Ode to Baseball Cards

      In the past few weeks we lost two baseball greats: Lou Brock and Tom “Terrific” Seaver. One of the first things I thought about with their passing was my baseball card collection. When I was a kid in the late 70’s, I collected baseball cards and I remember seeing both the Lou Brock and Tom Seaver cards you see above. I’m sure all the names of baseball players of that era, however obscure, are somewhere in my brain. After all I was constantly flipping through all my cards and would see their names again and again. The first year I started collecting in a serious and passionate way was in 1976

     At this time it was mostly Topps cards that dominated the market, not just with baseball and the other major pro sports, but also with movies and TV. There was Mork and Mindy, Happy Days, Charlie's Angels and other collections from the biggest TV shows and movies of the day. You better believe there were a ton of Star Wars cards out there. My brother had some of those. But for me I think there was something more tangible and fun with collecting baseball cards. 1976 was also the year I went to my first major league baseball game at Shea Stadium to see the New York Mets, so it was thrilling to collect baseball cards and then see those players in person or watch them on TV. Each year the new baseball cards would come out right before baseball season started. It was exciting to see what the new design was and give it a thumbs up or down. I’m sure I disparaged the look of the 1978 baseball card, that year the team names were written in cursive. Yuck. But no matter how little I liked the look of the new baseball cards of any particular year, it would never discourage me from collecting them.

Farewell to Re-Bar

 

Re-bar

     Oh Re-bar when I saw those tall buildings going up all around you, I thought, sooner or later they would get to you. I hope you do reopen in South Seattle and I’ll look forward to that day but I will miss walking down the street and seeing that iconic arrow over the entrance as I turn the corner on Howell street. I remember the first time I walked through your doors. It seemed like you were in the middle of nowhere. It was in September 2005 and it was for a burlesque show called “Back to School” hosted by Indigo Blue. It was a benefit show for victims of Hurricane Katrina. At that show I met Tamara The Trapeze Lady, Red Delicious and Heidi Von Haught. I had just purchased my first ever DSLR camera and I snapped a bunch of photos that night. Over the next 15 years I snapped thousands more. But I won’t take any more photos there and I will never walk through your doors on Howell street again. But let me put aside my sadness and resentments and instead express my gratitude for you.

Memories and The Mind

Jim Henson and Sammy Davis Jr.

    I like to think of our minds are like computers. There’s a hard drive, apps, an operating system and RAM. The part of our brain that stores everything we’ve ever known and learned is like the Hard Drive. I like to think of our 5 senses as apps. RAM is all our thoughts and actions throughout the day, anything at the forefront of our mind at a given time; I’ve got to deal with that project at work today, brushing my teeth, do I really want to leave my house tonight, Christina Applegate, oh shit that bill is overdue, running for the train because I see it’s in the station so I’ve got to fly down that staircase to make it and what the hell am I really doing with my life? All those sorts of things. Sometimes my RAM is wonky. It’s hard to access the hard drive or my apps are running slow so it needs to be optimized, like with some coffee. Some folks use cocaine. The things that interest me most though are what we know and what we remember as it relates to our personal lives.
     Of course everyone is different when it comes to these things. Everyone has different processors in their brains and different capacities for understanding and remembering. But I doubt anyone can recall what they were thinking or doing on September 12th, 1998, unless that was the day they got married. We do not remember the mundane and ordinary things of everyday life, even if at that time they seemed so important. We may not even remember the non-mundane stuff either, but I believe all our experiences are stored deep in the tissues of our minds. If we see a picture from one day 20 years ago of that time when you and your friends went to the lake, we may recall all sorts of memories that will come rising to the top from deep within our hard drive, to our RAM: The fun you had riding on the jet ski, smoking weed with a power hitter and having sex in a canoe where that family on the motor boat totally saw you. Without the photo though, you probably wouldn’t have thought about any of those things, well maybe you’d still recall having sex in the canoe. But my point is we can only recall so much. And you probably won’t remember your moment to moment thoughts of that day even with that photo. And even within our limits of memory and knowledge sometimes, like computers, our brains can get corrupted.

A Box of Photos

     I love photography and I am always delighted to pour over and explore photos of many genres: fashion, architectural, pin-up, sports or editorial, they all engage me. Over the years I’ve also developed a passion for looking at old photos that you’d find at flea markets or vintage stores.
     These photos are usually in cigar boxes or shoe boxes. They’re just a random assortment of photos, sometimes stretching across decades from people I’ve never known, usually selling for a quarter or fifty cents a piece. The ones I like best are the ones that seem rather ordinary or unremarkable. Just people hanging out in a very informal setting, though I like some old formal ones too. I bought about 7 or 8 photos of a wedding ceremony that I found at a vintage store for 50 cents each. The photos appear to be from the 1940’s. All the women had Andrew Sister’s hair styles. There was one man decked out in a sailor’s outfit, right out of “On The Town”. This wedding took place in someone’s small apartment with floral wallpaper, not a church. There are a few photos of the best man and maid of honor signing the wedding license at a card table. The man who performed the ceremony was in a suit and not in any religious garb, and the bride did not have a traditional wedding dress. One of the photos was posted onto a blue card, which had written on the back, “West Coast Whlse. Drug Company-Seattle, Washington”. This is probably where they developed the film. This is another thing I like about discovering photos like these; sleuthing.

Bettie Page, Mr. Spock and Photoshop

    

Bettie Page(photo by Bunny Yeager)

    A few weeks ago a friend posted online about how some guy in a mini mart wanted to know if she was wearing a Bettie Page tee-shirt. My friend in fact had been wearing a Mr Spock tee-shirt but she was wearing a jacket that had been zippered halfway up to where you could only see the top part of Spock’s head showing his bangs. After reading her post I thought maybe I could combine these two figures, both known for their bangs, with the joy of Photoshop.

    Since I had plenty of time thanks to Covid, I thought I could do a little Photoshop project. To me, projects like this are like puzzles to be solved. Could I find the elements I needed to bring about a finished composite photo? I scoured the internet for photos of Bettie Page. I wanted a photo that was large enough and one where Bettie’s head was turned to the left or right, highlighting one ear more prominently. I found 4 photos and ended up using 2, thus having 2 projects. The nude photo of Bettie is by Bunny Yeager, the photographer who took some of the most iconic shots of Bettie.

The Filthiest Bathroom

The notorious bathroom of CBGB's

    When this awful outbreak of the Covid-19 first came upon us, which seems like years now, there were a bunch of memes going around. They were photos of a graffiti covered bathroom, such as the one at CBGB’s, with a caption that reads, “If you’ve ever gone to the bathroom at CBGB's(or wherever) you’re immune to the coronavirus.” Yes these bathrooms were certainly disgusting. Hell, I’ve even been to the bathroom at CBGB’s and can attest to its unpleasantness. However, I’m sure at some point every morning or every other morning someone dragged a mop across the floor and threw some disinfectant into the toilet. But these disgusting meme bathrooms in no way compare to what I consider the worst bathroom I ever had to use.

The Magic of Burleskaraoke

    All the way back in May of 2019 Ruby Mimosa introduced us, along with Queer Bar on Capitol Hill, to Burleskaraoke. This is a wonderful night of singing and stripping, sometimes a marvelous symbiosis of singer and burlesquer. The night is filled with mirth, merriment and even downright hysteria as dollar bills, along with peeled-off gloves, stockings and g-strings(sometimes lobster claws and narwals too)fly through the air as performers bump and grind on the stage, tables, bars and lucky laps. This event is all glued together with DJ Baby Van Beezly, always getting the night started and finishing us all up strong. Baby keeps the flow going the whole night as the singers come up to the stage and the go-go dancers and burlesquers get freakin' down. I think what makes these events so special is not just the magic of burlesque and mixing it with the fun of belting out your favorite songs, but also the immersive atmosphere of the night. Sometimes it feels like all of us, the burlesquers, singers, DJ and audience are all part of one big orgasmic explosion. The best part is the performers don't know what songs they'll be stripping to. Will it be an epic 80's rock ballad? A funky Hip Hop standard? Lizzo, Led Zeppelin or Disney's "Be Our Guest"? They never know what they'll get. There may even be an opera singer or two to bring down the house. And since the beginning of Burleskaraoke, I've had the privilege of photographing every show. This is probably the most I've ever sweated photographing a show as I'm running back and forth and sliding on my knees to get the best shots. I am exhausted at the end of the night. So here are some photos from all eight Burleskaraoke shows so far. The next show is Wednesday, January 15th . Don't miss it.

Max

 Beau Briefs

Ruby Mimosa