CALLIN” ME

For almost twenty years photography has been my voice and the border has never stopped callin’ me.
Photography moves me still, but in conversation, more and more I’ve talkedf about my teaching job at New Mexico State University, as “passing the torch.”
I’m not sure, but maybe it’s been passed (and will continue to be).
I’ve been fretting fora few years about “what’s next?”
Right now, all I know is, if you aren’t feeling as good as these kids (on this video) or even something a little like it, it’s time to stop fretting and get the “next” going.
And I shall.
Two things are calling me and calling me hard these days and nights: Music (guitar… which doesn’t let me go to bed early or even late) and Africa ()which just won’t get out of my head).
Stay tuned, when Im know more I’ll let you know.



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MAD MEN: END OF THE INNOCENCE

 

50’s Merc. Photograph ©BruceBerman2015

Mad Men, the 50s and the Waiting

Text and photograph by Bruce Berman

Mad as in nutty mad…mad because they were delirious with the defiance of convention while simultaneously becoming the masters of the Establishment (and remain so, truly understanding what motivates consumers -and that became all of us- and then getting them to consume), mad because they were about to be jetting and tail-finning and mini-skirting and drinking and potting and pushing every moral convention ever taught and/or learned out the back door into what became the waste dump of the 60s. They were insane with the possibilities and not burdened by the weight of the previous two generations (The Great One of the Depression and the War). They were mad and intoxicated and wild, like their cars, huge, with unlimited horsepower, design that was plastic and chrome and sweeping, made with materials never heard of before. Theory knew no limits. Everyone felt a little “illegal,” yet, invited to the table. Being ecclectic was safe. Just keep consuming, it’ll all be all right. Yes, they were nutty mad and flew high, never thinking there could be a landing, mad with the waiting for the coming fall, the doubt, the emptiness, the great Genericide, ergo, The End Of The Innocence (Don Henley). They became us. Post Mad. The masters of data, overthink, and, compliance.

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Lou Reed: R.I.P. On The Wild Side

 

Lou Reed opens his photo exhibition entitled ‘Lou Reed’s New York’ at gallery Serieuze Zaken Studios in Amsterdam on October 11th, 2007. photo by Olaf Kraak/epa/Corbis

 

 

LOU LOU LOU

The News floored me.

It’s like New York vanished.

Guilliani couldn’t scrub it.

Bloomberg couldn’t.

It’s your city Lou.

You were the grit and the soul man.

So now it’s time to fly away.

“How do you Speak to an Angel” you wrote and asked:

You just say – Hello, hello, hello Baby

Check it out. See you there. Say hi to Andy.

Miss you. The thought of you.

You were always a kick in my pants.

Walk on the wild side.

No doubt.

The great beyond.

Somewheresville.

See you there.

 

Read more on Lou: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/lou-reed-through-the-years-20120302/lou-reeds-new-york-0842024#ixzz2izX3o2uER.I.P.

 

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Go Japan: Life Goes On

 

The Tragedy

Keita before the rain

Japan –One takes one’s  blows. Japan, oil-less  for so long, bitten by the need for energy for so long, powered by spirit, hard work and, now, uranium, has received a blow. A blow is either fatal or forgettable.

We will see.

I receive a message from my old student, in Osaka. He is going to have an exhibition in September (and begin  his studies in photography anew). Yeah! Forward. The horizon. Onward. His show will be work that he began in my documentary class: Smokers. Pure defiance! So cool.

What do you die from first: smoking, radiation or loss of defiance?

Go Keita! Go Japan! Live your future. It’s good .

Life goes on.

  Copyright secured by Digiprove

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Remnants del ‘Hood

Remnants del ‘hood, El Paso – March 14, 2010

There ain’t much left.

Mostly the pickins’.

This was the Grand Highway, the Spanish Trail, the beginning of the end of the long journey from East to West or vice-versa, the tip of the arrow into the dart board that was Downtown El Paso.

Interstate came and went around, population moved to new turf, businesses followed, but the old Highway 80  lingered, going from Consumer to Warehouse and beyond. A modern day Babitt, Ohio.

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El Paso Dreamin’

 

Town for sale, El Paso – Feb. 2010

From the movie The Border:

Marcy (Valerie Perrine) : (Showing her Border Patrol husband brochures about El Paso, trying to talk him into moving there, at their breakfast table, in Los Angeles) Honey sometimes you gotta dream.

Charlie Smith (Jack Nicholson) : (Pausing, furrowing his now signature brow) I never dreamed no El Paso.

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Welcome To Juarez

 

Entrance to Juarez, June 2009

Militarization works two ways.

The bridges between Juarez and El Paso used to be friendly -although tedious if in a car- gateways to good times or better times, depending on which way you were traveling. Or is that just nostalgia?

Well, if not “friendly,” than at least not hostile.

Now they are reinforced pathways to go do what you gotta do. No joking. Get back by dark. All business. No fun or pleasure. Nothing lives. One endures the crossing. Rigid. Steel. Chrome molly tubes. Crash proof.

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There Goes Breakfast

 

Rooster man of Chaparral, NM – 2008

He has been raising these birds since he was a teenager. Fighters are they, he and his birds.

Now, cockfighting is illegal in New Mexico. Outlawed. “Civility,” has come to the funklands. God help us. Now come the thiefs with pens. They been fighting this since Billy the kid.

The rooster man keeps raising his birds. Doesn’t know what else to do.

He speaks of the “Old Man,” and “Ralph,” “Juan Pedro,”and the others. Each has a name. There are hundreds.

When he speaks, he says their names softly, a Lover’s murmur whispering his loves’ names.

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