February GreeblePix

Hello, All -

Here is my entry for this month's
GreeblePix contest over at GreebleMonkey,
home of the lovely and talented Aimee!

Butterfly Bush

Happy almost Mardi Gras!

Moments of Grace

I am not the best gay.

I mean, I am good at it, but I don't keep up with all the latest music and trends. Politically and Medically, I am pretty on top of things, but...

Last night, I met my friend J & C out for a drink - and a video came on of a song that I'd never heard before.

Actually, I wasn't paying much attention to the song, but one person in the video caught my eye - Bianco del Rio, a drag queen with whom I worked on the musical Pageant here in New Orleans. Bianca was still Roy back then, a brilliant costume and wig designer who also played one of the funniest characters in the production - he was "Last Year's Winner", who like a former Miss Universe had had a very "full" year of reigning - and had more curves than should be legal in public.

Anyway, I watched the video to see if Bianca would reappear - and I got completely drawn into it. The song is "Breathe Love" by Brian Kent - and as he walks down a street singing this song, he passes people - people having bad days and bad moments and just days.

And it's not magic. He's breathing love. And everyone he walks past looks as though they are waking from a bad dream. And into moments of grace.

I kept thinking about this for the rest of the evening and all this morning.

Some days, I am Brian. Some days, I am those other people. I am so grateful for the people who do Breathe Love into my life - and I love that I get to give that back on the days that I can Breathe Love.

I hope you like this. It's a great dance tune - not the deepest lyrics, but simple, straightforward and beautiful. And there's something beautifully haunting about Brian too.

Singular Saturday - Valentine's Day Edition 2009

HEART.

OK, so now that I have your attention,
it's time to groove out to
Blue Man Group and Venus Hum
with their rendition of "I Feel Love"!"

How I spend my Saturdays...

From mid-January through late March, I spend most of my Saturdays on the road, traveling to LCGPC competitions.

Huh?

That's the Louisiana Color Guard and Percussion Circuit, the organization that puts on the winterguard and drumline shows here. Just so happens that the Beau is the Executive Director for the Circuit...and I am their photographer.

Winterguard is indoor color guard - flags, rifles, sabers. Flashy costumes, great music, overly stylized movement and dance. How gay is that? (OK, so not quite as gay as rhythmic gymnastics, but close. At least this has weapons.)

So, indoors. School gymnasiums, mostly. No flash. Swiftly hurling bodies, some not so celestial.


Can you see the inherent challenge to a photographer? I like a challenge, but this?

So, I have my new camera and the new zoom lens that Himself gave me for Christmas. And patience...lots of patience in post-production.

Two weeks into competition and here are a bunch of my favorites:

Oh, and I've posted the best of each guard to my smugmug site for the kids to see (and for their grown-ups to order if they so choose). Does it make me a professional if 3 people (4 now!) have ordered prints of photos now? This is all so new to me...

And wicked cool...

Moving

I love movies. I love music. And I especially love it when a director (and all the other parties involved) get it right in a movie, by combining the right music with the right scene and - wow!

Reaching into the Way-Back File, in 1990 (when I stilled had hair on the top of my head), I was asked out to the movies by this hot German au pair. Of course I said yes...did I mention he was hot?

So, he asked if I'd like to see Henry V starring Kenneth Branagh. I am certain I probably said something smooth and classy like, "uh-huh" as I starred into his dreamy blue eyes. So, off we went.

During the time we spent chatting before the movie started, I learned that he had aspirations to be a model, or model-actor...and had no other outside interests, abilities or talents. He had cultivated nothing but his looks. And, what he liked best about me was how handsome I thought he was...blech.

Thankfully, about that time the movie started - distracting me from how suddenly un-smitten I now was. Derek Jacobi took over and for the next 137 minutes, I was transported. I had my first introduction to Emma Thompson in this movie - sigh.

Then. Then came the Battle at Agincourt...

I remember sensing that something was coming. Something special. I just didn't know what.

Then. Then he spoke those words and one lone man starts singing the "Non nobis".

Within seconds, I was in tears - each chorus, each increasingly wider camera shot, each step across the battlefield. After walking across the field, carrying one of his fallen breatheren, Henry bends down to kiss him.

Years later, I cannot watch this scene without bawling - I don't see how anyone can me unmoved by this. (And yet the au pair was. Never saw him again after that.)

So, here is that scene. What movie/music combinations move you?

Half Well

My body reminds me that I am still only half well.

To bring you up to speed: I spent a week in the hospital in November with pneumonia. This is not my first bout, and once you've had it, you are much more susceptible to getting it again.

I am recovering very nicely, thank you for asking.

But.

I am not entirely well. Yet.

I am biking to work, photographing everything I possibly can, and once again juggling too many things at work and home.

Isn't that how I got in this situation?

Do you have anyone in your life who suffers from that super-person mentality? My progression went something like this: It's just a cold - it's just allergies - I can work through this - I'll shake this off with a weekend of good rest - I'll be in late today - honey, why can't I breathe?

OK. So, I listen. I listen to my body.

Biking on a cold (New Orleans cold, folks - I am silly, not insane) with limited lung capacity? Keep the Albuterol inhaler handy.

I am eating well, on a very regular schedule - I take all my meds, at the appointed time and never miss a dose. My labs are back where they should be in all categories.

And still my body reminds me that I am not quite there. Yet.

You see, my toenail is...well, odd.

One of the side effects of pneumonia and the inability to take in sufficient oxygen for all funtions in not just increased ditziness (I get that just by standing up too quickly!), but it deprives the extremities of the essentials.

My left big toenail is half-healthy...and half dirty-looking. You see, in November, when I couldn't breathe well and wasn't taking in enough oxygen, the body made the necessary choices of where to send the limited reserves.

This toenail was on the bottom of the list, so to speak.

So, it became discolored - gray-ish, but not dead-looking. Just un-well.

Now, weeks later, the toenail has half grown out - so it is half well and half not-so-well.

And it reminds me every day that I am on my way, but not quite there.

Yet.

I am so ready to be all well.

How are you doing?