Friday, December 8th, 2006
Florida, 2004. Downtown Fort Lauderdale.
This guy actually told me what he wanted the title of his photo to be: "The Poet in Decline."
It's a long story, but the short version is that he stopped me taking photos outside of a grocery store. He came on all strong at first... "Hey! What are you taking photos of!?"
I said, "Just taking photos of the sunlight on the buildings... I think it's beautiful."
He said, "You an artist?"
I said, "I think so... I'm not really sure... I like to take photos."
Then he says, "Oh yeah? I used to be an artist, before I started working for The Corporation."
So... after about an hour of talking, I find out he's an ex-hippie... used to take acid all the time... eventually cut his hair and got a steady job. Now he's a security guard. He said that he used to be a poet and that he just recently sold his memoirs to Random House for a million dollars, "I'm just waiting for them to send me the check, so I can quit my job."
