Knuckledragger

Valencia, Spain has experienced some biblical flooding and mudslides.

Obligatory.

Y'all know the phrase "Not the flex you think it is?" None of these are Photoshopped.

RIP Teri Garr.

A guy on reddit rented a Canon 800mm F/5.6 RF and took a bunch of exposures of a rocket launch to make this composite: I actually had to resize OP's original, because it was so high resolution it made imgur and discord FTFO. The full size version is in the reddit link.

This is going to be a long walk. 4AD is a storied indie record label that released a ton of works by post-punk and indie rock artists in the 1980s. At that dawn of that decade they put out a bunch of releases by the Bauhaus, The The, Modern English, The Birthday Party and a host of other contemporaries of that era. I have a few 4AD Bauhaus records that I've owned for 35+ years. At one point in the late 80s, I had a The The T-shirt in spite of owning none of their music (I thought the name was funny.) Among the early 4AD releases is a one-off that is the only release by the band Rema-Rema while the band was active (there's a been a number since they broke up, but that's not really relevant.) Said release is an EP called Wheel In The Roses. I've heard it, but not any time recently. The EP's cover art has its own story at least as famous as the band. While not intentionally or historically so, the image has an enduring legacy due its homoeroticism. In the 90s I knew a gay house DJ who had a copy of the original 12" framed on his studio wall. The back story of the photo is wild and dark one. The subject of the photos is two wrestlers from the Nuba tribe in Africa. It was taken in 1948 by photojournalist George Rodger. Rodger took the photo on his tour of Africa. He set out on such a journey post-WWII to deal with the horrors he'd witnessed. His photos of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp were some of the first images of the holocaust that were seen internationally. Here's where the story goes off the rails. George Rodger's son is Peter, who is a successful documentary filmmaker. Peter's son, George's grandson is ...was, Elliot Rodger, the incel mass murder.

RIP Paul Di'Anno, the original vocalist for Iron Maiden.

Here's a bit of history, the original HeadRoom Max Balanced Headphone Amplifier prototype: It sold for $850 apparently, which seems like a bargain to me.

There's a place on MV called the "Dumptique." The purpose is to keep reusable items out of the landfill. I drove up there with a car load of stuff I just couldn't keep (going from a 5 bedroom farmhouse to a 1200 square foot cottage is ride, let me tell you.) It was not my plan to take anything back, but I did peruse the media shelf. Apparently I arrived at the right moment. Mixed in with Sex in the City Season 3, Disc 4, some megachurch propaganda and a box of Christmas music missing disc 5 was this stack: Goddamn. It's like a Gen Xer died or gave up all their physical media. All of it is interesting, but that Bauhaus disc is legendary. It was almost more or less impossible to find in the late 80s when I was obsessively collecting their music. The only downside is that the Stranglers anthology is missing my favorite song by them. Of course, I've always been partial to the cover version by Prong.

A story in 3 parts: Former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Jake E. Lee shot multiple times in Las Vegas.

"Hi Milton, what's happening." "I'm going to need you to go ahead and not set the building state on fire."

Asheville, NC. AKA Brent's definition of hell.

Oof. RIP Kris Kristofferson. We're down to one Highwayman(!) This is about the coolest live video in existence. "Oh, hey. It's Willie Nelson. He's got that funny off-beat way of singing. He sure is a legend, though. What? Kris Kristofferson? He never seemed to age, in spite of all he put his body through. Did you know he once stole a US army helicopter?? Wait, did I just hear the 'Next up on The Dukes' voice? That's The definitive article Outlaw Country singer right there. There is literally no way this song can get any better." "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash"

An ambient artist I like named Palancar sent out an email this morning saying he shut down his bandcamp page. Sad, but he's put all of his music online at the Internet Archive. Careful listeners will recognize his track "Foss" which I have played on my radio show a few times over the years.

One for any BOS HCers. Soldiers Field Rd. "It's only a Storrowing if it comes from the Storrow region of Boston, otherwise its just a sparkling truck decapitation."

Everyone's favorite hyperactive, high-pitched Canadian tech-dropper seems to like it.

RIP James Earl Jones. One of the actors who took George Lucas' corny ass dialogue and elevated it to the level of a cultural touchstone for generations. Also his first film also happens to be my favorite one.

The following contains gratuitous cat pictures. I've mentioned my friends Peter and Adele before. Peter will be 88 this year. He spent decades shooting 4x5 and doing some clever double exposures. Peter doesn't use computers, so all of his work in is completely analogue and mostly not on the internet. I'd like to help him scan some of his works, but that's a huge job. Adele (at the tender age of 84) is very much online, and even knows how to use her SMRT TV as a bluetooth device with her iPhone to stream video and photos. Even I don't know how to do that, but in my defense, I hate fucking hate smartphones. Peter and Adele's daughter, who's around my age, is as computer literate as any Gen Xer. (She actually a VP of something-or-other in a cybersecurity company.) All this is relevant because she recently moved to MV and brought her two cats. This is Gertie, the more good natured of the two. The only problem with her is that she's so friendly she tends to run toward me, making her a difficult subject to capture at times. This is Gidget. She's much more mercurial, but quite friendly when she decides to be. ...and not when she doesn't! Yesterday I caught Gertie sitting in a box. Of course I didn't manage to catch her with her eyes open and looking at me. Solid Cat/10 interaction. Meanwhile Gidget checked the Golf's tire pressure. Then she sauntered back to see why Gertie was getting all the attention.

I've been lurking in /r/largeformat again. As I've mentioned, that subreddit has cured me (mostly) of ever wanting to buy a view camera. The time, money and effort most of the users put into what are frankly mediocre to bad results is staggering. The other side of this coin is that the photographers who are good with large format are really good at what they do. The larger the format, the bigger the delta. Most of the following are 4x5 Some are scanned negatives, others are contact prints. Most people don't seem to bother with enlargers anymore. Bork. An accident, but an interesting one. Potential album cover right there.

This guy shoots IR film with a Hasselblad.