Tuesday, March 18, 2008

BOI!!!!!

This is my version of some of the photos I have seen of my son's female teen friends. This seems to be the most popular pose of his high school friends on MYSPACE pages. The first question that comes to my mind is,...."WHY?" The next is, "Is that the best you can do?" Maybe if some saw this pose, it just might "drive" or "bring home" the point for them. It's definitely not a flattering look for me, for sure. It could be a little more acceptable with teenagers, but surely there's a better pose. SURELY. Where's their imaginations that might afford them the ability to strike a different and better pose? Okay, so I can accept the fact that maybe I am not doing it right, or the way they do it. Maybe my age and gender have a lot to do with the ugliosity of this shot. Another question comes to mind, "Should my pursed lips go in the opposite direction of my eyes?" Would that make the photo a success? Well, I know the peace sign should be raised a little higher too,...but I don't think that would improve my look,...in what has become the traditional teen MYSPACE photo pose. As a matter of fact, I might consider entering this in a gerners contest,...you know, the contest at some of those state fairs where people compete to see who can make the ugliest, weirdest, wackiest face? I think I could at least place with this image! Maybe we have shirked our responsibilities and have not taught our kids how to be appropriately glamorous? Don't they ever look at magazine covers? I mean, even the cover model of Dog Fancy has a more fetching relationship with the camera than I do in this photo, and possibly some of those darlings on MYSPACE. Could it be that with the advent of digital photography, which gives the user a near limitless number of shots, that maybe they just don't care. You know, in the olden film days, processing was both time consuming and expensive, so we had to make every shot count or we would be paying for the development of failure, which we really didn't have time for and couldn't afford. And who wanted to see those failures anyway? No one,....we HAD to look good in ALL photos. We had our pride, our vanity. Maybe teens of today are more real and more at ease with themselves than we of the film processing era were. And therefore maybe our teens today have a stronger self esteem, self-image. It could be that they are not afraid of the camera, or failure, or of looking bad in front of a lot of people they know, and even strangers. Possibly???NAAAAA! Who am I kidding? These kids care what they look like,.....but they just need better lessons in vanity and pride and how to be vogue. They need to pay a little more attention to Vanity Fair and Cosmo,...to possibly pick up some modeling tips for the camera. After all, our nation, and the world is concerned with who's going to take over from the Super Model's of today once their smile has lost its gleam. Tomorrow we will need those shoes filled with the right women in order to keep America they way she is today! Looking good! And as Madonna said,.."Strike a pose, Vogue!"

Saturday, January 26, 2008


Yet another sign of age creeping up on me,....the thrill of things that up until now have been totally insignificant. My most recent is my love and appreciation of those large, plastic, roughneck garbage cans. We had my son's youth group over last night and we had purchased a roughneck garbage can,....but not for the can,.....for the LID! My son had to create a Spartan costume and needed a shield and,...by George, if you spray paint the lid with bronze and use a couple of pieces of duct tape for straps on the back,....you got yourself a pretty strong replica of a Spartan shield,....I don't think that was mentioned on the trash can's accompanying labels and advertisements. Anyway, I love this trash can for its simple large opening and the ability to easily line it with a large black yard bag without tearing it or tying knots in it to make it fit. I love its depth and capacity,...the sheer volumes of trash which it can hold in comparison to my regular kitchen trash can which is much more sleek, shiny and presentable,...made of some silver polished metal. But let me also tell you that even with trash cans,....looks aren't everything.