Tag: random

Going Deep

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Our society? We allow our elderly to linger in hospital beds, fed by tubes, broken and suffering, hanging on to the unraveled and frayed threads of their life. We pump them full of medicines, hook them up to machines that will breathe for them, while we sit by their side and watch them slowly fade into death. Then we drain the blood from their bodies, fill them full of chemicals and paint their faces so they look somewhat alive for a few more days so we can watch over them in death as well. In the end, their bodies are locked into a metal box and we store them away in the ground, or in a mausoleum where whatever life giving resources that might still be in them can be forever locked away, unable to provide back to the Earth and future life.

Why?

Highlight of my Month

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Originally written January 24, 2009:

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J: What time do you want us in bed?

Me: Well, it's Saturday night. Not like you have school tomorrow.

J: Yeah, but it's already past nine o'clock...

Me: So? You can't stay up late and have fun once in a while? I think you can. What's wrong with that?

E: You're like.. the best dad. Ever.

Me: *melts*

That kid knows how to get his way.

Super Hero Dilemmas

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Morning conversations in the car...

E: Dad, ok. So, you're a Superhero but your powers are limited. So would you rather.... be able to fly, but you can only do it from two-feet off the ground, or would you rather be able to run with lightning speed, but only for 100-feet at a time?

P: Hmm... I'd rather be able to fly. Even two-feet off the ground, it seems like it would be more useful.

E: True.

P: Besides, all that rapid starting and stopping with the running can't possibly be good for your knees.

E: HAHA!

P: Flying two-feet off the ground would be fun. It would be like luge racing everywhere!

J: Ok, would you rather have X-Ray vision but never be able to turn it off... or....

E: Hmm....

J: Hmm....

P: ...or, you can fly, but have no control over the direction you go.

J: HAHA!

E: HAHA! I wanted to go California, why am I in Paris?!

Ahhh.. we have fun.

For Where There Is Hope

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Originally written September 29, 2008

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"Only Hope was left within her unbreakable house,
she remained under the lip of the jar, and did not
fly away. Before [she could], Pandora replaced the
lid of the jar. This was the will of aegis-bearing
Zeus the Cloudgatherer."

-- Hesiod, "Works and Days"

It is said this is what keeps mankind alive - hope.

In the fable of Pandora, she opens the jar (box) and releases all the ills upon the world and upon human kind, but hope is the last thing left in the jar. Hope...

...yet hope, and the act of hoping, is a concept I consciously try to avoid in my life. I learned long ago, hope is not enough. Hope is never enough.

If I only have hope, I don't have control.

Control is what I need to take my life into my hands. Effort and perseverance will help me achieve my dreams, not hope.

I'll leave hope locked away in the jar... I have to get back to work.

Savoy

Posted on by Paul In The Buff

Every time I hear the name "Savoy" I always think of Johnny Dangerously.

"There's a message through the Grapevine, Johnny."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Johnny and the Mothers are playing Stompin' at the Savoy in Vermont tonight."

"Vermin's gonna kill my brother at the Savoy Theater tonight!"

"I didn't say that."

"Yeah, but I know this Grapevine."

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Anyway, the Savoy in Buffalo is a new Prohibition Style cocktail bar. Very intimate, and with a gourmet appetizer and drink menu, I would definitely put it on your must try list. Here are some images from the event - and some of my favorite images from any event I've shot so far.