America, Cars, Oklahoma

CONFIDENT GUY

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Confident guy, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1974
by ©Bruce Berman

Vintage. Yeah that’s me now. Vintage.
I’ve spent the last six months digging out photos from “back when,” and designing, editing and assembling a book. It’s the second book we’re producing and is being published by. Border Blog Press.
Its called BACKLAND, a collection of photos and a few stories about my ramblings and image-making from 1975-2000.
I was gonna call it a “book about nothing,” but, as in all books, it started to have a life of its own and its become a book about something. Can’t wait for you -the world- to see it. Todd, above, is in there and a whole lot of other people and places.
It’s coming. I’ll be tooting my horn when it’s up and running.

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America, el paso, Gentrification, Industry, Juarez, Texas, US/Mexico Border

MEMORIAL

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Photograph and text by Bruce Berman

I miss you ASARCO.

You were texture. You were identity. You were muy macho. You had cajones. Your candy stripe shaft spewed your acids and we ran for cover. At least we were moving. You were not vanilla. You were not something else. You were, well, ASARCO, un madre. You were definitely not bourgeois, pro seguro. On dark nights, down on Paisano, huge trucks dumped your excrement and giant flames roared into the sky, lighting up I10 like a festive firecracker.

Now you are a bald pallet awaiting “The Grid.” They fiddle before they drop the hammer, just enough time for one to build trust in the untrustworthy. What should go on the ground that has your blood? Should it be a Western Town? Giddy up! Should it be an amusement park? Ice cream! Maybe it could be a “multi use” nothing (Ha! What else do you think they will do!)? We need more apartments and strip centers! Maybe we can just let UTEP spread its, its…well…it could just spread whatever it is that UTEP has.

I will politely clap. I am not lamenting the inevitable any more than I do on The Day Of the Dead.

Yes you were a cancer dispenser, a reminder of danger, vulnerability and of the sweat and blood of working men. Oh yeah, you were one bad hombre. Oh, and how the gerentes avoided your gaze. You were so not sheik. How could we sell this bipolar berg as the cultural and artistic epicenter of the great southwest with your giant schlong sticking into the sky, having intercourse with the eyes of every passerby? No no no, you had to go. You were so, well, nasty!

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America, American Highway, Capitalism, Culture, Economics

MAD MEN: END OF THE INNOCENCE

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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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