Here we go, here are a few more stories for your arty pleasuré:
ONE- Go shoot animal tracks, gopher tracks, goat tracks, that sort of thing. Did you know most roads and byways you now drive on, to take your aunt Mary to her shallow grave, started out as animal tracks. That's right, way back when, all that primitive man had to do was follow them and bingo, either they'd get some tasty entrée or find some dirty water to quench their cave sized estomaqué. When we were kids in Corsica, you had to know which path, which track, led back home, otherwise you'd be fucked, big time..... The goats ate away at the "Maquis"(a corsican word BTW) and over time dig tunnels into the mountains; some led nowhere but to dappled dead ends*, other led us home. If you didn't what you were doing, you were dead.
During the war my grandfather and his pals in the Corsican resistance would lure the Germans and Italians into the Maquis through those tunnels, get them good and lost and then burn that part of the mountain, roasting them like Christmas partridges. Which brings me to our next story.
TWO- In California and the West, we have what's called freeways, and on those freeways automobiles travel great distances rather hurriedly, and often recklessly whack other mammals out of their way. The often end up, in the grass, by the side of the road, where they lie, mortally wounded. If they are not dead right away, death usually comes slowly but no one's counting, so who knows how long it takes. Paramedics are never called but once in the while if the stink is too great, some CALTRANS highway worker will drop by and pick up the remains. But fortunately, not all of them are collected and a few stay there to rot, deep in the yellowing grass, watching big rigs go their separate ways.
That grass I just mentioned.... well teenage runaways enjoy putting matches to it; just for the hell of it. Great big billowing dark clouds of sooting grass rise into our beautiful blue clouds(what's a blue cloud you ask?), soiling Highway 5 a little more than expected, incinerating those forgotten carcasses . The tall grasses gone, what was once invisible to vagrants and passenger seats, is now revealed, after that grassy and fiery furnace. (Note: If you are on a budget and don't like waiting in Motel 6s, just burn some shit down yourself or rent some teenage runaway. If you can't find crispy critters just drive to the nearest muni dump and ask where they keep the road kill and plead your case.....)
So, next summer, drive up and down High 5 between Tracy and LA and look out for those dark burned out grassless patches, drag your cameras on a one horse open sleight and shoot those forlorn carcasses (See above image, for reference only).
The first one to return to NYC with a body of work out of those two stories gets a gallery show....so please hurry....off you go.... shoo...scram....shuusshhhh.....
I was also going to suggest shooting those discarded xmas trees you are apt to see, felled by the side of the road, but my friend steve mentioned that it has already been done. Anyway, someone has already done a similar project, shooting piles of lawn clippings on suburban streets but called them "Detritus", and with a name like that, you get the keys to the city.
* Just like Golden Gate park in San Francisco, except that the tunnels are dug by the homeless and you more likely to catch some toothless skank giving head, rather than having a magical childhood ready made. (Skank:The term "skank" differs from that of "slut" in that whereas the latter implies only sexual promiscuity; the former also implies poor taste, personally degrading behaviour and low socioeconomic class. Dang.....! I want me some of that, aaarg, those damn childhood fetishes!).