Torrance, CA. May 2012.
Hermosa Beach, CA. May 2012.
I was trying to figure out where the line for the cheap, rusty fairground ride began, so my daughter could get out of the madness of the crowd and into a tiny silver helicopter with a steering wheel and no working lights, and my wife asked this woman if she was, indeed, at the end of the line, or if she was just standing there for no discernible reason which, let’s face it, is what most of the sweating throng around us was doing. She mumbled something under her breath, hugged her tiny dog closer, and waved her ride tickets at us. My wife asked her to clarify, and she turned towards us slightly, looking for all the world as if someone had placed a warm turd right under her nose, and said that yes, she was in line for the ride, but that she didn’t know whether she was the start of the line or the end, as if that information was useful to us. She was evidently out of her depth, so we left her to her fears and handed the ride guy three tickets for the silver helicopter. My daughter loved it, even though she had to share with some other kid she didn’t know, and they fought a little over the lever that raises and lowers the thing as it goes round. Still, by the end they were all smiles, and the mean old woman was heading towards the beach, picking her way through the crowd and muttering into the ear of that poor little dog, which did nothing but shake the whole time I was watching it.
Venice, CA. May 2012.
Culver City, CA. May 2012.
As usual, I’m running late on these things. But at least I have a decent excuse this time! Nothing too fancy for April’s selection; just a bunch of shots from a short trip up to Big Sur. Edited largely under the influence of Percocet and Vicodin.
“On one occasion, at the Tabernacle Bar in London, cocktail infused and bored, I suggested we have a scrap and relocated to the waste ground opposite. I punched him in the face. He had not been punched in the face since the age of 11, when Ian Wheeler wheeled his furious fists. Bleasdale calmly guided my head-locked face into a wall. We returned in good humour, to continue imbibing. In over a decade, I have never seen him angry.” — Peter Dench: In Conversation With Marcus Bleasdale
‘Tallulah in her bedroom’, from the ongoing series Home Is... (working title).