Juggernuts… » YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY

May 14, 2009

BAR RAT OR KITTY CAT?

CATAGORIES: BEER WINE SPIRITS & SUBSTANCES,PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-LX3,PHOTOGRAPHY,Poodah Ben Purr,YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY — Yarbz @ 12:24 pm

Satchmo enjoys hanging out at the bar with us. This is very typical of what he does.

Comments (13) | 550 views

March 31, 2009

YARBZ HAIR NEGATIVE ARCHIVE: HAIR; STYLE; OR LACK THEREOF: 1977

CATAGORIES: 35MM FILM,FASHION,History,PHOTOGRAPHY,SCANNED FILM,YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY,YARBZ NEGATIVE/POSITIVE ARCHIVE — Yarbz @ 8:07 am

For Bigger, Click on the Pic…

Comments (3) | 611 views

March 27, 2009

YARBZ NEGATIVE ARCHIVE: MY 1972 CHEVELLE AND ME: 1978

CATAGORIES: 126 CARTRIDGE FILM,History,PHOTOGRAPHY,SCANNED FILM,YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY,YARBZ NEGATIVE/POSITIVE ARCHIVE — Yarbz @ 10:35 am

BIGGER SIZE IMAGE IN THE ‘MORE’ SECTION

THE STORY:
This is Yarbz and his 1972 Chevelle taken by my mom in 1978. This is the driveway of the house where we lived in Simsbury, Connecticut. I think this is April but I’m not sure. The car was purchased from some guy out in Unionville Connecticut where I saw it sitting on his front lawn with a For Sale sign. I believe this is the initial cleaning and polishing. My parent’s classic rugged and hard sucking Electrolux vacuum was assisting in making this car mine along with a bottle of Armorall sitting on the roof.

The Chevelle was basically stock with a 350 cubic-inch V-8 and a Muncie four-speed manual transmission. It has a 10-bold rear-end which was eventually replaced with a 12-bolt Positraction rear-end later in the year after the original differential began to leak gear oil. I found the 12-bolt Positraction at a local junk yard. My buddy Mike, who worked with me at the ARCO gas station, and I put it in one weekend. The car was very fun and looked great during my senior year at Simsbury High School. While I had the car, I repaired, upgraded and did lots of modifications some of which were ill-advised like the 12-bolt differential. The gear ratio on the new rear-end was different so the speedometer was off. Worse than that was that at highway cruising speeds the engine ran about 500 rpm’s higher than before.

The extra wear and tear from the higher revolutions eventually caused my engine to become unhappy. The unhappiness came to a head one night and caused my motor to explode with anger on the highway while driving up to Springfield Massachusetts where I lived at the time. It was about 1:30 AM and I was racing some guy in a Chevy Nova north on I-91. All the sudden the car made a split-second stutter and then a huge bang! Lots of crunching was heard and felt under the car. I pressed in the clutch and allowed the car to gradually slow. When I looked in the rearview mirror there was an incredibly thick trail of smoke erupting at 80 miles per hour from the back of my Chevelle. I immediately felt as if I was shot down in a WWII fighter and was spiraling to Earth, leaving the tell-tale oily smoke trail behind as I slowly arched toward an inevitable impact in the English countryside.

After gliding to a stop on the side of the dark highway I found that the push rods had blown through the oil pan. This is usually an indication that your motor needs some maintenance. Luckily, the guy I was racing and his buddies pulled over and gave me a ride the rest of the way to my apartment in Springfield. The Chevelle would eventually be towed to my parents’ house and there it would sit until it was sold for $500. I will never know if the person who bought it actually put in a new engine and got it going or not. I wonder to this day if the car is still on the road somewhere.

It was shortly after the destruction of the Chevelle’s engine that I decided my life was going nowhere and that I didn’t want to grind out a living as an auto-mechanic as originally planned. I enlisted in the Marine Corps in the fall of 1978 and was to report to MCRD (Marine Corps Recruit Depot) San Diego in January 1979. This seemed like the best way to achieve an immediate change to the direction of my life. As it turned out, it was.
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Comments (4) | 909 views

March 17, 2009

YARBZ NEGATIVE ARCHIVE: CALIFORNIA MOUNTAIN CABIN TRIP 1969 OR 1970

CATAGORIES: 126 CARTRIDGE FILM,FAMILY,History,PHOTOGRAPHY,SCANNED FILM,TRAVEL/ROADTRIPS/PLACES TO VISIT,YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY,YARBZ NEGATIVE/POSITIVE ARCHIVE — Yarbz @ 9:20 am

Comments (2) | 580 views

March 16, 2009

YARBZ NEGATIVE ARCHIVE: ON A BOAT AND STYLIN’

CATAGORIES: 110 FILM,FAMILY,FASHION,History,PHOTOGRAPHY,SCANNED FILM,YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY,YARBZ NEGATIVE/POSITIVE ARCHIVE — Yarbz @ 9:33 am

Comments (1) | 552 views

March 12, 2009

YARBZ IMAGE ARCHIVE: SMALL TOWN USA, VERY EARLY AM

CATAGORIES: 35MM FILM,COMMENTARY,History,MONEY,PHOTOGRAPHY,SCANNED FILM,TRAVEL/ROADTRIPS/PLACES TO VISIT,YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY,YARBZ NEGATIVE/POSITIVE ARCHIVE — Yarbz @ 10:32 am

Large file in the ‘MORE’ Section.

I have the name of the town written down at home but don’t remember it right now. I think it is Indiana but I will clarify later. This was taken in 1999 during my cross country adventure encompassing 16000 miles and is one of the towns we stayed in.

I had a very fitful sleep due to the hot and sticky air that sat motionless in our room. This old boarding house room was quiet and without air conditioning so we could hear the night sounds. Careful listening could separate the apparent silence from the faint buzz of florescent lighting outside our open second floor window. There was the occasional creaking of the old plank floor.

I woke up about well before the light and wondered around the vacant streets of the town with my Leica M6. I was shooting chromes (slides) during the entire trip which seem to capture life more accurately than negatives. This image didn’t make it past my original edit but when recently scanned on better equipment, the image really came alive. It captures precisely how I remember this morning felt as I wondered the slumbering streets in the quiet hours of the morning. Every faint smell and subtle sound seemed amplified to be devoured by the senses. All this delicate input is later lost to all as the clanking daily commotion slowly gains momentum to become a typical weekday. For now though, I can hear the grit scraping away at the worn concrete sidewalks underneath my boots. The soft rhythmic pattern of my solitary meandering keeps me company until the muffled whirling hum of a squeaky-belted V8 engine grumbles by in a pitted chrome and chipped paint clad sedan.

Main Street USA is gone with scant few exceptions. Most of us don’t know what we’ve missed. My generation saw the last of it when we were children. We get mega-sized drug stores with identical stock sitting caddy-corner on every ugly intersection. Battleship sized Wal-Mart’s and Target stores that sell only the cheapest possible version of any given item. Gone are the independent markets and shops run by local families and entrepreneurs who stock diverse quality merchandise and locally grown food and beverage.

Perhaps the end of the generic megastores is near as the struggling economy wields its substantial hammer of retail-natural selection. This could open the door for smaller, better shops and at least a partial return to a local economy. The over-saturation of bland identical corporate retailers that blight America in unending urban sprawl may, I hope, become the compost that feeds a better future.
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Comments (5) | 626 views

March 11, 2009

YARBZ RECENT NEGATIVE SCANS: MISS WASHINGTON DINER, NEW BRITAIN, CT:

CATAGORIES: 35MM FILM,CANONET QL17,PHOTOGRAPHY,SCANNED FILM,TRAVEL/ROADTRIPS/PLACES TO VISIT,YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY,YARBZ NEGATIVE/POSITIVE ARCHIVE — Yarbz @ 9:39 am

Larger pic in the ‘MORE’ section:

The Story:
The Miss Washington Diner in downtown New Britain, Connecticut has been there for decades. This is our default breakfast joint on any given weekend morning. Since I don’t eat breakfast on weekdays when we go out for breakfast, it must be good. We’ve been to other diners and breakfast places but Miss Washington is the only one that understands what “over medium” means. Freddie is the man behind the grill which sits midway behind the lime green counter that runs the length of the building. He smiles a lot despite having the difficult, hot and greasy tasks of a short order cook. I like the yokes runny but the whites solid. It’s an art apparently that few short-order cooks in the area have mastered. Freddie has. My eggs are just right every time.

We’re regulars and Freddie knows us and greets us when we walk in, as do several of the waitresses, all of whom put in many long and early hours in this classic but semi-rundown diner. Freddie is originally from Turkey and has a slight but exotic accent when he speaks. Turkey would be an interesting place to visit, especially if you had a person like Freddie to act as your own private tour guide.

The building itself is in need of cosmetic repairs and the green Formica adorning the tables and counter has seen its share of bruises. However the structure is holding its own and not so far gone that a restoration would be out of the question. Maybe one day, if downtown New Britain can pick itself up off the floor, the funds will be available for a full restoration.

This diner has all the classic accoutrements that make up the stereotypical American diner including stainless steel inside and out, permanently mounted, round backless swiveling barstools topped with salmon colored, slightly padded Naugahyde tops and a long Formica counter. The original copper colored star-burst ceiling fixtures offer a warm light that provides a counterbalance to the cool green rays emitted from the fluorescent bulbs that quietly hum in the cases behind the counter. There are juke boxes at each booth as well as every eight feet along the counter. These devices occasionally inject undesirable interruptions of tinny-sounding top-forty, soon to be forgotten, pop songs that drown the natural din of a busy diner. This constant din is the sound of a diner, the opera of its operation. It’s the clinking clanking of plates, the clatter of utensils and metallic bangs and scraping of a busy grill. It’s the intermingling of unintelligible words and voices drifting from customers’ unending conversations. Eventually though, the intermittent juke box becomes just another part in the overall production that goes on while we eat at Miss Washington.
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Comments (3) | 730 views

March 10, 2009

YARBZ NEGATIVE ARCHIVE: THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BEACH SCENE 1973

CATAGORIES: 126 CARTRIDGE FILM,CULTURLA & PENTURLA,FAMILY,FASHION,History,PHOTOGRAPHY,SCANNED FILM,YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY,YARBZ NEGATIVE/POSITIVE ARCHIVE — Yarbz @ 9:50 am

The larger image is in the ‘MORE’ section beneath the story along with a closeup of the cars and girls!

The Story:
This picture was taken during the summer of 1973 at Huntington Beach, California on 126 cartridge film. This day at the beach included a visit from my dad’s mother, Nene (pronounced ‘Neh-Knee’). Nene lived in Dallas, Texas where my dad grew up and we’d see her once a year or so. Some years the family would pack up the station wagon de jour and drive to Texas for a visit but Nene apparently liked to travel and get out to see us often. I remember her visiting us in each the towns we lived as kids, San Clemente, CA, Golden, CO and Huntington Beach. Nene is wearing my mom’s jacket which was very funky for the time and I believe there was a matching skirt to go with it.

During any Nene visit, she would inevitably ask (read: “require”) us go with her and work in the flower beds picking weeds. I truly believe she thought this activity was fun for us. Of course, I never wanted to do it but mom would back her up and tell me to get out there and do whatever Nene wanted. I would stomp out there, get on my knees and begin pulling weeds. I would also count the seconds until I could escape like an angry housecat that clearly doesn’t want to be held. This particular memory comes from San Clemente in the late 1960’s. During the Huntington Beach years it was mostly Paul who was forced to serve on the Nene gardening chain-gang.

This beach scene with Nene, Paul (center) and me is typical of the way we spent our time at the beach in those days. Paul was about six or seven years old and had the ever present plastic bucket. The people behind us are actually double bucketed! The aluminum beach chairs were always in the trunk of the car and ready for any impromptu visits to the beach. We spent a lot of time at the beach which is what kids did in Southern California if you lived anywhere near the coast.

The cars in the parking lot east of the sand date the photo ands you will see pristine examples of the vehicles of the era; a 1966-ish blue Ford Mustang; a 1970 Chevrolet El Camino; several station wagons; a green Ford Maverick; a purple 1973 AMC Javelin; a couple Volkswagen Bugs; a red Chevy Vega; a brown Datsun 240Z; a Ford Pinto wagon and many others. I remember our friend and neighbor David Terry had a yellow 1973 Vega and within a year is was significantly rusting! The Chevy Vega and Ford Pinto were America’s first attempts at economy cars and what a poor effort they were.

In front of the parking lot and behind us are several young, sun bathing bikini girls. From what I can tell, they are good looking and wearing the current bikini fashion of the day. Cute bikini clad girls were a dime a dozen at Huntington Beach and I probably didn’t even notice them at the time. There are some more bikini girls in the back of the image walking on the boardwalk, which was asphalt, behind and to the far right. I look at this picture and wonder what the future had in store for these girls as well as the others in the photo. Did they go to college or become traditional housewives or both? Were their lives full of adventure or boredom, joy or tragedy? Were their lives a combination of all of these? I know now what was in store for Paul and me but could never have imagined the path the future would hold. For some reason, I always enjoy pondering the lives of the anonymous people who inhabit our personal photographs.

Also, you will note that I still have braces. I am pretty sure that this was close to the end of my orthodontic treatment as they would come off in a year or so after close to five years of gradual correction of both teeth and overbite.

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Comments (3) | 580 views

March 9, 2009

YARBZ NEGATIVE ARCHIVE: DIANE ARBUS VISITS CALIFORNIA 1969?

CATAGORIES: 126 CARTRIDGE FILM,FAMILY,History,PHOTOGRAPHY,SCANNED FILM,USMC / MARINE CORPS / SEMPER FI,YARBZ LIFE PICTURE DIARY,YARBZ NEGATIVE/POSITIVE ARCHIVE — Yarbz @ 9:24 am

Go to the ‘MORE’ section for full size:

This image was taken around 1969 while our family lived in San Clemente, California. On the right is my younger brother, Paul. On the left, if I remember correctly, is his neighborhood friend, Alice. They used to play together everyday and I remember them being almost like brother and sister at the time. My mother would most likely have taken this picture of the two hobbit-like kids wearing the Los Angeles Rams helmets (both the new and old style). The helmets look so massive on their little bodies and the facial expressions so somber, it takes on a freakish and Diane Arbus-like quality. The only thing this image needs is a square crop and de-saturation to black and white and it could be one of her pictures.

During this time, my father was in the Marine Reserves and away once a month for training at Camp Pendleton. On the weekends when dad wasn’t practicing storming the beaches, the family would watch the Rams play on Sunday with their quarterback Roman Gabriel leading them nowhere each season. My parents would take us to one or two Rams games each year at the LA Coliseum. We’d always stop at the long defunct Shakey’s Pizza and eat before going to the stadium.

Going to the Coliseum was a relatively rare event for us kids however and we’d usually watched the Rams in our family room or “den” as we used to call it, on our new and amazingly large 20-inch, state-of-the-art vacuum tube television! It could have been a 19 or 23 inch or something else similar but I can’t recall. I just remember that when dad brought it home it was a terribly BIG deal. Dad also had an antenna rotator which was a box with a round dial with markings for North, East, West and South. Depending on what channel you wanted to watch, there were little numbered stickers on the face plate which indicated the previously determined position for best reception for that channel. When the dial was turned, it would slowing rotate the antenna, which was in the attic, to the corresponding direction. We would get fantastic reception on all three channels available. With the rotator, we sometimes even got to watch San Diego channels. In 1969 or 1970, cable television came in and radically altered our definition of great reception. No longer was a picture with only a slight ghosting “great”. Before cable, you would adjust the antenna until you got the ‘minimal ghosting’ and you were in visual heaven. There would always be one person who was known to be able to tune in the television better than anyone else. In our house, that was dad.

After tuning the channel just right we’d sit in the den and watch the game with dad and sometimes a few of his friends. At half-time my older brother and I would go out to our front lawn and play “The Rams Greatest Plays” which we would act out in slow motion. This half-time event was filled with amazing catches and fantastic tackles until the beginning of the second half.

The Rams were an indelible part of my memories of growing up in San Clemente, CA. At eight or nine years old, I was such a Rams fanatic that I studied the game programs my parents brought back from the Coliseum and actually memorized the Rams entire roster by name, number, position and years in the league. I’m certain that I knew that roster better than Howard Cosell or any other play by play announcer. Thankfully, that desire to memorize team rosters went away and no longer plagues me!

Go to the ‘MORE’ section for full size:
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