photogrammatical

I got the call today. Frank the Fish is dead. At nearly five years old he was the final survivor of the Fishbowl Gang, a motley crew of feeder fish I’d bought in the fall of 2004.

It was the first assignment in a photo class I was taking. Photograph one object 36 different ways. 36, of course, because everyone was still shooting film then. So I went to Walmart, spent under $10 and walked out with a large fishbowl containing five goldfish.

Tara and I were still newly dating. She dutifully held the fishbowl in the passenger seat as I tried unsuccessfully not to slosh the water onto her jeans. We drove all over town looking for places where the light seemed just right. At a park, at a bustop, in the center divider on a busy street. It took several hours, but I was happy with the results.

At the end of the day I suggested that we give the fish to the first kid we saw on the street, or else set them free in a local pond, but Tara would hear none of it. She’d named the two largest fish Frank and Fatty and she was determined to keep them for what we assumed was their short lifespan.

The three smaller fish did die almost immediately, and Fatty passed after several months. But Frank was a fighter. As the years passed his fins grew impossibly long like an old man’s whiskers, and he took to spending his days just sitting on the bottom, watching us.

Several times I mentioned that we could buy Frank a larger tank, perhaps a couple of friends, but Tara seemed to think that Frank was staying alive out of pure spite for his circumstance and that spending any additional money on him might be issuing him a death sentence.

And so Frank lived on in that same bowl, the regal lord of Tara’s parents’ kitchen. Always watching, only bothering to swim at meal times or when his possible demise had come into question.

But alas, old Frank’s number had finally come up.

Tara called this afternoon and said,

“Bad news, I just got to Mom’s house and Frank is dead.”

“Are you sure he’s not just resting?”, I said.

“Sorry honey.”

That was it. The undignified end of what was a remarkably long life for a lowly Walmart feeder fish who rose to prominence in the lives of a lucky few.

Frank will lay in state until tonight, when I can give him a proper burial.

Goodnight sweet prince.

He takes his drinks tall and cool, and likes his women warm and willing.

He dances like a boxer, and boxes like a dancer.

He can’t help you move this weekend…

He’s growing his beard.

He is: The Most Leisurely Man in the World.

This upcoming Saturday is my brother Colin’s 3rd Annual “Keep the Fire” pool party. A nautical themed tribute to 70s era smooth music or “Yacht Rock“. Loggins and Messina, Hall and Oates, The Doobie Brothers, pretty much everybody that Michael Jackson wiped out of our childhood memories.

Once a year he sends our parents away for the weekend and turns their backyard into the smoking deck on the Love Boat. Party props include fake mustaches, captain’s hats, bubble pipes, and white deck shoes. Before each party we have taken a series of ridiculous “promotional photos” of Colin that are later made into various flyers and email invitations. Now in it’s third incarnation, KTF has taken on a life of it’s own. Every year his planning gets more and more absurd, it wouldn’t surprise me if Colin tried to rent a yacht next year. Just a few days ago he called me wondering whether our parent’s sprinkler system could withstand having a small sailboat parked on the lawn… “for effect”.

A big thanks to Pragna, my “exotic hand model”, and to my assistants Wes and Tommy aka “Blaze and Blue“. Wes was secure enough to stand in front of the many on-lookers from the Newport American Legion and repeatedly pour water down another man’s chest, all while Tommy stood behind me holding lenses and ridiculing him.

Jeff Delgado and I went to high school together. He was a talented artist even then, and seems to have only gotten better over the last decade. I remember senior year, one of his illustrations won some big award and they made posters of it. He gave me one and I asked him to autograph it for me. My mother was going through some sort of compulsive framing phase at the time. She had it professionally framed and hung it in her guest bathroom over the display of little soaps and hand towels no one can use. If you’ve washed your hands at my mother’s house in the last ten years I’m sure you’ve noticed it. That framed poster hanging behind you in the mirror.

Jeff saw my silly self portrait on FB and painted his own rendition of it, which I like more than my photograph. You can check out more of Jeff’s paintings here:

http://jdelgado.deviantart.com

Hannah A., Perpetual Member of the Torrey Honors Institute.

I seem to take a lot of pictures of my siblings. I think eventually I’ll probably just have a section devoted to them. It works out nicely because I enjoy taking pictures of them and they enjoy having a higher quality of Facebook photos than the unwashed masses. Recently I was going to make some large prints and when the question came of what images I could stand to have staring back at me from my office wall, the answer was these two. We get along pretty well, the three of us. Not all siblings have it so good.