of Sunset sitting on a small swatch of old red carpeting with his back resting against a chain link fence. As I approached he looked up and with bright eyes and a smile he said, “Good evening my friend.”
“And a good evening to you my friend and how is life treating you this fine evening?” I asked.
“Better now that you are here”, he said, “would you like a blessing?”
“yes indeed,” I replied.
Closing his eyes the Saint bowed his head whispering, “My friend and I are but actors in a theatre called earth, our stage is small but it is here where we rehears our play of life before the curtain closes. Blessings my friend.”
Kabul, Afghanistan
Wandering the back streets of Kabul I found myself on Passport lane where Afghan citizens go to have their photos taken for government ID’s. After watching the photographer at work with a couple of subjects, I fell in line to have my photo take as well. The process was slow, about 10 to 15 minutes to shoot, develop and print a photo for each customer. Which gave me the time to study and admire the work of this real street photographer. The Afghan box camera is a giant handmade wooden box known as the kamra-e-faoree, meaning “instant camera” – I call it the “Afghan Polaroid”. Working with only natural light the photographer uses a 35-millimeter camera lens attached to the front of the box and instead of clicking the shutter, the photographer removes the lens cap for a second and replaces it. Inside the box camera is an entire darkroom – paper, developer and fixer. After the latent image is exposed to a sheet of photographic paper, the photographer inserts his hand into the box through a cut-off pants leg designed to keep out light that would ruin the print.
He develops the image by moving the paper through two trays, one holding developer and the other fixer, to create a paper negative. He then makes another exposure, which converts the negative image into a positive print. It was truly impressive to watch how smooth and precise the photographer worked.
Having been briefly banned along with music and paper bags by the Taliban the kamra-e-faoree camera is in danger of disappearing again as digital cameras become more common place in Kabul.
Lukas Birk is well aware of the historical signifiants of the Afghan street photographers and their camera. Mr.Birk has creating the Afghan Box Camera Project. For any photographer who appreciates the history of cameras and film this is a worth while cause. Link:http://www.afghanboxcamera.com/
demo reel
Ever wonder who is filming the rock climber two thousand feet up, dangling from the granite walls of Yosemite? Ever consider how a cameraman got those claustrophobic shots deep inside the ancient tunnels beneath the pyramids of Egypt? How about the intense handheld footage of the war in Afghanistan or the Los Angeles riots, and what kind of cockamamie person would voluntarily put himself into that chaos?
Surely you didn’t know that while shooting documentaries in exotic locations, a cameraman, or “shooter,” will have to brave blinding sandstorms, blistering heat of the day, bone marrow freezing nights, and even recognize the sharp crack of a gunshot followed by the screaming hiss of bullets passing by his head. Even worse, he’ll have to survive the projectile side effects of eating what some cultures call “delicacies” and what we would simply consider “repulsive.”
Dispatched all over the globe, I have embarked on the types of trips that only few travelers ever experience, and I’ve done this with hundreds of pounds of camera equipment. I’ve risked life and limb for the sole purpose of sharing the farthest reaches of the world with the audience back at home. I’ve covered expeditions, mountain climbs, archeological digs, adventure races, civil strife, and war. I’ve been shot at, lost in the Sahara Desert, and chased by a foreign army. I’ve strayed into a landmine field twice, and had a bounty on my head. Perhaps scariest of all, I’ve covered a story on fainting goats in Nebraska. Sounds like fun, huh? For decades years, I have taken the risk to bring the world into your living room. One day working The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in a air-conditioned concrete bunker drinking free coffee and eating as many pastries as I could eat, the next in hostile locations in the Middle East, North Africa or Oceania. – only on occassion would Europe come in to play.
We were not mentioned in S. E. Hinton’s book The Outsiders. Hinton’s novel takes place in Tulsa Oklahoma in the mid-sixty’s which is a beautifully written anthropology of the class division between high school teenagers. The Socs (pronounced ˈsoʊʃɪz / so-shis, short form of Socials) were from middle income to upper income families on the south side of Tulsa. They drove new cars given to them by their daddy. Thier social uniform were wheat jeans, penny loafers, button down collar madrases shirts, and white socks. Their haircut was reminiscent to the moptops of the Beatles. On the other hand, the greasers were boys from lower-class blue collar families from north Tulsa. Most were shade tree mechanics driving old 50’s Chevrolets and Fords that were retrieved from auto salvage yards. Their uniform were Levi’s, hand me down jean jackets, tee-shirts, Converse All Stars, and most important Brylcreem for that Elvis pompadour look.
In between the two tribe were the nameless kids who’s economic standing was somewhere between the families of Socs and the Greasers. We were the nerds, the geeks and socially inept when it came to girls. It is true that one of the most important qualities that can help teens establish their own identities is the ability to “fit in.” Finding friends who understand their problems and relate to them is paramount for teenagers. It wasn’t long until we realized that what we had in common was our interest in doing cool stuff instead of campaigning for popularity at school or smoking in the back of the school. We created our own tribe and we called ourselves “The GTO’s, Order of the Pythons” .
From 1964 to 1968 we produced movies using our parents Bell and Howell movie cameras. At first, we filmed our friends acting goofy around the house and favorite hang outs -that was in the 8th grade. By the 9th grade we were charging kids 50 cents to be in our movies and they didn’t just hang out at the parents’ house anymore. Kids were being blown up, shot at and chased by the bad guys in War movies, Spy movies and even a Roman drama. Growing up in Oklahoma the culture allowed hunting as a normal recreation which gave us access to shotguns, black powder and a great locations. The Verdigris River which is northeast of Tulsa was our favorite location and isolated from civilization and parental control. All the tall guys had to be the bad guys (the Germans) the little guys were the good guys (the Americans). We bought army surplus and dyed the fatigues black and spray painted the helmets and wore them backwards so they would look like German helmets. Once we had a old, gray ’59 Ford station wagon. We painted a couple of swastikas on it, filled the back up with black powder and drove it down the river and blew it up. We did this until we graduated from Will Rogers High School in 1968. Needless to say, we went our separate ways pursuing a life outside of Tulsa.
In 2010 as a result of facebook this little band of brothers reestablished the brotherhood -but, not without loss. In May of 2008 Dean Bishop who crated the GTO’s and was our mastermind passed away from cancer – Dean was financially supported and cared for by fellow members Rex and Ricky Gray until his death. Dan Lundy the tallest member of the GTO’s passed away in the mid 90’s from cancer after being exposed to agent orange in Vietnam. The surviving members of the original six GTO’s including myself are: Rex Gray and brother Ricky Gray and Dan Battreall.
I am eternally grateful to my band of brothers for not only giving me wonderful memories but laying the foundation for the career I enjoy today.
Special Thanks To:
In the late afternoon light as the heat of the day slowly dissipates and shadows begin to grow. John settles into a convenient position on a green metal bench leaving behind his anxiety at the intersection of La Cienega and 18th Street. It is here that John displays his soul to the rest of humanity as he drifts away from the aroma of exhaust and the pandemonium of metal, glass and tires. He has found his universal solution to serenity while holding the worn pages of his book. Sometime ago John changed the narrative of his life, shipping out on red Target shopping cart, sailing the West above the red painted curbs and redefining window shopping. Books have become John’s traveling companion, his shipmate, his amigo and his manual. Words on a paper that fills the emptiness of time and place on his long voyage home.
As the gap from being present fades, the realization is that my autumn days are here
It is not temporary, it will progress like a malignant tumor bringing about bewilderment
The anatomy of self becomes less reliant and my stride becomes a shuffle
The indelible art tells my story in ink which is fading into mosaic colors
Memories of wrong doing haunt me. I plead guilty in hope for a light sentence in the afterlife
I’ve become a conscious being aware of the many sentient spirits close at hand…..I miss them as they have transition to the stars
Beyond doubt, the universe makes the rules. I’ve learned to be careful for what I wish for
The cosmos rules my destiny. I like to think I do but the joke is on me
I still feel compelled to travel with an uncontrollable urge to risk everything….I blame my genetic code with the wanderlust gene of drd4.
Maybe the transition won’t be so bad after all, I’ll be able to surf the cosmos as I have always told my grandson
Imagine paddling out into the liquid night of space and surfing the rings of Saturn….
This unknown experience grows wildly within my imagination and the freedom it brings to my soul
Snapshots, no foreign language skills required.
I slid my right boot then my left boot into the hole leading to the tomb’s tunnel. There was the soft, muffed sound of my pants sliding against the rough stone as my feet fell into the tomb. My knees passed and my thighs followed – which was as far as I got. I was stuck between two worlds. My companions started laughing before cheering me on. “Push! Push, Dave”. There was a scraping noise as my 34 waist and belt buckle tried to shimmy. I’ve been told in the past, during romantic endeavors, that I have ‘a booty like a black man’ – something I’ve always thought of as an attractive asset, but which, in this instance, was a real liability. ‘I think I’m too big, guys,’ I told my audience, ‘I’m wedged in!’ as giggles grew louder and escaped from the darkness of the tomb. I too began to chuckle, which was uncomfortable considering the added pressure of stone against my waist.
When I returned to the States and the Tonight Show, I shared my big ass adventure with one of the comedy writers for the show, Larry Jacobson. We both had a good chuckle when Larry added. “You know Dave, if you were Kim Kardashian you’d still be stuck in that tomb.
Loitering is the act of remaining in a particular public place for a protracted time without any apparent purpose.
My aging process was not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes me over, and then ran off laughing. No one should grow old who isn’t ready to appear ridiculous. I’ve been there, done that, and bought a T-shirt. I’ve never lived a life of quiet desperation. Now I replay all my adventures in my afternoon naps….bonum vitae,
One of my favorite movies of all times is One Night On Earth. It’s a cinematic dream of just how connected we are as a species and all the synchronicity that life flings at us. The movie is a collection of five stories involving cab drivers in five different cities from around the world. Which is a causal or persuasive link to my nocturnal behavior of getting out of bed, grabbing my camera and climb behind the steering wheel of my KIA and drive. I actually like driving late at night. When I say late, I don’t mean 10 PM, or even midnight – I mean like the witching hours from 2 am to sunrise. There is no other time of day where you can see typically the most congested street completely empty. It’s like being teleported as the last man on earth. A bat maneuvering in the dark, it uses a process called echolocation. Echolocation refers to the process of using echoes and sound waves to navigate around objects. For my excursion into the great Basin of Los Angeles, I too use echolocation in the form of music to tap into the auditory cortex of my brain and beyond to the “seat of the soul” the pineal gland. The music dictates when I should proceed straight ahead or turn left or right. Tonight’s soundtrack is “A Perfect Place” a Morricone-esque soundtrack by Mike Patton. Ready set go! Among the endless metaphors for life, a road is perhaps one of the best. There’s times for speed, times for caution and times to stop. Ahead, the lights of a psychic storefront beckon me to take time to stop and enjoy the cold Pink’s hotdog I picked up earlier. This is A Perfect Place for my One Night On Earth.
After a day of traveling aimlessly along Sunset Boulevard it was time to take a break. It had been a good day of harvesting cigarette butts. Joe had always felt it was his civic duty to help address this serious environmental problem by picking up this toxic waste. Now was the time to sit and enjoy the fruits of his labor. He watched for awhile the congestion of traffic and remembered the time he too lived that life…. but no more. The last few embers glowed at the end of the cigarette as Joe inhaled, and as the white smoke curled up in a spiral motion, he pressed lightly his shirt pocket to the fragment ends of tobacco to insure a reserve till morning. Taking the last drag the ashes glowed brighter and crackled as air passed through the cigarette and the smoke went deeply into his lungs. He dropped the butt on the concrete and stubbed it out in a rhythmical tapping of his right foot. How wonderful it would have been to have a cup of coffee to accompanied his cigarette break he thought. The sun had set, but he had decided to stay sitting on the bench and watch the world drive by and maybe have another cigarette.
444 months, 1931 weeks, 13514 days, 324,328 hours, 19,459,690 minutes, 1,167,581,426 seconds. Thank you Bill W and Dr. Bob for a wonderful and exciting life with true friends who have never let me down….thank you my brothers and sisters.
Bob had the kind of face that would compel you to volunteer any loose change your pocket held without him ever asking for a handout. His home consisted of a metal shopping cart supported by well-worn wheels, two paper bags, an old plastic container of water and a rolled up gray blanket. The corner of Central Boulevard and Windsor Road in Glendale, California was where he called home. This move was a sage-like decision on Bob’s part since the Salvation Army was positioned across the street which provided food, clothing and care and half a block to his east was the Windsor Al-Anon club that furnished free coffee, occasional shelter and most importantly, some welcomed comradeship with fellow tribe members. 
It was up to you to get Bob talking since he was never known to initiate a conversation. His english was laced with a thick Yugoslavian accent and it was because of this that he was christened with the street name “Bob from Yugoslavia”. In his youth, he was trained as a pianist but as the years passed by his hands grew to be swollen and arthritic which made tying his shoes or buttoning his coat as painful as a Beethoven sonata. Bob’s private moments took place in a utility alley behind the Armenian market where he would seek refuge by smoking discarded cigarettes and watching reality slip away.
We had a very short history in our acquaintance but Bob from Yugoslavia became my navigational marker that signaled my return home from overseas. As strange as it may sound, it was comforting to see him sleeping under the tree, his tree, at the corner of Central and Windsor. One day, I noticed that the only thing holding his threadbare jeans together was the grim beneath him. I managed to sneak a pair of new levis and socks into one of his paper bags while he was napping under his tree. I couldn’t help but watch from a distance to witness Bob’s reaction to his good fortune; he proudly held the trousers up to the sky with a toothless smile and turned to look around as if he would find a magical garment fairy. The following day I expected to see him wearing the new pants but to my surprise he was wearing the same grubby jeans. Bob had traded the jeans and socks for two packs of Marlboro cigarettes to a local gardener.
I asked Bob one day, “If you were to write a letter to God and be guaranteed that God would read your letter, what would be your the first sentence?” He looked up and spoke as expressively with his eyes as with his words, “God keep me warm and never let me get cold again”
We continued our brief interludes over the years until one day conspicuously absent from the corner was Bob and his shopping cart. A member of the Al-Anon club told me that Bob had peacefully passed away underneath his tree while napping. I can only hope it was on a warm sunny California day.
Bob’s tree.
:
“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story ”…
These three Muses are thought to be the goddesses of inspiration in literature, science and the arts.The Muses are believed to live on Mt. Olympus which is a prominent neighborhood near the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. It is here that the Muses entertained their father, Sid Zeusberger (a powerful studio head) and the other Olympian gods with their great artistry. Today, the three Muses take a break from their celestial duties and head to the Beverly Center for shopping, lunch and wine.
Mary McWhorter-Banks 1925 – 2020
Uh-will the wind ever remember the names it has blow in the past?
And with this crutch, its old age
And its wisdom it whispers, “No, this will be the last” – Jimi Hendrix
Mary is 94 years old with severe dementia, and resides in a hospice facility in Oklahoma. And she’s my mom. On November 6th, 2020 mom passed away from complications of Covid-19. This is the last moments I spent with mom.
************
Mom sits silently in her wheelchair vacantly staring at the bear wall above her bed. On occasion she will touch her locket that hangs around her neck. I know she feels like leaving, but she can’t go. Mom doesn’t know that this is her tomorrow. There are only fleeting moments when the depths of her dementia recedes, and she sees me sitting on her bed.
“What are you doing here?” She asks.
As quickly as I can answer. Mom vanishes back into the dark corridors of her mind. She’s gone, only to be replaced with an empty stare to the white wall above her bed. My love for the woman who gave me life isn’t always available, but somewhere in moms mind I can only hope she knows that I have not abandoned her.
I open my computer and start to play music to fill the void of silence in her room. Out of the corner of my sight, moms leg starts to gently move, I slowly turn my head so as not to detract from moms gaze. Following her leg down to the tip of her fuzzy pink slipper. Mom begins to tap the metal footrest of her wheelchair. Mom smiles, and the paleness of her cheeks disappears and is replaced with a rosy pink color hue. I wonder, what if I play music from her youth.
Playing a mix of Frank Sinatra songs, the room fills with big band music with “Ol’ Blue Eyes” at the mic.
“ I always liked him” she says somewhat abruptly.
“Mom were you a bobby-soxer?”
There is a pause as mom searches her past, “Yes.”
She looks over at me after answering.
“Who are you?” she ask
“Mom, I’m your historian.”
A broom is drearily sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterdays life
Somewhere a queen is weeping
Somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind, it cries Mary – Jimi Hendrix
There is something unique about Southern California light. Morning light is too short for the gold, midday leaves the gentle colors washed away, but at sunset when the blossoms close the alluring shades of light are flushed with an apricot tint with a lovely hue of lilac and pastels colors are reborn – or maybe it’s just the smog.
It is the weighty force that pulls at the body to the center of our planet, and for any other substantial mass there is no escape. But, with a degree of intensity in acceleration, liberation is possible from the slavery of this invisible force we called gravity. Breaking free is a flight risk, a temporary moment to fill the empty space, it becomes a grudge against gravity. For some it becomes a spiritual phenomenon, a vaccine against quantum mechanics and society. As this exploit loses energy, and with the friction of air resistance the complexities of reality drop you like a stone. It was a courageous moment but there is a conspiracy at work by the natural Laws of the Universe. As J.B. Smoove has put it so eloquently, “You know how you put peanut butter on a piece of bread and the bread falls – it never falls on the bread side down, it always falls peanut butter side down. That’s because of gravity.”
‘Scenes of rape in the arroyo, seduction in cars, abandoned buildings, fights at the food stand; the dust, the shoes, open shirts and raised collars, bright sculptured hair’ ~ Latino Chrome lyrics by Jim Morrison, The Doors
Prologue
On April 29, 1992, twelve jurors in Simi Valley, California, delivered their verdicts in a controversial case involving the 1991 beating of Rodney King by four LAPD officers. The case received international attention when grainy footage of the officers’ attack on King was televised and it became a national scandal. The beating would never have been seen had it not been for George Holliday, who grabbed his video camera and stepped onto his balcony when he was awoken by sirens.
The verdict was read: all four officers were acquitted of excessive force and cleared of all charges. Due to the extensive media coverage, the public received immediate news of the verdict. Reaction in Los Angeles was swift as people began venting their anger. L.A. became a scene from a war movie, albeit one far from the facade of a studio.
The following night I picked up an assignment for CBS news to cover film director Spike Lee’s speaking engagement at the University of California in Irvine. The timing was ironic; following the King beating and the LAPD officers’ verdict, it was day two of the rioting. Spike was to talk about his new film ‘Malcolm X’. Irvine is about 45 miles south of Los Angeles, in the county famed for its oranges. Spike never made it; the announcement was made in the UC auditorium that, as a result of an upsurge in violence in L.A. and due to an exodus of traffic causing congestion on the freeways, Mr. Lee was unable to attend his engagement.
I’d taken the precaution of renting an Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera; my 1978 Volkswagen Bus just didn’t have the speed or the protection for riding around the city of Los Angeles under such challenging circumstances and against brutal violence.
I packed up the camera and rushed back to L.A., heading north on the 405 freeway. It had been closed and was therefore free of traffic by the time I neared Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). With no police scanner to monitor the situation, I listened to KFWB news radio for leads, following police vehicles, helicopters and fire trucks that may have led me to riot hotspots. From their reports, I deduced that the worst fires and looting were taking place in central Los Angeles. At the interchange I took the on-ramp to the Santa Monica freeway that sits high above the ground on concrete columns. This gave me a spectacular view of L.A.’s cityscape – it stretched out before me, hundreds of dark gray smoky plumes spiraling upwards to meet the black sky. I could smell the distinctive stench of burning asphalt shingles, wood and rubber. Jesus! It’s Beirut L.A.
Lingering in the night, like a string of Christmas tree lights, were several police and news helicopters, their distinctive red and green pulsing taillights circling where civil unrest seemed to be worst. Known on the streets as Ghetto Birds, the LAPD helicopters sliced the darkness with their powerful searchlights on fixed points of unrestrained violence as media helicopters converged, scavenging on the carcass of a ravaged city. Above the helicopters were processions of commercial airliners with white lights making their final approach to land at LAX; the passengers looking down below were witnesses to a city gone mad.
Speeding along at 144 k.p.h, towards central L.A., I passed a huge house fire. ‘There’s a man on that roof!’ I shouted to anyone listening. I braked, leaving skid-marks and burnt rubber on the freeway, shifted into reverse and backed up to a suitable point to evaluate the scene. The silhouette of a man with a garden hose looked cartoonish against a wall of yellowy-orange flames. The sound of wood beams splitting from the heat of the fire rang in my ears. I grabbed my camera and rolled the tape, capturing the man as he moved back and forth, dousing the roof with water. I was eighty feet away, but I could still feel the heat as the building cooked.
Mesmerized by what looked like a wasted effort on the man’s part, his hose spraying out little attack towards the ferocity of the fire, I was unnerved by the sound of something whizzing past my ear. I heard the air split wide open as the hissing of a bullet passed by, followed by the sharp cracks of gunshots. I reacted automatically, panning the camera over to where the sounds were originating from when another shot was fired. Shouting began and a car peeled out onto the street below me. I had no idea if I was the target but I managed to get it on tape. I continued shooting film throughout the night, and it was only when I was filming a mass arrest of looters at a Von grocery store that a voice from behind me reminded me of my vulnerability.
‘You better watch out, cameraman.’
I paused. I didn’t want to press my luck so I packed up and drove to CBS Television City in the Fairfax District and licensed my footage to CBS news. The Oldsmobile, I returned without any damage.
April 30, 1992: President George W. Bush announced that he’d ordered the Department of Justice to investigate the possibility of filing charges against the LAPD officers, for violating the federal civil rights of Rodney King.
August 4, 1992: A federal grand jury returned indictments against Sergeant Stacey Koon and Officer Laurence Powell, both guilty of violating Rodney King’s constitutional rights, with an additional count against Sergeant Koon of willfully permitting the other officers to beat King.
Nearly six months later, on February 25 1993, the trial began in the courtroom of Judge Davies, on the charge of violating the civil rights of Rodney King.
April Fools Day, 1993: Expecting that history would most likely repeat itself, all local, national and international news outlets were gearing up to cover L.A.’s reaction to the verdict. I had been inundated by phone calls from news organizations to cover the event from the end of March. The booking I took was with the A.D. Production Company, the producers of the American Detective show that aired on ABC Network. I was on and off the phone throughout the morning with Mark, who’d produced the riot segment for American Detective.
‘Dave? This is Mark. We’re expecting a verdict soon on the King beating. If the cops are found not guilty there’ll be another riot. If they’re found guilty there may still be a riot. What’s your standby rate if a riot doesn’t happen right away? And do you have a gyro-zoom lens for the helicopter shots?’
Even though we’ve worked together for years, the business of booking has to be clear with very little negotiation; it is pay or play. For my services and for my camera, lighting package and audio gear, it runs to seven hundred dollars a day.
‘Well, Mark,’ I explained, ‘I’ll hold off until another job comes down. There’s no standby rate on my camera package, and yes, I have a gyro-zoom lens.”
There was a pause from Mark. I could hear talking in the background; I must have been on speakerphone.
Mark returned to our conversation. ‘Okay, okay. You’ll be positioned in the Special Enforcement Bureau command center of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, in south-central L.A. You’ve also been given clearance to ride along in their helicopter.’
In my experience, I’ve always found it best not to get too excited about a standby gig, since most inevitably go away on the same day the production companies hire you. This led to the question: ‘Do you want me to ink the date in my diary or shall I use pencil?’
Mark replied, ‘Pencil. By the way, we’ve also hired you a bodyguard for if we reassign you to the streets. If that’s the case, your bodyguard is on the SWAT team of the San Jose Police Department. Oh, and do you have a sun gun light for your camera?’ Mark asked.
Taking notes, I replied, ‘It’s been my experience that a light on a camera makes for a good target.’
‘Oh, good thinking. Okay, we’ll see you on the 12th of April, Monday morning, at the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Commerce. We’ll also rent a bulletproof car, if we reassign you.’
‘How much is that going to cost you?’ I said.
‘A thousand dollars a day.’
I wasn’t surprised – you can rent anything in Hollywood. I called Bexel, the largest vendor of broadcast equipment in the country, to sublease some extra wireless microphones, a gyro-zoom lens and a wide-angle adaptor. I got hold of my friend, John Badovinac, who handled my rental account. ‘JB, this is Dave. Do you have…’ Before I could finish my sentence, John interrupted me.
‘Sorry, Dave, CBS has ten cameras and two gyro-zoom lenses and ABC has just rented what was left on the shelves.’
‘What? This is crazy. This is really crazy!’
‘We’ve rented out everything that has a lens. The networks and local stations are treating this trial as if it was the ‘84 Olympics.’
April 16, 1993: The federal jury convicted Koon and Powell on one charge of violating King’s civil rights. Sergeant Koon and Officer Powell received two and half years in prison. Officer Tony Briseno and Timothy Wind were found not guilty.
April 17, 1993: It was Saturday, 2:30 a.m. I was fully clothed and laid in bed, watching the re-edited version of Dune on television. I munched on another peanut butter Girl Scout cookie and sipped black coffee that was loaded with tons of sugar. I was in a hotel room at the Wyndham Garden Hotel, along with off-duty San Jose detectives and one ex-navy Seal, all of whom had been hired and assigned to me as bodyguards. They were armed to the teeth; the Seal was to drive our rented bulletproof Crown Victoria. Our team had been issued with flak jackets, Kevlar helmets, pepper spray and Israeli gas masks. Ironically, the instructions for the gas masks were in Hebrew which none of us could read.
Though I wasn’t upfront and close to the L.A. riots of 1992, I now had an official backstage pass to the ‘L.A Riots -1993 Tour’.
The decision was made to embed me within the Special Enforcements Bureau instead of a helicopter, in a platoon made up of thirty-six deputy sheriffs. We were to travel in sixteen marked patrol cars and one armored hostage rescue vehicle.
3:15 a.m.: The call came in to prep the gear, check out and travel to a new location. Dammit! Dune isn’t over and I’m going to miss the best part – where the giant sandworms appear to destroy the Harvesters mining on planet Arrakis!
In the hotel lobby I was informed that the production company had had second thoughts; they felt that the thousand-dollar-a-day bulletproof car was too expensive. They didn’t want to be held responsible for any ‘unnecessary’ damage. It looked like I was going to be riding in a deputy sheriff’s patrol car.
8:25 a.m.: We rendezvoused with several other platoons made up of uniformed deputies, in what appeared to be an abandoned hotel parking lot. I looked around the place: I saw some of the deputies relaxing in their vehicles while others paced outside nervously. No one was going to tell me how to behave or exactly what to expect. It was at that moment, as I distracted myself from such thoughts with a fruitless search for coffee, that I heard the verdict and sentencing of the defendants in the second Rodney King trial.
Several of the patrol cars had their trunks open with portable radios tuned to the KFWB news radio. The newscaster’s flat voice echoed across the parking lot, along with news of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a nuclear accident in Russia, a fire-fight with the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, and a nifty review of Billy Crystal’s hosting of the 65th Academy Awards.
9:20 a.m.: The platoon relocated to a substation at the City Hall Complex in Lynwood.
11:25 a.m.: This was our first sit-down meal in two days. I was sitting in a plastic molded chair and table that had both been bolted to the floor. This was Angelo’s Burgers, a small fast-food joint at the corner of Imperial Highway and Atlantic Boulevard in Lynwood, California. As I ate my breakfast bean burrito and drank my second cup of coffee, I notice a handmade cardboard sign that had been written on with a magic marker resting on the counter where you placed your order. ‘Falling Down, with Michael Douglas, was filmed here on May 12th, 1992.’
It was at Angelo’s that Michael Douglas’ beleaguered character terrorized a fast-food chain called ‘Whammy Burgers’. I remembered his almost understandable motive for going berserk – the menu had progressed to lunch, and all he wanted was a little breakfast. In short, the movie was about a man in L.A. who went bonkers, so it was ironic that we were in Angelo’s with deputy sheriffs, having breakfast, whilst waiting for a city to go bonkers.
2:15 p.m.: Despite the announcement of the court’s verdict, this wasn’t what saw us race, at top speed, from Lynwood to an amusement park north of Los Angeles. A thousand tickets had oversold at a scheduled rap concert. Not surprisingly, some of the fans were upset and, out of frustration, had shattered the windows of restaurants across the street from the amusement park’s entrance.
4:35 p.m.: Boredom started to kick in. The deputies, our crew and assorted bodyguards were in a holding pattern at the upper entrance to the park. Everyone was hungry. With my supply of Balance bars and gum gone, all I had left was a bag full of Atomic Fireball jawbreakers, which I promptly started to throw at the deputies and production crew, shouting, ‘I’m coming!’
The production company eventually decided to get McDonald’s quarter-pounders for everyone. Halfway through the order, McDonald’s ran out of burgers, so most of the crew and the seventy-plus deputies ended up with Happy Meals. The Happy Meals came in red cartons and inside each was a toy action figure from Batman. A trade-off began between Batman, the Joker and Two Face, though it was Catwoman in her fitted gray costume that proved to be the most coveted.
7:46 p.m.: The sun set. I grabbed the Betacam and my Nikon camera and tagged along with a squad of seven deputies. We took in the sights and sounds of the park and I wondered to myself if we were going to stop long enough to get a corn dog. Occasionally, families and kids, looking for a way out of the park, stopped us and asked for directions. No one in our group was familiar enough with the park so we weren’t much help.
We’d not been in the park longer than fifteen or twenty minutes when there was a distinct change in the atmosphere. Instinctively, I hoisted the Betacam on my shoulder and removed the lens cap from my Nikon.
There was a lull in the night’s sounds. The normal carnival atmosphere had diminished; where laughter and the excited screams of kids on wild rides had filled the air just minutes ago, there was now just a low hum and relative silence. Something was happening. All of a sudden, there was a new sound – a differently pitched scream travelling through the air. It was a disconcerted screech that built in intensity, continuing until all the laughter had been swallowed. A swelling of emotion rose from my stomach, settling into my chest and heart.
Time seemed to shift then split, both streams working simultaneously. Different scenarios presented themselves in slow motion, while craziness was kicking off in the background in ‘quick time’. I was rolling tape and filming with the camera on my right shoulder while shooting stills using my left hand.
Like locusts swarming upon a field of grain, kids and families poured out of nowhere and surrounded us. The deputies reacted quickly, creating a circle in the middle of a concrete walkway. If you’d have looked down from overhead, you would’ve seen a circle of tan helmets surrounded by a sea of bodies with a sergeant in the middle trying to hear the two-way radio above the noise. One of my eyes was glued to the Nikon’s viewfinder when the camera’s motor drive whined with a ‘click-click-click-click-click’. Framed faces held expressions of dread, concern and confusion as the volume of pandemonium rose to an even higher decibel.
Somewhere in the park ahead of us panic struck like a flash of lightning. We caught the first swell of people seeking safety: a stampede of hundreds barreled right at us. What the crowd needed was a concrete wall, five-feet thick; we were but a mere fence of eight people. The crying, shouting and screaming escalated again. In the distance, ‘snaps’ could be heard. More screams from the stampede.
A deputy shouted, ‘Was that gunfire? WAS THAT GUNFIRE?!’
The mob receded a little, confusion filling the void. The milling crowd looked set to disperse; again, gunshots or firecrackers were heard somewhere in the park. A tidal wave of families, in sheer panic, descended upon us.
Unlike the 1992 riots, what was happening had an element of vulnerability from the families caught in the middle of a total breakdown of civil order. A group of teenage boys and girls ran up to us, screaming that one of the park’s security guys was getting beaten up behind us. We turned but couldn’t see anything other than a wall of bodies a hundred yards deep.
More deputies arrived from nowhere and we made our way across a sea of glass shards, white plastic coat hangers, price tags and paper images of cartoon characters. I filmed the sheriff’s helicopter as it flew overhead, its powerful spotlight shining down on the confused throng, creating massive shadows from the tree limbs and scaffolding which slowly crawled over the entire area like a black web. Looking through the black and white viewfinder the shadow looked ominous – almost alive.
As we passed a restaurant, I noticed that the doors were cracked. I stopped to peer into the darkness. In the foreground were the legs of chairs, tables and serving trays stacked on top of each other. Beyond the barrier a young man, dressed in his chef’s hat and whites, stared at me with a dazed, anxious look. I rested the Betacam on the ground and wedged my Nikon lens between the doors, snapping off a couple of shots. I could only assume that he’d chosen to stand sentry, protecting his co-workers and guests with a fire extinguisher as the world beyond the restaurant door suffered a momentary lapse of sanity.
The park was now quieter as the deputies prodded the visitors, containing them in the main entrance. I passed a long line of kids at a pay phone trying to call their parents to come and get them. Nearby, I saw a marble statue of a rabbit on horseback waving goodbye to its guests.
April 19, 1993: I read that morning in the L.A. Times that the park reopened on Sunday to an enthusiastic spring break crowd as law enforcement officials, park managers and a music promoter tried to pinpoint blame for the melee that damaged both the park and its reputation as a place for family entertainment. An all-night repair job replaced broken windows and a restock of looted merchandise was completed in time for Sunday’s 10 a.m. opening.
I later learned that the ‘confused mass of people’ cost the park an estimated two million dollars in damages. Forty people were evacuated as an emergency, and it took 450 deputies to move 40,000 people out of the park.
Urban legend has it that a body was found underneath the Viper rollercoaster ride four days after the riot.
During the comedown, in showbiz news, there was a big buzz around the release of Steven Spielberg’s film, Jurassic Park, about a team of genetic engineers who created an amusement park full of cloned dinosaurs before all hell broke out. Sometimes, science fiction can be a little too realistic.
Within days I picked up an assignment to the Middle East. As sad as it sounds, I was well prepared.
Epilogue
June 17, 2012: Rodney King, the man at the center of the infamous Los Angeles riots, was found dead in his home in San Bernardino, California. He was forty-seven. According to media reports, King’s fiancée, Cynthia Kelly, found him dead at the bottom of a swimming pool. King recently marked the twentieth anniversary of the riots. Mr. King, whose life was a roller coaster of drug and alcohol abuse, multiple arrests and unwanted celebrity, pleaded for calm during the 1992 riots, in which more than 55 people were killed, 600 buildings were destroyed and the city suffered $1 billion dollars worth of damage.
August, 23, 2012: The autopsy findings by the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Coroner Division: The effects of the drugs and alcohol, combined with the subject’s heart condition, probably precipitated a cardiac arrhythmia, and the subject, thus incapacitated, was unable to save himself and drowned. There’s nothing in the history or autopsy examination to suggest suicide or homicide, and the manner of death is therefore judged to be an accident.
“People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we all get along? Please….we can get along here.”
– Mr. Rodney King, May 1, 1992
Geographic Assignments:
Afghanistan: Kabul, Kandahar, and Bagram.
Australia: Sydney, Cairns, Mareeba, Atherton, Gordonvale, Undara, Chillagoe, Mt. Bartle Frere, and Queensland Outback.
Egypt: Saqqare, Giza, Red Sea, The Nile River, Cairo, Valley of Kings, Hatshepsut, Abu Simbel, Armant, Aswan, Luxor, White Desert, Thebes, Safaga, Marsa al Alam, Karnak, Al Harrah and Baharia Oasis
Fiji: Suva and Koro Island
France: Paris, Le Mans, Nice, Cannes, Toulon, Marseille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Corsica
Greece: Athens, Thessalonique and Island of Patmos.
Israel: Jerusalem, Golan Heights, Ramallah, Bethany, Jericho, Temple Mount, Nazareth, Gethsemane, Kasr el Yahud, Allenby Bridge, Caphernaum, Sepphoris, West Wall Tunnels and Judea.
Italy: Rome, Naples, Florence, Solerno and Island of Ischia.
Jordan, Mount Nebo, Tell Mar Elias, Mukawer and Amman Citadel.
Morocco: Quarzazate, Sahara Desert, Oued Amsailikh, Tagounite and Atlas Mountains.
Mexico: Chihuahua, Sierra Madre Occidental and Barrancas Del Cobre
New Zealand: North Island, South Island, Southern Alps, Mt. Cockayne, Lake Catherine, Lake Coleridge, Black Hill, Glenfalloch, Potts River. Mt. Peel, Forest Creek and Lake Tekapo.
Russia: Moscow, Murmansk, Severmorsk and Barrents Sea Artic Circle.
Scotland: Edinburgh, Inverness, Orkney Islands, St. Andrews Highlands.
Turkey: Istanbul, Van, Doğubayazıt, Tabriz, and Erzurum.
Maybe it’s that I have time. Time to explore digital art using original images from my own personal “B roll” while on assignment for others. After all I did go to art school (which I never finished) but photography stole my heart and I left the brushes, charcoal and blank canvases behind. I have been lucky to sell a few pieces of work, but that not why I do it. It’s sort of wizardry moving from my analog days to the computer screen. Scanning old slides and listening to music while lost in my own mind and letting go of what art is suppose to be.
Joy! That’s what I find in pursuing my art and reconnecting to myself and others. I also find joy when friends ask me to illustrate the life of a loved one who has passed or when an illustration creates awareness of societies forgotten souls. So, I guess you could say that regardless of what medium of art you practice, it represents not the outward appearance of an artist but the inward essences of our humanity.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window is one of my all time favorite movies. The story is about photographer L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries (James Stewart) who is recuperating from a broken leg during a sweltering New York summer. As a successful photographer, he’s known for taking difficult pictures no one else can get, including the one of an out-of-control race car which smashed his camera and broke his leg an instant after it was snapped. 
Jeffries lives in a small apartment, and spends his time looking out the rear window into the courtyard of the building; he can also see into the lives of all his neighbors, catching glimpses of their daily routines. It’s the sort of thing only an invalid might do, watching them eat, clean, sleep and argue. There’s the girl who exercises in her underwear (Georgine Darcy), the married couple (Sara Berner and Frank Cady) who sleep on their small balcony to beat the heat, the struggling songwriter working at his piano (Ross Bagdasarian); and there’s the salesman who lives across the courtyard from Jeffries, the one with the nagging bedridden wife. They seem to fight all too often.
Like archeologist digging into the earth and discovering ancient artifacts I will pause the DVD so I can check out L.B’s camera gear and admire the work of cinematographer Robert Burks . For any photographer, no matter what you market this movie is fun and beautifully filmed.
Filmmaker Jeff Desom has created a brilliant and beautiful homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” . By editing a panoramic time-lapse video of the courtyard through the lens of Jeff Jeffries. Mr. Desom definitely captures the spirit and the subtext of “Rear Window” by observing the lives of others – which is what we photographers do best. Link to Jeff Desom’s time-lapse of “Rear Window” video: http://youtu.be/4vHRw9XiFMI Also, check out Mr. Desom website, very creative. http://www.jeffdesom.com/
Director Hitchcock on the set with James Stewart
1954 Rear Window Movie Trailer Link: http://youtu.be/6kCcZCMYw38
Good Morning President Biden,
With the lack to fight for Democracy here in America as 14 states have enacted 22 laws that restrict voting access making it more difficult for Americans to vote. Why would I think, that America would stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine in its fight for Democracy. America has become a weak bystander. The prestige and integrity America once stood for has faded with time. Not to be a downer Mr. President, but your weakness for swift actions to stop restricted voting rights here in America and to employ US with Nato military action for Ukraine is only encouraging Putin to expand his oligarchy reach. Both political parties and corporate interest are to blame for the downfall for what we Once Stood For.
Former KGB Putin only understands one thing, and one thing only. Dominance by assassination and slaughter. God save American Democracy and God save Democracy in Ukraine.
Regards,
Dave Banks
Les McCann first gained some fame in 1956 when he won a talent contest in the Navy as a singer that resulted in an appearance on television on The Ed Sullivan Show . McCann reached the peak of his career in 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival, recording “Compared to What” with saxophonist Eddie Harris. After the success of Swiss Movement album, McCann — primarily a piano player — began to emphasize his rough-hewn vocals more. He became an innovator in the soul jazz style, merging jazz with funk, soul and world rhythms. He was also among the first jazz musicians to include electric piano, clavinet, and synthesizer in his music. In 1971 McCann and Harris were part of a touring group of soul, R&B, and rock performers which included Wilson Pickett,The Staple Singers, Santan and Ike & Tina Turner. McCann is also credited in discovering Roberta Flack and obtained an audition which resulted in a recording contract for Ms. Flack with Atlantic Records.
In the mid 90’s McCann suffered a stroke that weakened his keyboard playing but his powerful singing kept him on the road. McCann’s comeback was solidified in 2002’s with “Pump It Up” a guest-heavy celebration of funk and jazz released on ESC Records. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Swiss Movement album, tenor saxophonist Javon Jackson brought veteran McCann and a young trio of musicians to the KC Jazz Club for Swiss Movement Revisited.
Jackson is used to working with legends he cut his musical teeth with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers in the 1980s. He went on to record with such greats as the late Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Cedar Walton and Stanley Turrentine. Jackson leads his own group, and his latest release (Once Upon a Melody) hit No. 1 on the jazz radio charts.
In a 2009 Kennedy Center performance the interaction between Jackson, his young talented musicians and the old lion at the keyboard, Les McCann, reminded the audience that the old lion can still roar with heart.
It came about as an auditory hallucination while editing the video clip, Incarceration. The soundtrack revealed itself with a slow steady beat with long sweeping notes that were reluctant to fade away and lingered in my mind like an earworm. After writing the chapter, Beirut L.A., this enigmatic guitar came to mind creating a haunting atmosphere that actually seems to push the video along and integrated perfectly with the imagery on the screen. What was this song that played over and over as I edited the footage of the 1992 L.A. riots? After completing a rough edit of Incarceration the real work of finding that song began. Rummaging through my iTunes library I nearly gave up when I recalled a photo shoot for the heavy metal band Goad-ed. That is where I met guitarist Tracy G. A veteran of life on the road as the lead guitarist for Ronnie James Dio back in the 90’s. Tracy accompanied Dio on three world tours and to his credit, survived the life of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll A product of East L.A. his passion in music is his way of expressing himself when his confidence in words fail him. A man of good heart, his life experiences has given him insight to his soul that only hard times can dictate. In spite of Tracy G’s heavy metal credentials his soulful song “Lamborghini Blues” swept me away the first time I heard it and was the perfect soundtrack to Incarceration.
I had decided early on to edit Incarceration as a music video knowing that the emotional experience would be greatly enhanced without a scripted voice-over since I had already set the stage in the chapter. I needed the music to narrate what it was like to travel the streets of L.A. as it burned. Once I laid Tracy’s song “Lamborghini Blues” to the video and played it back I knew that I had made the right choice. By reading Beirut L.A. and watching Incarceration, I hope that you find yourself in the carseat next to me as we travel the streets of L.A.
A special thanks to Tracy G for his permission in using Lamborghini Blues for the video. Lamborghini Blues is featured on Tracy G’s “Erector Pili” CD. Artists: Tracy G on guitar, Mychal Lotz on keyboard, Jeremy Masana on bass, and Ray Luzier on drums. Link to Tracy G : www.tracyg.com .
Incarceration Video
Journal Excerpt: On Location/Sahara Desert
I was attacked by a camel today. I was knocked down from behind while shooting Tuareg nomads who were riding camels against a “Lawrence of Arabia” backdrop. All I remember was a loud belch, the tripod and camera falling to earth and a giant camel toe next to my head as I laid on the ground. My scalp and shirt was wet but it was not blood but camel saliva that was as thick as jello . After dusting myself off and getting back to work I detected an odd smell of coffee grounds mixed with asparagus emanating from my hair and stained shirt. Later tonight I plan to stand in the shower with my clothes on and free myself from camel drool and Sahara sand. My clothes will be dry by morning.
Last shot of the day and a welcome relief from the desert heat. If all goes well this will be the money shot – but most of the time it is just plain luck and being in the right place to capture a good image.
The Parting Shot
I believe that I am trapped in the thoughts of a writer with no say or way out, I’m terrified that at the end of the last chapter I will no longer exist. I can only hope that the author has a strong vocabulary and a bigger imagination to let me have a happy ending. This is my sentence, where I live life on the pages of white. The author writes words without risk as I am forced to walk his narrative day in and day out, but I forgive the author. I’m not sure if my story is being revealed to him or even if he has the final say. I can only hope that maybe, just maybe the author will let me know my fate. Am I fiction or non-fiction, I just don’t know.
“Which of us has not felt that the character we are reading in the printed page is more real than the person standing beside us?”
―
“If you don’t know where you are going any road can take you there”
“I just really want to tell you right now Enzo, that it is extremely plausible that you have created your own world and the illusion is that you are a neurotic mess because your mother was a neurotic mess. You think to much and feel to little, now go home and eat some prosciutto, drink some vino and take a nap.”
Music is a safe kind of high -Jimi Hendrix
It’s not that I am a snob about music but any world traveler will tell you that one of the most essential item in your rucksack is your music. My choice of tunes has become the soundtrack for many of my journey and it has saved my sanity. I can attest that there is nothing better then listening to your iPhone under the influence of Ambien on a trans-Atlantic flight. It is a wonderful hypnotic chemical that takes you away from the crying babies and exasperated mothers on El Al Airlines (not the Ambien, the song). The music has isolated me from Egyptian wedding parties at two o’clock in the morning as well as helping me pass days (not hours) while waiting for a flight out of Kabul.
For me, Justin Bieber just doesn’t round out the experience of tearing across the sun bleached sands of the Sahara Desert in a Toyota Land Cruiser – although, the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” does a terrific job in setting the mood. I have collected CD’s from souks, bazaars, back alley kiosks and hotel lobbies. I’d like to think that my taste in music is eclectic; you can find Middle Eastern Dance, Bollywood, Japanese Pop, Electronica, Soul, Rock, Tango and Neapolitan ballads on my iPhone proving that I am in constant search for my own personal soundtrack.
Like a still image, a song can transport you back to a moment in time that has been forgotten. For instance, during the wild fires of Southern California in 2009 I had a very real flashback when Shakira’s song; “Whenever, Wherever” blared out from the radio while driving on the Glendale Freeway. The smell of a burning hillside mixed with fumes of diesel, the thump, thump, thumping of the helicopters overhead transported me immediately back to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. Music is sort of a synthetic acid, which enhances flashbacks of one’s own memories. Scans of the brain show that when people listen to music, virtually every area of their brain becomes more active. Which may explain why I have overcome a learning disability with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder.
Strange as it may seem, when I listen to music as I am doing right now, it forces me to focus and keeps my ADD (attention deficit disorder) at bay. Growing up, my parents could never understand why I would play music when reading or studying. They would just shout at me to turn the record player or radio off. But, instinctively I need this learning aid to focus – go figure! Music helps me concentrate. Once I sit down, play my music I fall into a Zen like zone and my brain slows down to a crawl so that I can concentrate. If it were not for music and the computer I would probably be selling used furniture in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
There is something different about a hand written letter, emails get deleted, greeting cards get lost and phone calls are forgotten with time. But a letter from a loved one is special, maybe it’s because a letter is a tangible artifact of love. In the absents of a departed loved one a letter can be the substitute for holding hands, a hug or a kiss on the cheek. The letter is a reminder of a loving connection that is slowly fading as decades pass by. I carried letters with me when I traveled overseas. Letters that have touched me, letters of encouragement and most of all unconditional love. These letters have pulled me through some pretty hard times. So, this is an open letter to a man that has given me not only sweet memories of childhood, but by his example showed me how to deal with life on life’s terms with grit and humor.
At the age of five Jasper Paul McWhorter asked a single mother for her hand in marriage which Mary (my mom) accepted and a new family was formed. In spite of the economic hardship of caring for his new family, Paul’s willingness to raise another man child still impresses me to this day. Within the first year of their union, Paul’s earnest effort to provide a secure home and with his sense of humor the bond between a father figure and 5 year old stepson grew and I started calling him daddy.
A veteran of World War II, he was awarded two Bronze Stars, a Commendation Medal and a Purple Heart. Dad had seen some heavy action in the Philippines but would never talk about his experiences to the point that we could not watch any war movies on TV – which I could not understand until reaching maturaity. Home was on the outskirts of Norht Tulsa off Apache Road near the strip pits and regardless of the less desireable location dad love his home and took great pride in maintaining the property. With a passion for gardening dad became an expert at growing copious amount of Beefeater tomatoes and on summer days he meditated and problem solved by mowing our yard without a his shirt on – to this day the aroma of fresh cut grass takes me back to those summer days on Quebec Street. After his chores, dads would sit in the backyard on a white metal lawn chair with his cap pushed back smoking his pipe and drink freshly made lemonade and munching on peanut butter cookies.
My favorite childhood memory of dad is watched him tinker with an Evinrude boat-motor that sat in a steel drum full of water in our backyard. Preparing to start the boat-motor dad would secure his pipe by clinching his teeth, then pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and with one mighty pull of the starter rope the Evinrude would sputter. It would take two or three pulls, but once he got it going the blue smoke would fill the backyard and the roar of that Evinrude could be heard throughout the neighborhood. The fumes and smoke engulf dad and all I could see was his pipe sticking out of the blue haze. When the smoke dissipate dad would be standing there with his hand on throttle and for a quick moment I could see in his eyes that dad was far, far away, somewhere on TenKiller Lake or Keystone fishing for bigmouth bass or maybe he was off the coast of Baja fishing for marlin. I’ll never forget that image when the blue smoke cleared.
The word love was not used liberally by dad, but his grandchildren, Jeff and Darla and I knew we were loved when teased with nick names like apple-knocker, eight-ball or curtain-climber. But when dad did get close to saying the words out loud, “I love you” his voice would crack with emotion as his eyes teared up.
Near the end of dad’s life the Formica kitchen table and vinyl chairs were replaced with a rented gray hospital bed next to the backdoor that lead to his beloved garden. The one room where we gather as a family for meals, games of Monopoly, and frank discussions had become his hospices. It was dad’s wish to end his journey in the home he had worked so hard for. Without the financial means mom’s responsibilities of wife grew greater as the sole caretaker to a man she married so long ago. Before dads final journey, his dementia grew and grew but on this occasion while on the phone he seemed lucid and even cracked joke with me. After sharing the days events and jokes dad handed the phone back to mom. I could hear mom walk away from the kitchen area to the hallway to give me the reality of dad’s condition.
“David, daddy goes in and out of dementia and sometimes he acts as if he is working and asking me for his tools. ” She said.
“I understand mom, just act and pantomime as if your were giving him his tools, okay? Give me a call if anything else come up, just indulge dad, okay? ” I told her.
“Okay dear, I’ll call if anything comes up.” She reassured me.
“Okay mom, love your.”
” I Love you too.”
Three hours later mom calls me back.
“David we just got back, and I wanted to let you know what just happen.” Mom tells me.
“Wait a minute, what do you mean you just got back? I ask out of concern.
“Well, you said to indulge daddy so I did.”
“What”? I asked.
“Daddy thinks he is back on the farm and borrowed two Missouri mules from his neighbors to plow a field, Daddy thinks he didn’t return the mules and seem desperate to return them, so I dressed him in his pajamas, put him in the car and we drove around the neighborhood looking for the mules.”
“Mom!”
“Honey, it got daddy out of the house and you said to indulge him.” she tells me.
“Yes, I did tell you that mom – I tell you what mom, tell dad I’ll go out and look for the mules, okay? Dad may not recall that I live in California.”
“Okay dear.”
An hour late I call home, “Mom, tell dad that I found the mules and returned them to his neighbor.”
“Okay dear.”
I can hear mom hold the phone away and speak in a clear audible voice to reassuring dad.
“Daddy, daddy! David found the mules and returned them to the neighbors.”
Over the phone I can hear dad voice clearly and my heart sank as I heard him say.
“That David, he sure is a good boy.”
Those were the last words I heard from dad as he slipped away into the corridors of his mind. I believe that God puts people in our lives when we most need them. And as a five- year old I desperately needed a good Dad, not a perfect Dad, just a good Dad. Today I am what I am as a result of his influence and example. I know what a work ethic is and the value of humor, thank you dad for giving me those gifts. Happy Fathers Day Dad, I miss you terribly.
Chapter One
The first time I saw my name in print was not on a “Hello My Name Is” sticker but in the American Alpine Journal on climbing accidents in North America. Which was not the kind of publicity I needed, after all I was the go to guy for remote and hostile location media work.
California, Yosemite Valley, Half Dome Route
On June 4, 1988, at 1200 hours, Yosemite’s ranger dispatch received a call from Wesley Walton concerning an injured climber on Half Dome……that was me, I was the injured climber. Walton had brought his CB walkie talkie via talked with people on top of Half Dome by
CB radio. At 1215 hours, six search and rescue climbers were flown to the top of Half Dome starting at 1330 hrs. At 1443 hrs, Kevin Brown arrived at Big Sandy Ledge after being lowered 150 meters from the summit of Half Dome. He met David Banks, who had an uncomplicated injured elbow, bruised seriously enough so the he could not climb. Banks was raised the 150 meters arriving at 1545 hrs. Brown, Klotz (Banks climbing partner) and two Half Dome climbers who had helped jummarred out. All rescuers were flown out, ending at 1847 hrs.
Ranger Horner interviewed Banks later. He said that he had injured his arm/ elbow (After x-rays I learned that I had shattered my left elbow) in a slow, sliding fall on the pitch below Big Sandy on June 3. He was slightly off route and did not protect well. He fell about ten meters (about 33 ft.) and stopped prior to hitting a larger ledge. Banks was lowered to his belayer and then Klotz led the pitch to Big Sandy. Banks took an hour and a half to jumar to the pitch, which he did in a lot of pain. They were also hauling the largest haul bag ( which we referred to as the “Pig”) anyone can remember seeing. (Source: Dan Horner and Bob Howard, Rangers, Yosemite National Park)
Analysis: Banks and Klotz had each been climbing for several years, led at the 5.3-5.10 level, but had little wall experience. They had brought too much hardware and other gear, and their huge haul bag and lack of experience hauling meant long, tiring days. They were on schedule but had underestimated their daily food and water requirements by about half, however; and by time of the accident they were tired, hungry and dehydrated. In retrospect, they felt their condition made an accident “only a matter of time.” Two points:
By their own admission, they had too much gear; that’s not an argument for taking nothing.
To Be Continued…..
“I wanted to witness things that very few people in the world get to experience and to test myself, to discover what I could endure seeing, what kinds of craziness I could survive and still be able to record images and pass them on.It was a lifestyle choice as opposed to a profession or thinking of it as work.” – Jason P. Howe
Back in the day, went I would return from the Middle East or Afghanistan I was often asked by friends, ” Dave, are you some kind of adrenaline junkie?”
I would reply, “No, but the importance of documenting history is why I take the risk.” Photojournalist James Nachtwey who put in terms that you (society) can best understand the importance of conflict photography, “The free flow of information represented by journalism, specifically visual journalism, can bring into focus both the benefits and the cost of political policies. It can give credit to sound decision-making, adding momentum to success. In the face of poor political judgment or political inaction, it becomes a kind of intervention, assessing the damage and asking us to reassess our behavior. It puts a human face on issues which from afar can appear abstract or ideological or monumental in their global impact. What happens at ground level, far from the halls of power, happens to ordinary citizens one by one.” This documentary which represents the virtue of risk for many men and women who sole motive is to record history so that society won’t repeat it.
Memories of events and misadventures are happening more frequently as I pour over thousands of slides from my analog era. I recently came across several plastic boxes of transparencies marked “Greece, Island of Patmos.” I had been hired to shoot a documentary on the Apostle John which took me on a large plane from L.A. to Athens, then a smaller plane to the city of Thessaloniki and finally a ten-hour hydrofoil to the tiny island of Patmos.
The backstory on the Apostle John is that he was one of the twelve disciples who followed Jesus during His earthly ministry. In 95 A.D. John was banished by the Roman authorities to the island of Patmos, but not before being thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil where he miraculously survived. The story goes that after witnessing this mind-boggling event the entire Coliseum converted to Christianity immediately. Deep in a cavern on Patmos, John had a profound and disturbing vision. It was the vision of the world to come and wrote the 27th and final chapter of the Holy Bible known as the Book of Revelation. 
The first time I realized the connections between the island of Patmos, the Apostle John and the Book of Revelations was in a Baptist church in Dothan, Alabama. How did I end up as the only white guy in an all black church on a Saturday night? I was invited as a result of a near collision with three well-dressed black men. Half naked and soaking wet, I darted from the motel pool to my room when the four of us meet head-on as I rounded a corner. Skidding to a stop, I quickly made an apology and wrapped the towel around my waist. Each of the gentlemen held tattered bibles with gold print on the leather covers. They were preachers in Dothan for a revival at a local Baptist church. I surprised myself by asking if I could attend the revival and to my good fortune they said yes.
For those who don’t know, “whooping” (pronounced hooping) is a celebratory style of preaching that pastors typically use to make sure the congregation can feel his sermon. In many ways, it is nothing short of a biblical opera performed by the man at the pulpit. His overture usually starts with a calm, reflective introduction to a topic such as temptation or adultery and magically transforms the characters from the bible into another misguided member of his personal flock. The tempo begins its steady rise as the pastor plays out the roles on stage. There is constant pacing back and forth from the podium as his voice slips into a falsetto that bellows out over the church’s speaker system. The pastor is accompanied with interludes from the organist and shouts of holy affirmations from those in the pews. Wiping his brow with his white handkerchief, then waving it high into the air as if surrendering to the Lord, he then bellows out his crescendo.“ We all can make our own Patmos!” he shouts, “just as the Apostle John was sentence to the island of Patmos by the Romans”. The minister pauses for a good 30 seconds as the assembled worshippers sit silently in their seats.Then, in the finale the pastor whispers “We too can sentence ourselves to our own island of Patmos.”
While the Apostle John was destined to write about the apocalypse over 2,000 years ago, Nicholas Negroponte currently writes about a brighter and a more enlighten world through technology. Mr. Negroponte is one of the early disciples of computer technology and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab. He is also the progressive founder of the One Laptop per Child Foundation which aims to provide each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop. He believes that with access to the computer, children are more engaged in their own education.
For over 25 years, Mr. Negroponte and his wife have had a home on Patmos and have selflessly provided the island’s 3,000 plus residents with free wireless broadband web access. In spite of being isolated on the eastern borderline of the Aegean Sea and being the northernmost island of the Dodecanese island group, the world is only a key-stroke away for the citizens of this remote and rocky island. Unfortunately, the Negroponte’s were not home when I was there, but I did manage to invite myself to a Greek Orthodox wedding.
Greek Orthodox weddings are always on Sunday. They aren’t performed after Easter and Christmas, nor during periods of fasting or the day preceding a Holy Day. Vows aren’t exchanged since marriage is considered a union between two people in love, not a contractual agreement. Wedding bands are traditionally worn on the right hand, not the left. The bride may throw a pomegranate instead of the bouquet (duck if you’ve had too many uzos). The many seeds of the pomegranate symbolize the fertile possibilities between the two young lovers. At the reception, plates are broken on the dance floor (or some other hard surface) for good luck. A member of the immediate family begins and others quickly join in with much yelling and laughing as the plates shatter.
Patmos covers only 34 square kilometers (13.1 sq. miles) with its greatest length of about 25 kilometers (9.6 miles). For such an isolated little island, the poet Peter Porter said it best in his poem “Saint John on Patmos”: “For the right visions you need a desert or an island.”
The way we are handling the Coronavirus is proof that we wouldn’t survive a Zombie Apocalypse. But hey! I had toilet paper but now I’m down to baby wipes.
March made me shiver.
The church bells are broken and the Scamvangelist has stolen the Crown of Thorns.
I have a sense of place for this old restless heart in my cabin in the sky.
My exile soundtrack: Dust in The Wind – Kansas.
Life is not a rehearsal, this is it, this is all we get, so don’t forget to change into clean underwear in the event.
Here I go again, up and down the only path I know.
I feel myself slowly moving East, silence and tranquility filling the voids.
I shut my eyes and try to recall last nights dream. Was it earth and sky or me being naked in class again?
Behind me a lone Mockingbird calls for love and waits. It is all the familiar sounds of my youth.
Venustraphobia, I didn’t know such a word existed.
Loaded for Bear in Big Bear.
She’s the Jewess in Jewess Overalls.
Sometimes when I’m watching the Rose Garden news conference, I think somewhere out there a village is missing its idiot.
I spend most of the day looking where I put my car keys.
I don’t think I’m crazy, but today I’m upset because my imaginary friend Dilbert Cokie is mad at me and won’t talk to me.
It was a comment by childhood friend Linda Vandendool that sparked an old memory and a nearly forgotten incident with my mom and Dustin Hoffman. I had shared on Facebook about my English teacher Mrs. Rackleff and my salvation from Dyslexia. My childhood friend Linda responded in the comments with. “Overcoming obstacles and pursuing your dream is very far frombeing lazy. I’m sure Tootsie was your cheerleader and encouraged you.” Linda is referring to my mom, who for any Cinephile of movies would love to know this bit of trivia for the movie Tootsie. Tootsie is a 1982 American satirical romantic comedy film directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Dustin Hoffman. The film tells the story of an out of work actor who supplements his income working as a server in a restaurant. After many months without landing an acting job, the actor Michael, portrayed by Dustin Hoffman hears of an opening on the popular daytime soap opera Southwest General. In desperation Michael disguise himself as a woman, gives his name as “Dorothy Michaels” at the audition. Michael ends up getting the hospital administrator part as Emily Kimberly. So, in 1981 I was a cameraman on the daytime soap opera General Hospital. Yes, that General Hospital of Luke and Laura fame. Mom and dad had come to Los Angeles for a visit, and I had asked Gloria Monty the Executive Producer if my parents could visit the set. Absolutely was Gloria’s response. When mom and dad arrived, they were treated like royalty. The stagehands had setup their own director chairs as actors and crew attending to them like loyal servants. Unbeknown to me was Dustin Hoffman downstairs watching the rehearsals on a closed-circuit monitor. Dustin and screen writers Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal were researching and gathering material for their movie Tootsie. Dustin and Gloria had worked together in theatre in New York at the beginning of Dustin’s career. On the set were roll around monitors and the camera crew took turns pointing their cameras at mom and dad. Which was a big thrill for mom and dad to see themselves on TV. When a break in the rehearsals was called the backstage door flew open and entered Dustin Hoffman. Dustin and the writers made a beeline to Mary and Paul in their director chairs. At first Dustin thought they were background actors. With mom’s hand pressed to her chest in disbelief, “Oh heavens no, that’s my son over there behind the camera.” Dad stayed silent with his customary pipe hanging on his lower lip not knowing who Dustin was. Of course, mom knew. With moms thick Oklahoma accent she and Dustin chatted for some time. If you watch the movie Tootsie all the hand jesters, mannerism, diction, and inflection that’s my mom on the screen. Now and forever Mary’s likeness is dispersed by electromagnetic spectrum into the heavens where mom and dad now reside.
Tootsie Trailer Link: https://youtu.be/c94awfb-0wc?si=opnhBPSCvsOKyNd-T
Exposure and Other Worldly Morsels 