Aging and the Art of Protest

The weather this weekend in Marin County, California, was absolutely perfect. Both days were clear, sunny and hot…with temperatures into the upper 80s. However, as recently as a few days ago (and then again today), the daytime highs were in the 50s - and the blustery winds made it feel even colder. Last Tuesday  was very chilly. That was the day I was making my preparations to attend the Olympic Torch Relay.

I had a vacation day scheduled for Wednesday, and planned to take the ferry into The City for a day of observing and photographing the event(s). It surely seemed like a day of potential excitement (what with the recent, well, passionate protests in Paris and London)…and one that held some promise for colorful photos of the planned demonstrations.

Ah, but the important question for me: howdo I keep warm? After all, these happenings were to take place along the waterfront in San Francisco…not exactly the most comfy place in the world on lots of days, what with the probability for low temperatures and howling winds. Given the propensity of my body to tighten up with both stress and cold, and the fact that I’d be carrying heavy camera equipment, I would need to dress appropriately for the occasion and take a minimalist approach to packing and toting my gear.

So, folks, this is the most important factor for me these days as I prepare for a day of protesting. How do I keep these old bones and muscles from freezing up?

Well, I came up with some answers.

First off: long underwear. Yes, here it is April in the Golden State, and for the only time this year, I donned a pair of my silk, REI-brand long-johns. Then, of course, SmartWool socks and my ECCO cross-trainers. The rest of the outfit included:

• jeans,

• a short sleeve t-shirt, covered by a long-sleeved t-shirt,

• covered by a North Face fleece pullover, covered by a multi-pocketed photographer’s vest,

• all topped off with a baseball-type cap (with a peace sign on it).

Finally, to keep my body even more toastfully comfortable, I wore (underneath everything) two ThermaCare heatwraps: one around my midsection for my lower-back, and one across the tops of my shoulder blades.

I carried my smallest camera bag that held just one body, one lens, an extra battery, and compact flash cards.

And this worked!

I must report total success. I was there wandering around and taking photographs for three and a half hours. I was quite comfortable the entire time (it turned out to be a sunny, not-too-windy day), and survived the adventure in fine form.

One guy about my age, who was carrying a hand-made “Free Tibet” sign, called his wife on the ferry ride home and said that he’d had enough for the day. “My feet are killing me,” he reported.

Ahhhh…aging and the art of peaceful protest.

I Love Being Published

[This article appeared on page G-39of today’s 96 Hours Magazine of the San Francisco Chronicle.]

Flickr Pickr: Jim Arnold

Charles Howard

Thursday, April 10, 2008

TechnoMonk:: Jim Arnold, known as technomonk on Flickr, is an academic dean at a junior college in the North Bay. Although his day job is administrative, he says his true passions are photography and writing. There is no higher calling than “artist,” he says. Arnold has been photo-documenting the world around him since the mid-1970s, and for a few years he made his living doing event photography. He says he used manual-focus 35mm equipment longer than anybody he knows, but finally embraced the digital world in 2004. “When anybody asks me what kind of photography I do, I just say that I’m a wandering documentary photographer ... and then point them to my Flickr site.”

Want us to pick your flickr picture? On the photo-sharing Web site www.flickr.com, tag your images “SFChronicle 96Hrs.” If we like it, we’ll run it here. We especially like Bay Area images and local photographers. To view the 96 Hours gallery of flickr picks, go to sfgate.com/96Hours. For more great Bay Area photography, check out Frederic Larson's “Mystical Photography” on sfgate.com.

- Charles Howard, choward@sfchronicle.com

Fantasy & Reality

It’s no secret that I used to party a lot (back in those alcohol-saturated times of my misspent youth). Once in awhile during those mostly-hazy days, in my often-stuporous state, I would dream of really big-time partying: you know, the kind that takes place in New Orleans at Mardi Gras, or in Las Vegas or Hollywood any ol’ night of the week.

Well, I never made it to The Show. As things turned out, I was only ever a minor-league partier. By the time I made it to (pre-Katrina) New Orleans it was 1999, at which time I had been sober for 16 years. And it was just two weeks ago, in March of 2008, when I visited Las Vegas for the first time (now working on my 25th year of sobriety).

I was only in Vegas for a little under twenty-four hours, and then, specifically, for the occasion of my niece’s wedding. This event took place in a nice little (actually very tasteful) wedding chapel, with just a few guests in attendance. I was lucky enough to be on hand with my camera to document some parts of the occasion. When the champagne corks were popped, I abstained.

The little bit of the town I saw was everything I imagined it to be…and, really, I only saw a small slice of life there. But in just my little taste of the Vegas experience – from airport, to hotel, to dinner, to breakfast, to chapel, and back to airport – there were several sights familiar to anyone who has ever watched CSI.

And then, this last weekend, I got to visit the place all over again. Sort of. I went to see “21” – a film that has been out a couple of weeks now, and is the number one movie in the country. The movie has not enjoyed favorable reviews, but, at least for me, it’s easy to understand why it’s so popular. It is mostly set in Las Vegas (and partly in Boston), and the plot allows us to totally escape our everyday realities for a short time.

It’s the story of a small team of young, smart, good-looking college students (from MIT) who are recruited by their math professor to learn card counting. They eventually get good enough at their craft to make numerous visits to Las Vegas and win tons and tons of money.

It’s based on a true story, but, for most of us, it’s total fantasy. Personally, the movie was a vehicle to dare to imagine another kind of life: a different way to (perhaps) have utilized my math skills – and have ended up among the rich and famous. Well, at least the rich.

In these trying economic times, who can’t use a healthy dose of escapism to get our minds away from our everyday bill-paying struggles? And, if you’re a Boomer, as I am, who still doesn’t see a retirement date in sight…well, any way to find a “quick fix” to a tenuous financial situation seems quite an attraction.

When you watch “21” you’ll find yourself vicariously living a high-risk, high-adrenaline, beautiful-person life.

But don’t get too used to it. Afterwards, you’ll go home and heat up some left-over pizza.

Reality resumes.

Soundtrack Suggestion

I used to smoke, I used to drink
I used to smoke, drink and dance the hoochie-koo
I used to smoke and drink
Smoke and drink and dance the hoochie-koo, oh yeah
But now I’m standing on this corner
Prayin’ for me and you…

(“Saved” – Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller)

College Over Troubled Water

When I moved down here to the Bay Area, and accepted a new “permanent” position as an academic dean at the College of Marin, I vowed to not use my work life as fodder for blog material. I just don’t want or need the kind of scrutiny that that kind of reporting might bring.

Not that my day job isn’t worthy of some commentary. Au contraire. For now, though, I’ll continue to leave it to other folks to describe my current workplace…

From the February 22 edition of the Pacific Sun (Marin County’s weekly alternative newspaper), you can read this cover-story article: “COMbustible: This Semester, College of Marin is Offering Courses in Resentment, Accusation and Infighting.”

And from the front page of today’s Marin Independent Journal (Marin County’s daily newspaper), we learn about: “College of Marin in Crisis.”

Soundtrack Suggestion

When you’re down and out,
When you’re on the street,
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you.
I’ll take your part.
When darkness comes
And pains is all around,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.

(“Bridge Over Troubled Water” – Simon and Garfunkel)

Update on April 2, 2008:

This morning’s edition of the Marin IJ informs us that: “College of Marin’s Accreditation Future on Hold.”

Flickr Pickr

Every Thursday, the San Francisco Chronicle publishes a weekend guide to entertainment and the arts that they call 96 Hours. One of the great features of this magazine is that most weeks they include the “Flickr Pickr” – a tiny section near the back of the publication designed to showcase the images of a Bay-Area photographer.

Yesterday, I received an inquiry from a photo editor at the Chronicle asking if I would like to have my Flickr images featured sometime soon.

Well, yeah…

(I’ll keep you posted.)

Update on March 28, 2008:

I’ve successfully submitted the requested photographs (not the ones I would have chosen, frankly) to the Chronicle, and the estimate is that they will appear in 96 Hours on April 10.