Jemala McCroee and his father Ellis stand in front of the Washington Monument and their flipped pick-up truck at 14th and Constitution NW. A woman in a small compact car hit the rear passanger's side of the truck while running a red light sending the truck and the McCroee's tumbling through the intersection. The McCroee's work for the Boeing Co. as renovation carpenters. This afternoon around the same time as the accident the CEO of Boeing, Phil Condit, resigned amid controversies. Smell a connection?
photo illustration
[Similarly to the woman who ran the red light because she wasn't focused on her driving, I didn't focus the camera when I took this shot. So I put a radial blur on the background and made it a nice-looking photo illustration.]
This is Brandon Karnes eating a plate of fried squid or calimari at the Dupont Italian Kitchen on 17th St NW. They give free refills there and it's just a block from Trio's, a dump which does not give free refills ... where would you eat? Karnes is a fine arts major at the Corcoran College who doesn't appreciate free refill as much as I do.
[I got the chicken fettucine alfredo. It was good. I prefer Cajun chicken fettucine alfredo. I tried to order cajun alfredo in Venice once. Then I asked for just chicken fettucine alfredo. Then I just asked if they wouldn't mind cutting up a chicken breast on my fettucine.]
I was walking by 17th and S Sts NW and saw this cluster of Vespas. My dad had an old Lambretta scooter. It still had it's original paint, red and white. It has crome trim everywhere, including around the seat cushions. He never rode it himself; I guess he bought it for me. I use to ride it around in the fields at the farm when I was a kid. I'd forget the brake was a clutch and fly into the brush at the edge of the field.
[Can you ride a scooter and still be taken seriously? I don't think I can answer this one. But sometimes when I want to know if something is really cool or not I ask myself, "What Would Johnny Cash Do?"]
Today I had another Thanksgiving (with venison too) at the Spring's residence. David, Wes's dad, showed me an album of photos he took while in the Army during the Vietnam War. The photos and their feeling were unmistakably from another era.
[Wes is a Lineman by trade. He hangs wires and cable from telephone poles. When he sees a cable work truck parked some place or people working on power lines, he tells me (or whoever is around) what they're constructing and what kind of equipment they're using. Similarly if I see anything to do with the Marine Corps, I have a hard time not spilling everything I know about it, including assumptions. This is Wes in front of Veteran's Association Medical Center Post Theater in Winchester, Va.]
I had a great Thanksgiving in Bluemont, Va. My friends Wes and Erin have a great family. I ate at the Underwood's house; they operate the beautiful, hilltop Rockwood Ridge Farm. The man of the house, Lester Underwood tends to the farm's sheep and cattle everyday. One of the penned ewes stomped her foot at me when I got too close to her lambs. "They won't hurt you," Lester assured me. I hopped in the truck after Blaze, one of the farm's herding dogs. When we got to the pasture we made a wide circle around the flock and drove them to the barn. The dog rides in the backseat of the truck and, of course, the sheep have to walk.
[Another regularly scheduled Thanksgiving ... eat turkey and count sheep.]
I'm somewhere around the Virginia-West Virginia border tonight. My friend Wes, who recently started his own family, has family there. If you live in D.C. you go elsewhere for the holidays. But if you're visiting anywhere in the vacinity, this is the place to get some Turkey Day tourism. I asked a Secret Service officer standing in front of the White House what he thought. "I might notice a little jump in tourism around the holidays," he said.
[I also talked to some tourists in front of the White House. Some of them are "in town" from as far away as Richmond, Va. I hope everybody has a Happy Thanksgiving and does some real reflecting ... (reflect)
The Guardian Angels, a group of public saftey activists, patrol around Mt Pleasant. "As a rule we don't go into an area that we're not invited to," said Mark "Bishop" Saunders, the Guardian's D.C. chapter leader (foreground). A recent invitation from the District's city council also encouraged some visitors from the New York City chapter. "If it's a verbal dispute, we break it up. If it is more serious than that we may physically detain an attacker until the police arrive," said visiting NYC chapter leader Matthew McCoy (left). Saunders added that the group's relationship with local law enforcement authorities is outstanding.
[Their motto -- "Dare to Care." It feels good to see the Guardian Angels on the streets. Bishop told me the group was started in 1979 by Curtis Sliwa, the manager of a McDonald's in the Bronx. Who said nothing good ever came outta McDonald's? McCoy will soon be leaving for Parris Island, S.C. Semper Fidelis]
Around 10am I started a paper on the several levels of irony surrounding Aphra Behn's 17th Century novel Oroonoko. I ate a leftover slice of chicken and pepperoni pizza. A friend stopped by to pick up a disk of photos I took of his art work. I completed one of hopfully two interviews for an assignment to interview a photo agency, or news wire photo editor. My neighbor stuck my credit card bill in my storm door. I saw a kiwi outside previously dropped from my garbage. I placed my camera on a tripod focused out the door to the sidewalk. I took this picture about 10 minutes after I set up. I kept the camera there for about 8 hours, but was too busy at my laptop to catch anything else.
[Speaking of kiwis, my friend Jesse an American-New Zealander* came over from McLean, Va. He was going to give me a ride to my class tonight. When Jesse pulled up I was already a half-hour late for class and still working on my paper. When I finished it, I realized I didn't have any printer paper. I emailed the paper to my professor. Jesse took off. For the first time in almost a year I didn't leave the house all day.]
*Kiwi is an affectionate term for a New Zealander.
Chewing sticks, that's what our toothbrushes originated from. They had chewing sticks in Mesopotamia around 3500 B.C. In the 1700s they started using neck hair from swine as bristles. It wasn't til the 1930s we had nylon bristles.
[Today I was at 7-11 talking to Lee, a Somali guy that works there. We both agreed that people would have more respect for each other if religion had more to do with our ancestors. People today are the products of hundreds-of-thousands of years of genetic mixing and are the material products of their ancestors. That makes everyone interesting.
My friend Chef Ryan called me and said he had a couple tickets to a hockey game this afternoon but couldn't go because he was working. So me and my friend Jesse ended up going to the game. The introductory price of free included two executive suite tickets, parking pass, beer and food! We didn't know the people in the suite but they were hospitable. Do hockey player go back to the Seventies to get their mullets groomed?
[Florida beat the Capitols 3-2, in overtime. This was a great game. Fighting, aggression, and dramatic goals. This is one of the Florida players picking up his stick after a brawl.]
