Graduation

It's been seven months since the last post. School had enveloped my very state of being, and I made a conscious effort to drop everything and run for the finish line. 

I've just done the walk on stage and shook hands with the president of my college. When I walked back to my seat, sat down, I greedily opened the black engraved booklet to inspect the blessed fruits of my long hard years of study and infinite debt. Instead I found myself reading a note that said if I do not fulfill all remaining requirements, I would not receive my degree, and if I do, I get it in a couple of months.

Well, I finished my finals, paid the $175 library loan (and that was after the kind lady reduced it), and now I'm getting used to the idea that I now have time to do things...

Things: 

-Blogging

-Photography

-Writing

-Reading

-Researching

-Cooking

-Yoga? 

-Drawing

-Sewing

This is outside current job and job searching. 

Kamieo

I'm entering a contest. So yeah, I'm only following three photography sites. But only three because they're the most AMAZING! And one of them is having a promotion and me posting here is part of me saying 'you rock!' to them, and also maybe getting some free stuff. We'll see. Anyway, it's worth the vote of confidence.
Here's the link:

http://kamieofox.com/blog/8k-fan-giveaway/

Blogspot out. 

Pro-Union Protest

The one year anniversary of Walker + fellow state republicans signing the bill that effectively disinherited the union of their control for efforts concerning the deficit. I received a text this morning that read 'WeAreWI: It's a beautiful day for the rally - hope to see you at the WI Capitol Square at 1:00!' with a link. I had already heard of the protest in last night's class from my ex-journalist professor who said she'd be down there photojournaling. I went down to get some practice shooting in crowds, as otherwise I'd be off somewhere doing homework. I tried remaining neutral; that's what you're supposed to do when you're a journalist. . . . I guess it takes practice.

Some signs were clever. 

Some signs were artistic. 

Some were cute. 

And then some were less than subtle. 

Madison protests are always family friendly. Don't believe what you hear on conservative media sources.

The only police I witnessed. Standing casually by.  

This is when the crowd picked up; around 2pm

When I got there the protests had just begun, which allowed space for most of these photographs. But it picked up so the street was packed by the time I left, reminiscent of last year's 100,000.

Disclaimer: I'm an independent, despite what I feel about this particular issue. But I feel strongly about being represented wrongly. There are no palm trees in Wisconsin, and there is no hostility on Capitol Square.

Seattle Part 2

Beware of would-be rappers peddling their CDs on you. It cost Katy two five dollar bills after being accosted by two young men in their early to mid twenties. They were putting on a marketing act, acting flamboyantly, and we had the misfortune to run into them just as we were trying to figure out how to get back to our hotel street. 

“I want you to have a CD, just ten dollars,” the taller one said. 

She gave him five.

“Tell you what,” he said, having witnessed more green in her wallet, “I want you to have another one, just for you, just five more dollars.”

We were being hustled, but they left me alone when I said I was ‘broke,’ which at that point was true, so I just watched, both annoyed and slightly confused. 

“Where you all from?” The taller one asked us. 

“Wisconsin,” we replied. 

Then the two of them spoke loudly about football, throwing out names like “Green Bay, The Packers, and Aaron Rogers,” which they had to dig out of their memories with some stuttered excitement. “Yeah, yeah, Aaron Rogers!” the other one chimed in. 

I should have been nicer to men twice my size, but as I was caught off guard and there was plenty of people about, I looked at them demurely, and not knowing anything about sports, said “Sure.” 

We turned and started walking, not positive in which direction to go, but glad just to be getting away from them, when suddenly an idea occurred to me. I turned back around just before reaching the street. 

“Hey Aaron Rogers!” I yelled to the taller one. 

They looked around, slightly confused. 

“Do you know how to get to Madison street?” I asked. 

After a little debate between themselves they pointed us in the direction we were already headed. I didn’t have full confidence they really knew, but it was enough to propel us to cross the street. 

“Where do you want to go on Madison street?” he asked as we had already left the sidewalk. 

There was no way I was giving our location to these guys. 

I turned my head while continuing to walk, and with eyelids lowered, in a tone thick with apparent sarcasm I said “Madison street.” 

They broke their act momentarily and laughed, but picked it up again some moments later when the taller one opened his arms wide and proclaimed himself the greatest rapper in Seattle, as he had done just our arrival. We were already on the other side of the street, and I couldn’t tell if that was just for us, but his voice was quickly drowned by the hustle of city life. 

The Museum

There was an exhibit of Native Australian and New Zealand artifacts, which included pictures (mostly portraits of native peoples from the 1800s done by a english explorer and painter) at the historical museum. A dimly lit room with artifacts neatly lined up in lime-lighted pillars and crude depictions lining the walls. People walked around with what looked like crude walkie talkies, or cell phones from the nineties pressed to their ears, which relayed more information via voice recording about specific artifacts. It reminded me of a 1950s documentary of humans in the future. Everyone was quiet and there was an air of speculitivity. One woman leaned in to look at a carving - a smooth idol-sized statue of a man in the style of the native peoples in that era - as though she understood it, and was exhuming deeper meaning from it. I was impressed by the precise detail in the carvings, including the reed instruments, but I would have liked an historical context to these instruments and these artifacts. There was something sterile about them behind glass and I quickly lost interest in the exhibit as a whole, and took out my camera to take pictures of the people looking at the exhibition, instead, which I found much more interesting. Unfortunately, I had missed the part where ‘cameras aren’t allowed,’ and a woman security guard stepped up to me annoyidly.
“Excuse me, ma’am, yeah, um, actually cameras aren’t allowed...?” she said.

I responded with direct politeness and immediately bagged my only source of creative output. 

That was the end of the confrontation, and since I obligingly complied to the correction of my ignorance, I didn’t have any scruples in smiling acknowledgingly to that woman security guard when our eyes met some ten minutes later. She didn’t smile back. Later the male security guard I had met and joked with upon entering the museum was seen walking in a rushed manner in my direction. In consideration of our earlier established rapor, I smiled at him, but again, there was no smile back when he locked eyes with me. It occurred to me that my hand was resting in the bag that held my camera, to keep warm, so I redeposited it my coat pocket. I was feeling slightly paranoid at this point, and annoyed that an honest mistake could render such suspicion, but no one confronted me directly again, and I would imagine the “incident” was talked of in their next security meeting with petty blame and a firm resolution to follow. 

The Convention

The convention was made up of different workshops, which were all located on different floors, and were held back to back, in  different rooms labeled North, South, East, and West. I focused on the workshops that discussed social and multimedia, since that’s the future of journalism (and in fact the present). There were amazing speakers and instructive content. 

One speaker was the senior editor of msnbc.com. He was by far the most encouraging - “Journalism is the best job in the world... if you’re interested in people and learning about everything” - and talked about multimedia, which was to me the most interesting subject. The main points of this workshop were:

1. Journalists have to function today as both camera operator, interviewer, voice-over, script-writer, and editor. (Great for creative control freaks like me!) 
2. How to hold a successful filmed interview; and he went over sound, the nuances of what kind of questions to ask, and how to ask them. Lighting, and tactics for person-to-person interactions - “Make people forget that they’re in an interview.”  

“Journalists have a bad reputation for being without empathy. Shoving microphones into a father’s face and saying ‘how does it feel that your son died?’ And I hope you students are going to help change that. Be personable and be kind. Don’t be an expert in anything. If you’re impressed by something, don’t be afraid to say ‘That’s really cool!’” 

I came away inspired.

The workshops on social media made me glad I have a Smartphone, and I suddenly felt like I have cultivated a healthy addiction to it and to my multiple, non-academic, computer tabs. 

Seattle Part 1

Getting There

I had an opportunity to go to Seattle for a Student Journalist convention that went Thursday through Sunday in early March 2012. It was held in a Marriott hotel we stayed at, about six blocks from the main downtown. It was me, my editor (another student) and our advisor from our school, and many many other students and advisors of college newspapers from across the country. 

I woke up at 3a.m. on Friday morning, having gone to bed three hours earlier. I had to stay up to pack, having been too busy between work and school to prepare sooner. Neither did I have anything to carry my clothes in, which had to be a carry-on, so, hearing some movement upstairs, I crept up the steps in the outer hall and knocked on my upstairs neighbor’s door at 10:30 Thursday night. He answered, apparently having recently been asleep. 

“Do you have a smallish duffle bag I can borrow?” I asked, proudly stating my destination. 

Inviting me in, he shuffled around his closet and brought out a perfectly sized duffle bag which he said he never used and kept around “just in case.”

Providence. 

I packed only what was necessary (and maybe one or two other items). 

Advisor was meeting us both at my place, and while getting out of his car to direct Katy (student editor) into my driveway, I tripped and flailed haplessly into the mud and grass, giving a tomboyish stain to the only pair of pants I had brought (I was wearing them). 

Our flight left at 5:30a.m. Layover. Lots of homework with breaks of people-watching: There was a punk-rock girl with headphones who looked bored with life. I loved her boots - at least $90, and knew her skirt was exactly $50 because I had cut it’s picture out of the magazine and pasted it into my scrapbook some weeks before. 

There was a traditional follower of judaism, with the beard, prayer shawl and distinct black suit. I noticed him praying in the corner of the waiting section. There was a comforting rhythm to his sways as he mentally recited scripture, but I purposefully didn’t stare. He happened to be seated next to me when we boarded. I sat by the window. 

“Do I have your seat?” I asked, explaining I wasn’t very used to flying. 

“Yes, but stay there. Really.”

Feeling bad, I started getting up to switch with him, but he insisted kindly, which allowed me to see Seattle in landing, the city people say is the prettiest in the U.S. to witness by plane. (He also had a bright, neon pink ipod, which I thought was splendidly ironic). 

It took all three of us to figure out how to find the tram. I had never ridden on a tram or any kind of train before, and we weren’t quite sure it would take us to our destination, or if this was the right one. We attempted to approach a Tram Man in a navy-blue buttoned suit, but all he said was “Board the tram! Board the tram!” in a heavy accent and exaggerated waving motions in that direction. This, and the fact that he wouldn’t explain why, or answer any of our questions, made me suspect this was the only sentence he knew in english. 

The first view of ground-level Seattle it allowed was of the outer-city ghetto. Dilapidated buildings with complicated graffiti passed by, and there was green and moss growing out of everything. 

A steely elevator brought us up to a dim, garage looking building, and then all of a sudden we were hit by a very big, bright, and bustling city, and we were dunked into an icy wind. It was several blocks to our hotel. 

At first I tried not to look like a small-town tourist gawking up at the huge buildings that reminded me of the movies I’ve seen set in New York. Then it occurred to me: we’re on foot, ladened with our luggage. I took advantage of this conspicuous circumstance and craned my neck at will. 

Our hotel was very fancy (even if it didn’t have a pool), and had a complimentary shoe shine (it just wouldn’t have looked right with my sneakers), but the thing I appreciated most was that it smelled like fresh laundry just before you walked in off the street. 

While There:

I threw myself onto the bed exhaustedly. I was starving (eating before flying has potentially bad consequences for everybody) and there was a delay in getting into the room me and Katy shared. It was 1p.m. 

The City:

Tourists seemed to run this city in abundance. You could distinguish them from the natives by either of two indicators: 1. they were speaking fluent french or italian. or 2. women weren’t wearing heals. Every native Seattlin female was in expensive high-heels. Was this a Seattle thing, or a big city thing? I don’t have the experience to know, but me and Katy were just as happy looking down at expensive elevated footwear, as up. 

The Farmers Market is located at the bottom of this hill.
The red sign is pictured here in the background.

The most exciting place was ‘The Farmer’s Market.’ Set near the glistening water, foods ranging from fresh produce, to raw fish, to sweet smelling bakeries lined the brick-paved streets. We entered the inner market through a newspaper/magazine section that lined the walls, marketing the same paper media in different languages. 

Downtown, stores such as Anthropolgie and Nordstrom, had more than one floor. I was in so much joy I literally became weak in the knees. But chain stores were at least equalled in foreign imports. I bought a pair of earrings ($9) at a Thai store, and the woman in the Egyptian shop encouraged me to take advantage of the many belly-dancing opportunities in Madison, Wisconsin. 

Hills. Think of the reputation San Francisco has with hills, and then add rain. I personally loved the aesthetic inclines, and the potential it had for daily toning. 

Had a good view of Seattle by night from the 28th floor of our hotel at 8:30p.m., in an empty, unlit gym, listening to go-go-bordello. The treadmills were pushed against the windows and I ran looking down at the lights below. 

I tried on the orange one below.
Not really my color,
or worth the $75 it would have
cost to purchas in the end. 

 My roommate happened to be visiting her boyfriend who lives in Seattle at the same time I was there, and we had dinner the last two nights of our stay. Roommate’s boyfriend works for Microsoft. He’s from Wisconsin, and apparently one of 40,000 employed by Microsoft in Seattle alone. I mention this because he mentioned that about 4% of his coworkers are women. This means the ratio of men to women in Seattle is overwhelming. There are cultural side effects to those statistics. Clean cut, with an unimposing demeanor, he said he can’t even smile casually at any woman in the street, because they will never look at him. With those odds against them, he said, women have trained themselves to avoid over-eager creepers. Even so, if you’re a woman looking for a man, move to Seattle. In fact they should list that in the brochures. 

From Oscars to Gypsy

My baby pink silky top and puffy white skirt stood out against the skin tight black, checkered occasionally with a solid red za-za-zing dress whose owners maintained consciously unaware expressions of how great they looked. Rather than my own inner self-acknowledgement adding joy to the night's event, knowing I looked pretty was the only thing that kept me from fainting as the room was crowded and "I can only take three or four people in a room before I start to feel uncomfortable," I admitted to a former classmate afterward. Feeling the night's impending claustrophobia fifteen yards away at the coat-room, I attached myself to two fellow Italian 1 former cohorts, but not without asking meekly first, with a touch of desperation in my voice.
It was an advertising awards ceremony. A professor whom I'd never met had entered a photograph I had taken for a class last semester and it had won a prize. She emailed me and said it was a great honor, and had said "it's like the Oscar's of the marketing world." I bought a pretty pink shirt just for the occasion. I had thought it would be the high heels that would bother me that night, but when I looked down several times throughout the event it was to make sure I didn't see too much flesh against pink.
The next two hours was a pattern of announcements, followed by clips/prints, followed by claps, with fifteen to twenty seconds in between the clapping. I tried to clap queenishly.
I respect the accomplishments, talent and hard work of the winners, but I'd surmise this event was more about being seen than to be honored.
There were a few funny commercials, a few inspiring advertisements and a few pretty pictures. Mine came on, and went off in a blink of an eye.
Next came the long-awaited ordervs, when the hand clapping was over. I had three helpings, but piled the second two on one plate. Delicious but also free! I believe the winners in the 'Student' category appreciated these the most, and I tried my very best not to "stuff my face."

I had actually almost skipped out early of this event because I had another concert to film for my film class that was scheduled a short time after the black tie affair began, but as luck would have it - the concert was playing on the first floor of the same building!
The name is Hewn. Look them up. They're a band, headed by a young man I know/knew a few years back.
I checked my gypsy bag out from the coat room wherein I deposited my baby-pink clutch (/wee purse). I made my way downstairs.
Hewn was playing to such deafening levels, all I had to do was follow the cavernous sound. Immediately the tension I had felt leading up to and throughout the black tie event ceased without my noticing it. Gypsie punk rock music assimilated itself into the dimly lit room tinting the listeners blue and the stage players a rebel red. I was again out of place, but this time over-dressed. I didn't care. I scouted the crowded theatre for a good angle to shoot from with a good view of the stage and my eyes landed on the steps leading up to the balcony seats. Halfway up would afford me a good view of the stage, I decided, and made my way up the steps, but didn't get more than four steps up before my heel caught onto the step. I pulled myself back up and made it another step before it happened again. And then again. And again, almost pulling me down each time. It was obvious I wasn't going anywhere on mini-stilts. I whipped off my heels, stuffed them in my satchel and pulled out my camera from the same, filming from my darkened corner on bare feet covered by a thin layer of ancient tights. No one would care about the runs down my stockings in this venue.
I got some pretty good footage, I think, and the hardest part was not only being unable to get out on the floor to dance and go crazy, but I couldn't even tap my foot without upsetting the camera. To be around music and not feel the beat was torture, but my camera-capture was the priority, so I made the sacrifice.
The music ended three songs after I arrived, but I had recorded enough, and skipped away happy as a clam, after whipping out my handy ballet slippers from the same pack, so I wouldn't be thrown out on my way out.

Urgent Care

I stared at the puke green wall opposite me. It was the only non-white walls of the four that surrounded me, with standard probing tools lining them. I stretched my neck around me out of boredom, trying to find something my thought life could land on, as I sat there alone, waiting for the doctor.
The pain was ebbing in my right hand, wrapped in a small white towel and sitting on the desk that held the computer where all my updated information was kept.
Apparently, last time I'd been to Urgent Care, I was jobless and living in a different location.
Random bits of conversation flooded through the bottom of the closed door with microphonic audibility, as nurses and patients passed through the unseen hall. This wasn't the ER, so there were plenty of Pleases and Thank You politenesses being swapped around by masked patients. A woman had walked in cheerfully requesting an ice pack for her injured fingers, while I was still in the waiting room.

The doctor walked in. I had already talked myself out of the suspicion that they had forgotten me. A tall, middle-aged man, with silver thin-framed glasses. Nice enough, and not the worst "bedside manner" I'd experienced.

"Any lasting scarring?" I asked.
There would be none.

"Any nerve damage?"
Nope. Second degree burns don't do that.

No prescription was written as I thought I could make it at this point with ibuprofen. All I have to do is put special goop on it for the next few days until the blister heals up.

Here's what happened: It's a Friday. After a few weeks we're finally going to learn FinalCut, the software that allows one to do professional film/video editing. It's been a few weeks of messing with cameras and talking about interviewing, but this is when the good stuff begins.
I've got a half hour between work and class, so I treat myself to a cafeteria salad and hot tea (It's Friday, after all). Walking cheerily to my class on this prematurely beautiful February day, I've got my paper tea cup cupped between my wrist and my jacket, holding my to-go salad. I squeeze the cup a little too much on accident and the lid tips up, allowing a drop of hot water to hit my hand. Ouch! My reaction is not to drop what I'm holding, so I squeeze tighter. More steaming water spills onto the base of my thumb knuckle. This time I scream, and drop everything I'm carrying, tearing off my glove. I look at my hand. It appears that a top layer of skin has melted off around a nickel-large area.

Nothing but mounting pain could have torn me out of that class. But it did. Within a half hour I took the advice of my classmate and drove myself to the nearest Urgent Care. On the way there I cried because it hurt so much, but by the time I got to the front desk (where I was told by the receptionist that an ice pack on a burn was a mistake) it had started to abate, and by the end of the night I barely felt it, and was preoccupied with homework, groceries, and calling people to let them know I was okay. 

Catfish Stevens

His black leather hat, his black leather pants, and his black leather boots curved up to mid calf, almost matched his leathery face and black mustache that curled round his face. He had sunglasses that helped him see, but all of this shielded him from being seen himself. It didn’t matter though, his personality was so strongly portrayed in his demeanor,  you didn’t need to look in his eyes. 

Catfish walked over to us sitting in that tiny bar and pulled up a chair. I had never met him before, but my upstairs neighbor, Rob, was friends with him. Rob looked like he could be Catfish Stevens about forty years younger. Rob’s girlfriend Jessica, aka HoneyBee, was there also. She had a sweet heart-shaped face that would keep her eternally young, with large-rimmed round glasses and a long side pony tail. The small group could be described as down-and-out-and-proud, a few degrees contrast to my Batman hoody and jeans. It’s the first time that hoody has failed to be cool. 

Catfish talked to Rob genially, I only dropped in on hearing the conversation after taking in his appearance; he was talking about getting his driver’s license picture taken - his fingers rolled a cigarette with methodic rhythm, as he never looked down from conversation to oversee this ritual. 

“You can’t have glasses on, or my hat. I always wear my hat! The only time I don’t wear my hat is when I’m at home!” he laughed. 

I suddenly imagined a police officer pulling him over on his motorcycle Catfish said he rode from Wyoming to northern Wisconsin and not being able to recognize his photo ID. 

“You could always wear a bandana,” Rob suggested.

In response, Catfish suspended his hat above his head to reveal a purple bandana tied comfortably around it. It looked like it lived there. 

I was getting up the nerve to ask if I could film their performance, but didn’t get around to it until Rob stepped out for a smoke, and Catfish later walked past me before their set began. 

“Oh yeah!” He said, almost excitedly, “I welcome all free media, you know! Totally,” he added, “and even if you wanted to post it on facebook, or something, you know, go ahead.” He was so generous, I was immediately at ease. 

The set began. Old-time country with a lick of American folk. The lyrics were usually about some woman who was either mighty fine, or equally as mean. 

My camera sat upon my lap, taping. I practiced zooming slowly, and panning from one solo to the other. There were five musicians in all, including Rob, who sat in to play the harmonica. The bass player (not the base guitar, mind you, but the jumbo violin looking thing) looked either he was made for the instrument, or the instrument was made for him. Everything about him belonged in a sea-side saloon, from his thick leathery skin, to his thick prematurely grey hair that was held in unmoved waves upon his forehead. He had a small trimmed goatee above a neck to rival the thickness of a giant oak. Something about him was entirely endearing. Maybe the few lines of tattooed sheet music, displayed on the forearm raised to fret the strings. Or the skull and cross bone emblem stuck right in the middle between fingerboard and bridge underneath the strings. My camera had to pan up when I shot over to him, giving a classic “larger than life” angle; he didn’t need it. I had heard him plucking the strings of his boatlike instrument as a warm up. I realized a few seconds after he walked away from it toward the bar, that it was the baseline to the song booming in muffled toxins throughout the bar. 

Rob sat in to his left as they played, between him and Catfish. Rob knew what to play and when to play it, and when he did it was with soul. It was a Mary Poppins moment as I watched slack-jawed as he pulled out nine harmonicas from his bag while we were still sitting at the table, and they now lay on the musician’s sound box within easy reach. 

Catfish had two main guitars. One was a shiny metallic, with moons encircling stars around the center. He had a glass finger case, that Rob had once shown me how to use to give it that distinct oldtimey twang. Catfish sang also, his voice comparable to Johnny Cash only of a less heavy timbre. He moved his boots slightly, and hung back in the shadows of his coverings letting the soul pore out into the microphone, the bassist and the second guitarist bookended the group, their voices complimenting his. 

The drummer can only be described as a balding leprechaun. Long hair pulled back behind his head, his beard long with a reddish tint. He had a rounded V-necked T-shirt and almost seemed to mouth the words as he kept the beat that embodied him. I don’t mean Leprechaun as any sort of heedless insult. It was the mischievous glint he held from behind the drum set that made the mental connection more than anything. 

The second guitarists name is Boo. Hearing Rob talk about them before that night, I had thought that Catfish and Boo were just the same person with two nicknames. I was more or less correct, although Boo had less leather on. At one time he was playing a sort of a miniature zither. His solos matched the center guitarist’s in skill. 

They announced their intermission as a “quick smoke” at which time I made my hoodied exit, needing to get some sleep so I’d be awake enough to edit my filming in class. 

I stood in awe of these men. They knew who they were, and their music settled itself into the very grain of the wooden fibers decorating that interior. My head was filled with it, and it’s an easy thing to let take you. 

Down Time

Random shots of my room

 Three days before the semester begins. My car breaks down for the second time in one week. I'm left stranded at home. Again. I try to be grateful for the over abundance of time on my hands. Which leads me to get out my camera. And take a walk. So here are the pictures I come back with.

                                               Boots: Kohl's Dept Store; Scarf: Art Gecko

                                                                Curtains: My Mother

                                                          

Day off

I am sitting in a 50’s styled diner. It is my day off. I scheduled this day to spend with myself. 

The plan was to treat myself to a hot fudge sundae. Small. 

My digestive system, not strong to begin with, has gone through the perils of a slow recovery from the flu, so apparently ice cream makes me sick. It’s a gamble every time I sit down to eat something I haven’t had since the fever hit four weeks ago. 

Journalistic ramblings will commence once school has. I am awaiting my three articles to be published come spring term. And I am set up to begin another involving a controversy on campus which I cannot talk about since it hasn’t yet been published.  

We’ll see if the local media picks up this issue too. If they do, they’d wish they had my contacts list. Rule #1 always save your contacts, you never know who you’ll be going back to for an interview. I don’t stalk, I track. 

(Any minute now I’m going to have to dart off to the bathroom) ..... Well THAT was a timely sentence! 

... Anyway, you can cross ice cream off my list of temptations. The artificial cherry was good, though!