jesse cutter.

I met this kid years ago, broken down on the side of the road in virginia, he from lullville and me from port land, and his charm shined through right off the bat. I mean, there was probably grease all over it, so maybe "shined" isn't the right word, but I'm sure you know what I mean. somehow, a couple of years later, we conned him into packing up all his tools and broken motorbikes, and dragging it all out to portland. and he hasn't taken off that bandanna since. hell, I even think he had it on before he left for the trek out here. hell of a good dude, with a speech pattern and a laugh that warms yer soul.

scooter races, part two, chinon:

man, this camera did NOT do well. unless my desire was to have blurry colors across an empty track, or unless the scooter kids were going 12 million miles an hour the whole time. ah, well. Some nice shots:

scooter races, part one, special moments:

went to the scooter races. there were motorcycles there too, so we brought eva in order to show her even more american redneckery. shot with the special moments camera, so there's some good shots, but if I really wanted to do it right, I'd cheat, scan at high res, zoom in, recrop, that sort of thing. but here's the ones that came out alright without all that whatnot. jesse's in there somewhere.

so what do you do when you've just made a german shoot guns?

take her to get a bowl full of booze, naturally. welcome to america!

one of these things is not like the other,

one of these things, is not the same. here's some pretty awesome looking whatnot from the shooting day.

my friends reign high in the mountains

brodeo, eva, arwyn. living the dream, the lot of them.

everybody likes the big guns,

but I think brodeo looks the best with it. maybe it's the puddle cutter sling, maybe it's the fact that it's brodeo, either way, hellof a nice picture, friend.

I got shotgunned.

thank you, brodeo, for the fine picture of me. thanks to chris for the shirt, that makes it so that I couldn't look tough to save my life. ha. you talking shit boy? don't make me take off this mogwai shirt and kick. your. ass.

how the fuck do you spell "arwyn"?

I have no idea if that spelling's right. she says her dad's jewish, and so therefore she is, which worked out well enough, because she caught the free boat to israel. her laugh is infectious, and loud, the kind of laugh that catches you off guard, and you wonder if it's okay to be having such fun, and you wonder if they'll kick us out from wherever we are if we keep flaunting our good time. plus, babe, smart, funny, all of the key words one looks for in a bank robbing associate. also, this firecracker is about five foot tall. the shot gun there is about four foot tall. holy shit, she owned that thing.

also, click here for a digital cheat, I took a picture that didn't really come out, but it shows how damn big that cannon was, so I fucked with it for five minutes just so you could see it. you're welcome.

breaking europeans

so, my new friend eva is in town, from germany. I asked her what she wanted to do, and she didn't have an immediate answer, so I said, "want to go in the woods and shoot guns?" she got very excited. here's some of the best pics: eva shooting a gun for the first time (with range safety freedom fighter james capell), eva looking tough with a four foot shotgun, eva laughing with a four foot shotgun. let me say that her shooting was amazing to watch, she was so nervous, but she thought about every shot, and aimed very carefully. it was pretty sweet.

elias (sam) giangos

even elias running away from me taking a picture makes for a good picture. I'm going to catch him one day. sam is one amazing kid. really funny and witty, really drunk and fall downy, really self deprecating, really generous and kind. a hell of a good dude. apparently he has an abundance of steaks these days?

madeline

I don't have shit for pictures of madeline. it's because she's at lawnmower university, and I don't get to see her much. but here's the short version: met madeline when I was 12. we were in honors science. fucking nerds. we'd sing beatles songs with brent zundell. at any rate, that was 18 years ago, friends. so, I guess what I'm getting at, is that whenever I start working your last nerve, whenever you start to be real irritated with all the shit I'm putting you through, just keep in mind, madeline's been dealing with that shit for eightteen fucking YEARS. anyway. here's her playing my suitcase organ on her porch. and on a side note, her dad is cooler than any dad on the planet, except maybe mine. because my dad's the coolest, even if he did one time call madeline a drug addict.

to the airport, begrudgingly

I love this picture. there was a heavy mix of exhaustion, and a demand for more time, that morning. hopefully the time will come in the future. but we went to the airport, and anna-lena went home, and I went to my job, unchallenging, unrewarding, with benefits paid in only the ability to listen to music while seeing the pretty sites around portland, and mornings spent bullshitting with simon green, and really I just wanted to go back to cape disappointment, and try to figure out how to get down to the beach.

anna-lena

another.

kim of bombshell fame.

kim gets antsy when you try to take her picture. I don't even know if she knew I was taking these, but I think they're nice. oh, and since she supplies me with wonderful shirts and jackets, and she has impeccable taste (and is a total babe), I must recommend you go check out bombshell vintage, on burnside, across from doug fir. it's awesome.

kaffee?

it's the one thing in america that is amazing. apparently. and the view from my seat to the east, on the bottom.

ze german at ze coast

I have been telling the story of how I met this girl, and how I found her in my life, and how we made it to the coast, and back, and waterfalls at night, and how she went back to germany, and so on, and it really all seems so strange. it seems easier to say that it just happened, there was some magic, and I found myself able to spend time with a girl that was wonderful. here's to unlikely meetings, and friends that come out of no where.

EDIT:anna-lena says:

btw its not that difficult:
i know taylor, u know taylor, we look at waterfalls in the night and made out in the rain in front of a stripclub.
how could it be more romantic?

on a mountain, and meeting the sea.

there was a lighthouse, on cape dis appoint ment. we went there for the name. we were not disappointed. beautiful, if more hiking than I was prepared for. and then we went closer to the sea, and it was also beautiful, no?

stevens, my dear friend.

I finally got a halfway decent picture of stevens. it looks like either an ad for coca-cola (send me a check!) or huey lewis (send me a harmonica!), but seriously, I've been trying to take this little man's picture for months and months and months. he's elusive, friends.

so, stevens. a saint, for sure. majestic, he knows his name, he's cuddly as all hell, and aside from an aversion to water in a water bowl, he has no faults. and besides, cat's drinking water out of people glasses is cute, if unsanitary. I haven't seen stevens since last thursday, and I miss him terribly already. tear drops, friends, tear drops.

to be projected behind me, as I read poetry about travel.

the road continued on forever, as we whistled along, the low car hugging the ground, smashing into it occasionally, when I found a patch that was raised to high, or dropped too low. the tires were perhaps low on air to begin with, and the miles we had put on her had lost the small amount of tread they had once possessed, but we didn't have the option of stopping, not with our cargo so desired by the people at the end of the line, people not used to waiting, and who would pay considerably less even if they were left wanting for minutes. she chewed her nails and asked me how much farther? I smiled and flipped the dial, finding a station playing james carr, somehow, and told her that it wouldn't be much longer. she pulled a cigarette from the pack, and for the twelve millionth time tried to use the broken cigarette lighter. this time, instead of putting it back in it's sheath, she rolled down the window, threw it out, and I noticed it tumble off of the bridge, and into the pacific ocean, as we drove further south.

the ocean, a wash.

went to the beach. well, went to the mountains near the beach. somehow couldn't actually find the beach, but here are some pictures from afar.

mal capell

malarie is awesome. and no, I don't know if that's how you spell her name. I fuck it up all the time. but however it is, she's rad, she doesn't take any shit, but she's got a heart of gold. if I ever owned a diner, I would hire her to be my head waitress, so she could call everyone darling, and when they ordered something she didn't like, she could say, "no, honey, that tastes like shit, you're getting the hashbrowns and waffles". I'd be a millionaire over night. also pictured here in the distance, jesse cutter, and a sort of visible kim.

it's empty

I like it.

watertastical 3,2,1

I was playing in the river, with a camera. how much more fun could I have?

emilie and i at the river house of alexis wrekk:

yeah, this roll sat around for a while, as the river house pictures were from a bit back. oh well.

burnt to a crisp

ya'll remember the chinon? well, I've been trying to work it into the photorotation a bit more, with interesting results. trees. oh, and last time I didn't know exactly what kind of chinon I was rocking. CHINON 35EE picture of the model here.