Author: duckshots

Lapsed lawyer. Reader. Photographer. Jewish. Strongly attached to loving, caring, wife-Sharon. Working at remaining relevant. Hoping that my body and mind outlive my dreams. Maybe something I blog will make some sense.

Andrew’s Out

Not that he didn’t know. But taking up with the girl you met in rehab can only bring tsouris. Sure enough, he ended up at the 4C’s for the last three months. “Every cloud has a silver lining. I would have frozed to death or overdosed if I had been out.” “Jails should protect us from you, not you to yourself,” I said to a deaf ear.

Now he needs a job to pay for a program, a DV program, not the drug program he needs. No contact with a public defender for three months until she communicated a plea offer which he took, despite not being guilty, in order to get out of jail. SOS, suspended sentence, probation, costs, blah, blah, blah. Not sure I listen to these stories anymore. “If I were in IDAP, they would pay for it; DOC program.” “Don’t you need a felony to qualify for that?” I asked feigning a lack of knowledge. “Not sure,” he said.

Andrew will go back to jail and max out if he doesn’t get a job, stay out of trouble and attend programming for 26 weeks ($35 a wk). He cannot go to the Dept. of Labor, because he has child support payments which are in arrears. Who will hire him? At what wage? Let’s see. $10 an hour. 40 hours a week. $400. Taxes and social security. $270. $35 for programming. $225. Where does he live? $275 a week at a motel. You see what I mean. No way.

The woman has left town. Andrew will lie his way through the program, assuming he goes and is not kicked out. Anger will spew from his mouth against her, directly, and women indirectly.

In denial, another case awaits, a felony. Who will be next?

Paul’s Back in Good Shape

Paul finished rehab and chose to come back to Burlington. Put on some weight. Cleaned hiself up. Now he needs a job to keep his bed.

After hearing he didn’t have any money, I offered him a dollar. “I ain’t begging anymore,” he said. “This dollar be a blessing, just like the Rebbe used to say when he gave a dollar.” “I don’t know much about jews, but thanks.” “If you don’t want it, give it to someone else who needs some good luck.” “That is just what I am going to do,” he said.

Mike could probably use it. He is still waiting for a bus ticket from his mother who is somewhere.

Charlie just needed a match.

Harry Coover, dead at 93 as is Paul Baran, 83

Harry Coover didn’t set out to make it easier for the average person to join two things together for life. Paul Baran probably didn’t forsee the democratic effects of the internet, yet alone how his work would bring people together, either. Both helped people do things we would not have been able to do before their discoveries, without requiring us to belong to a privileged class or know very much. Both made their finds working for the defense industry. In their own ways, they made the world more secure.

Tom/Larry and Becky on Cherry

Becky and her boyfriend just got Section 8 housing and she doesn’t want to lose it. But she has a heart. So long as people don’t stayover for too long, it will be alright. People can shower in their place and crash. They just cannot move in for more than two weeks.

Her boyfriend’s brother-in-law, Tom/Larry ain’t doing so well. He lost his place for helping people with no place to stay. Someone dropped a dime on him. Evicted or displaced, he doesn’t have the skills to defend himself. Now homeless and unsure what to do or where to go. Not sure what his payee does with his money. He works the street, with her support, because he is afraid to go our alone.

Lots of dignity here.

Unlikely his wishes will come true. But, he believes in miracles.

Stripes Again and Yet

Just bought Apple TV. Search not as expansive as I would have liked. But there are plenty of movies I have wanted to watch which I didn’t want to spend the money to rent and weren’t worth the hassle of entering them into Netflix que debates with Sharon. Streaming screams out for filmfiles, even if I couldn’t find Mildred Pierce. Only need to watch five or six movies a week to pay for the device in a reasonable time. We can do it with no problem. And, there is no late fee or crazed drives to return rentals.

As for Stripes, you should be ready for a bumpy ride. Great to reacquaint with early Murray, Harold Rambis, and the late, great John Candy. Warren Oates brings generational glue, anchoring the tale for the WWII and Korean Vets. Listed as a comedy, the absence of a conditioning word like “black” deprives the flick of legitimacy.  The first half is funny and sexy; the second is scary.

Murry and his buddy can’t handle life. Goofballs and slackers, they enlist into the Army for a European vacation, training, and some benefits. Some still follow their path, earning $20,00 or more as an enlistment bonus, a sum that would require some to work four jobs in a week to accrue. They end up in a troop of misfits let by Oates. Afraid to be sent back to 9 to 5, and after a shot to the bread basket by Oates, they work the troop into shape and earn an assignment to a special forces team whose task it is to test a new high tech tank disguised as an RUV. To further the romance of  service, they team up with two more qualified MPs who happen to be female and whisk them off in the vehicle for a tryst. While screwing, the home team thinks they have been kidnapped and go off to free them. The rescue team gets captured and the slackers then have to rescue them, starting a minor war with an unnamed enemy (Joe Flaherty), smite them, and return heroes.

This movie speaks to our worst dreams. Metaphorically, the US Army does what it wants, bringing its people into places where they may not be wanted. The officers come from a privileged class, educated, and clueless, charged with overseeing members of the underclass whom they send into battle willing to risk the lives of other but not their own. Both sides party without regard to the customs of  the places they inhabit, ignorant of the possible consequences, while remaining blind and deaf to the real purpose of  their undefined missions. Assume the tank works. Certified, it becomes a superior killing machine. No one wants that responsibility. Don’t explain the mission. Just tell me what to do.

The consequences of their conduct goes unquestioned. Force will cure any missteps. If captured and they get tortured, a act of the heathen enemy that could later be justified by invasion, assuming they cannot be traded for our hostages. Civilian casualties or the accidental destruction of property can be fixed with post-war reparations. And the players, they are are rejects who couldn’t make it elsewhere and who can be sold on the Army life, sir, as much because they don’t have anything else going on in their lives as that they have ideosyncrasies which can be translated into killing, fighting, and destroying skills. We hope at the end of the movie that this is how it used to be. What could be bad. They could be in jail. Now, you can even use enlistment as a get out of jail card, so long as you haven’t lost the ability to carry a gun.

Then they make them heroes and give them medals for winning a war they started.

Len Spier Educates “Art in Photography” in Burlington VT

Len Spier shot Burlington before he presented a talk to members of Meet Up, “Art in Photography,” entitled, Watch Your Back. Now 83, he now aims a G10 due to a stroke suffered five years ago. Energetic and poised, he hasn’t lost his love for images or his desire to educate photographers that they are artists whose work is worth protecting, even if they aren’t professionals. Trained as an attorney who made a living at litigating and shooting, he is uniquely qualified to speak on the interstices of art and law.

This being his first visit to Burlintgon, everything attracted his attention. Aware no train service serves the Queen City and hailing from a subway driven metro area, he shot a freight train from in front of the antique store on Flynn Avenue.

Seen here in front of his the Dark Room Gallery where he would deliver his talk, he posed with one of his pictures, Polka Dot Woman, that hung during a recent Photo Space Juried photo competition. Ken Signorello, director of the Gallery and the event coordinator for the lecture stands behind the image.

27 people showed up to hear him, despite snow and sleet. “The copyright law is in the Constitution….Make sure to put your copyright on your works. Your rights accrue when you create the image. Protect them.” He gave examples of clauses to put in contracts when selling rights to the images…. Be aware of all the social networking possibilities.” “You need to get a release if you are going to use the image for trade or commerce.” More time was needed, but he covered a lot in a clear, concise, understandable way.

He had the floor. So, after talking about copyright and the rights of street photographers to shoot, unimpeded in public areas, he showed some of his works. Here, he discusses dueling toilets he discovered in the lavatory at a Court Street Law Office in Brooklyn. “I’d seen toilets next to one another in the army without anything between them; … but here, I picture the lawyer and the secretary facing one another, one talking and the other pen in hand.”

The next morning, Ken and Len share thoughts about the previous nights event. They look happy, because the message was delivered so generously and in good humor. Very well received, if you look at their faces.

A pure tourist, he visited Middlebury, Addison County to experience rural VT. He looked at cows, a covered bridge, an abandoned house (not that all unfamiliar to a New Yorker), and lunched near the angry Otter Creek.

Before returning to the Big Apple, Len examined an old Russian Camera that Dan Scott bought on E-Bay. They discussed film, 120 film.