At the No Name Bar

We are at the No-Name bar in Sausalito, once my mother’s favorite haunt. Tonight it’s a different crowd, there’s a whole lot of hog-washing and posturing going on before this event. Sign up for open mic was at 8:30. Everyone’s late. First one up is a drone, drowning on in his own voice. Whole herds of hopeful guitarist enter the doors. Women aredressed for poetry readings. There’s a couple deep throating it. Yuck. This is a very tolerant audience. Anything goes. He drones on and on. I’m doing the math, at 15 minutes per person, we will be here all night. The emcee is lame. Number two plays a classical piece. I’m scanning the crowded room for people I might know but everybody I knew is long gone. The next one is a mouth harp piece, dude is on LSD. And now it’s 10 PM. It’s turning into an endless Neil Young kind of night.  I’m taking photos in the dark where people are ghosts, moving faster than light. I am bored. It’s all relative, we talk of those neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. My camera is demonstrating the principle now. A truck passes, it’s transparent in the camera —only the lights show where it has been. I am nameless in the dark at the No-Name with Neil and Jack McElroy who is knocking it back on heaven’s door. Jack, an Irishman, is passive aggressive. I can never figure out his game. It’s like sliding your hands up and down a guitar neck seeking the right fret. At this rate, Neil’s turn will never come. I haven’t hung out in a bar in ages. I did this open mic thing for 20 years and I’m antsy. Luckily the photography is a good distraction. I am literally shooting to keep my sanity. Hostile boredom is a lethal combination. Am I shooting through photographer Jan Bogaert’s eyes, or is it in my own composition emerging through the lens? Will this night never end?

No date