Just the other night, I learned of the passing of my friend and comrade, photographer Laura Sullivan – a.k.a. “Isis” – earlier this month.

I first became friends with Isis and her husband-to-be Michael Sullivan (a.k.a. “the Cubster”) in the late summer of 2007, when Isis and I were on the editorial board of the DC Independent Media Center and working together in the DC IMC’s foto/video workgroup.

Along with our comrade Daryle Lamont Jenkins of One People’s Project, Isis was covering the neo-fascists before it was cool. Under the collective pseudonym “Town Hell Posse” she, Daryle, Michael and I covered Ron Paul rallies in Philadelphia and Tea Party batshittery at rallies on Capitol Hill, and at healthcare town halls in Reston, among other zaniness.

Isis showed me the impact – and fun – of not holding the camera straight up and down all the time; she was a staunch proponent of what they call the “Dutch Tilt” in the business – or what Isis used to call the “Batman Angle”.

She got me to loosen up on my newsreels, to let go of the “straight” approach – to editorialize, to use music, irony, cynicism and sarcasm more in my storytelling style.

In 2010, Isis and I had the honor of being asked to leave the DC IMC editorial board for being “too radical”. No, seriously. Too radical for the IMC.

Thanks so much, kiddo; it was too fucking grand.

“Great Caesar’s Ghost!”
–Perry White.

“Information Age of hysteria
is calling out to Idiot America!”
–Green Day.

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Continue reading "Laura “Isis” Sullivan, Photographer: an Appreciation" »

I hate to break it to the kiddies at the Dyin’ In Darkness Daily, but misidentifying the President of Egypt as the President of Mexico is NOT a “false caricature that could jell” — and neither is being nicknamed “Genocide Joe” and helping to instigate racist violence in his own country, for that matter.

All together, boys’n’girls…Nearer my God to thee…  

11 x 17 inch high-res color .jpg image, 1.4mb

Continue reading "My Heart Will Go On" »

I don’t know about your city, but here in the tonier ‘hoods of DC, the Little Free Libraries are a big thing. Sounds really sweet and noble and grassrootsy mutual-aidy n’shit until you get a load of what’s actually in the goddamn things. It’s basically the kind of instantly-obsolete stuff you used to see stacked on the sidewalk in front of the fence in front of the house with a little post-it note reading “FREE” — old college textbooks, trendy disposable political tomes, pseudo-academic shartage by “public intellectuals”, cute trendy late ’00s millennial YA novels, trendy child-rearing stuff, trendy self-helpy shit, people unloading all the John Grisham and James Patterson novels they bought to read on the plane… Sure as hell didn’t see anyone giving away their copies of On The Road or To Have And Have Not or Sirens Of Titan or Ché Guevara’s Motorcycle Diaries or anything, y’know…?

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Continue reading "Little Twee Library" »

…in which the spirit of Vincent visits my 19 year-old self, turns away even more utterly demoralized, and shoots himself again.

The technical part — learning the UI, how it integrated the Pencil, all that theory-of-operation stuff — was the easy part; I pretty much had the software down cold in 2 or 3 nights. Now the real work is starting, which actually learning how to freakin’ paint.

Since I “officially” retired from the design biz, Mrs. F has had to listen to me occasionally mumbling all dreamy about taking another whack at learning how to paint — y’know, like a proper painter — some 35, 40 years after leaving school.

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Continue reading "Sloppy Still Life" »