Shoot the Freak

Now that I've had 24 hours to piss and moan about my block -- and had my public self-flagellation indulged with some very nice comments -- I'm trying something else.

I'm going through the And I Am Not Lying, For Real Official Photo Archives (aka my hard drive) and running my better photos until the words come back.

Like this one:



Click here for a larger version.

I took this on Coney Island this year, during the first week of January. It was freakishly warm, and people were out walking around the boardwalk in an approximation of warm-weather behavior.

Some asshole was even rollerblading up and down the boardwalk in a pair of little tiny shorts. Right attitude, wrong coast, I say.

There are certain people that can ONLY exist in New York tri-state area, like this guy:



Let's have a closer look:



This guy makes me think that maybe the Sopranos is not so fictional, after all. Don't get me wrong here -- I'm not pointing and laughing. You haven't seen anything until you've seen a Southern man with a 48-inch belly and 36-inch pants down around his upper thighs and held on with suspenders.

All I'm saying is that this guy, this image, and the whole day was this strange kind of awesome I've never seen before. The crowds of Russian immigrants and people playing in the weak winter sunset were so fun and beautiful -- but it all felt like a memory that we'd share after the seas rose.

We'd be sitting around a campfire on the beach somewhere in Indiana, hiding from America's army of prancing headless dogbots and someone would say "Man, remember Coney Island?" And maybe my writing partner (who is duh, a good friend) would scurry closer to the fire and say "Yeah, we went there in the wintertime, right before the big sheet melted off of Greenland, remember that, Jeff?"

And I'll look over the gnarled head of my staff and nod affirmatively, slipping backward in time to relive those hot dogs, the cold breeze, and that incredible blood-red sunset ...

Labels: 2007, Coney Island, New York City, NYC, Shoot the Freak

posted by Jeff Simmermon @ 11:24 AM