Magic Man

This week I had the good fortune to photograph an amazing performer and all around good guy who goes by the moniker Magikhana, also known as Arsene Dupin.

Last night we went out for Thai food, and as we entered the restaurant, we encountered a Jamaican guy with long dreadlocks holding a beautiful, curly-haired baby.  I started making funny sounds with my mouth, and Magikhana balanced the brim of his baseball cap on his nose.  The baby was mesmerized. The dad said "Rastafari!" and gave each of us a fist bump.

  

Magic moments like that appear out of nowhere when I least expect them.

See Chell

On Saturday I did some more experimenting with my underwater camera.  Many thanks to Chell Parkins for being such a good sport and for staying submerged in the chilly water for more than an hour on a single breath!

Chicken $hit Bingo

I am not a gambling man.

I've been to Vegas twice and I didn't put a nickel in the slot machines. But every Sunday afternoon at Ginny's Little Longhorn Saloon, for $2.00 you can buy a 6 x 6 inch piece of real estate on a sheet of plywood (limit: one per customer) and have the time of your life.

Since there are only 54 squares available, tickets sell out fast, so you better move quick when they announce it's time to place your bets. The sheet of plywood is laid the pool table, a wire cage is placed on top of it, and then Ginny comes out from behind the bar with "C.C." the chicken under her arm. If the chicken makes a deposit in your square, you win the pot...so to speak. It brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "playing craps".

You've never seen so much hootin' and hollerin' in your life. You'd have thought we were watching the final seconds of the Super Bowl. The excitement continues only as long as it takes C.C. to take care of business, and this afternoon it was a 15 minute hair-raising, nail-biting, white-knuckle, razor's edge roller coaster ride.

Cameras were flashing, people were shouting, and the chicken would stop periodically to pose for pictures. She's a real entertainer, and she knows how to strut her stuff. In the end, the jackpot was divided between #19 and #37, because C.C. made her mark right on the line.

In Kentucky they bet on thoroughbred horses. In Monte Carlo they bet on high performance race cars. And here in Austin, we wager on where a feathered farm animal is gonna take a shit.

Mermaid Sighting

Click on each image to enlarge

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I had the good fortune to spot this lovely creature on a recent diving excursion, and thankfully I had my camera with me!  Who says mermaids aren't real? 

digital voodoo by kendall witherspoon

Bad Juju

Do you ever feel like you're at the epicenter of some sort of electro-magnetic vortex?

This past week I had to replace my kitchen disposal after it flooded the area under the sink with what looked like baby vomit. Cost of replacement and installation: $300.00

I also had my car towed. Cost of retrieval from towing yard $175.00. Parking ticket $25.00

And my computer hard drive crashed, resulting in the loss of hundreds of photos and all my applications. Cost of repair: $200.00 Loss of data: Priceless

$700.00 later, I'm still trying to figure out which photographs are gone forever and how many survived. The good news is that while sifting through the wreckage, I discovered a bunch of images I shot in Africa more than two years ago. Turn your speakers up and enjoy!

Music: Miss Q'n by Zap Mama

iBuddha

Like so many users of the ubiquitous iPhone,  every time I bump into a friend we're comparing the latest "apps" we've downloaded.  Or, if they're one of the 37 remaining people on the planet who hasn't purchased this amazing and addictive device, I'm compelled by some evangelistic urge to testify how it has changed my life.  

It's about as obnoxious as being trapped in an elevator with an insurance salesman, a Jehovah's Witness and an acquaintance from college you haven't thought about in years who's appeared out of nowhere to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get in on the ground floor of a new business "opportunity"...and the guy who told them about it is raking in 5 figures a month and drives a Rolls Royce convertible...but it's not "multi-level marketing."  

In other words, I've become a complete iHole. 

The number of useless, time-sucking, inane applications for the iPhone is literally mind-numbing.  I chose a word at random and searched the iTunes Store, which produced the following list of applications available for download:

Sheep

Sheepish

Electric Sheep (?)

Catch the Sheep

Sheep Abduction (?!!) 

Black Sheep Lite

iZoo

Construction Site (huh?)

Animals Sound Machine

Sheep Count

A World of Lullabies

Pre-School Music

and my personal favorite...Death Screams (what the...?)

Who thinks these things up?  And then spends hours and hours writing computer code and building a cute user interface so people can download them for free and do who knows what with poor, innocent, animated sheep?  In my spare time I can barely keep up with mowing the lawn.  Maybe a sheep.....

That said, I've really enjoyed an application I downloaded recently called "Buddha".  If I'm waiting for my order at a restaurant, or stuck at a traffic light, I can gaze at an ancient statue of Buddha with late afternoon sunlight streaming across his placid features, accompanied by a quotation to ponder.  And if I shake my iPhone vigorously, a new quotation is revealed.  Magic 8-Ball meets the Bodhisattva.

And...when the light turns green, if I'm still pondering the sound of one hand clapping, I'm soon enlightened by the sound of many hands honking.

What did the Buddhist monk say to the New York hot dog vendor?

"Make me one with everything."

I've Got a Buzz...How 'Bout U?

 

Do you ever wanna cut off all your hair?

Me too!  Frequently.  But someone always talks me out of it.  Or I resist the urge.

But this time I didn't.  It's fun to be impulsive and shake things up every once in a while.  Or maybe it's a cry for help.

Friday night I went to a party.  Apparently I didn't get the memo that you were supposed to wear orange and be a young, hip, extremely attractive person with thick, curly, black hair and flawless skin the color of mocha, and have an exotic name like Bijoy or Zion.

Instead, I came dressed as an uptight, middle-aged white guy wearing a shirt I bought on sale at Steinmart.  Good thing I forgot to bring the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Wonder Bread®.

But they let me in anyway.