Archive for February, 2003

My Camera: Public Enemy Number One or Another Pixel Bites the Dust

Location : New Haven, CT

Date : Saturday, February 8th, 2003

Case No: 24775b

It was an overly chilly day and the evening light was pefect. Katerina and I decided to go on a walk about and see if we could take a photograph or two. When we walk to New Haven Green, towards Yale, we usually walk through this court yard inbetween the post office and some other buildings. It is a unique court yard with a mix of cement, brick, glass and a giant-phalic-lipstick-shaped sculpture. It had just snowed and the contrast between all these elements were beautiful. We snapped off a few shots and started on our way towards the green. We weren’t more the 20 feet out of the court yard when we heard this yelling behind us. “HEY!, HEY YOU!” We turned around not suspecting that the yelling was for us, but we were wrong.

Did you know that taking pictures of Federal building has been illegal since 1970? No? Well, neither did we. We also didn’t know that we were in the middle of a federal plaza, and that the terrorist alert was orange (I guess that is bad)

An armed Federal Security Guard is running towards us. We stop. He wants to know what we were doing there. I told him that the light was great and that we were just taking pictures. He didn’t seem to care about our aesthetic sensibilities and began grilling us with questions and telling us what-was-what. I had a hard time taking him seriously, until he told me that this was an arrestable offense. OK you have our attention. Yes, sir. No, sir. I had no idea, sir. He takes my I.D. and walks away to call me in.

Now normally I wouldn’t worry, but unfortunately he was going to call in and he was going to find out that I have been arrested before on photography charges. Just before I left Portland, Oregon to move here, I had one last assignment. I was working with a local recording studio doing a pro bono photoshoot for what we believed to be an up and coming band. Payment to be delivered upon their success. Now their music had a gritty side to it and they had just spent all the cash they had to drive to Portland from Montana. I thought that the train track analogy was perfect. We packed up the band, the producer, and my partner and we headed to an industrial section of Portland. The location provided an ample amount of industrial strength backdrop and a curving-into-the-horizon set of train tracks. Perfect!

Armed with some guitars, a snare drum, some tatoo’s and a couple camera’s, we headed out onto the tracks. The pictures were going to be great. A perfect end to the strange trip that was Portland. We were wrapping up the shoot and walking off the tracks, when a white Jeep Cherokee drives up with it’s red and blues flashing. Great, what the hell is this. We can’t quite hear him, as he mumbles a few words and point to our vehicles across the street. My partner walks up to him and asks him to repeat himself. The guy nervously yells for us to get across the streat and wait for him. Uh, O.K. no problem. He turns away from us and talks into his radio.

Now here we made a fatal error in judgement. We assumed that this guy was just a security guard, nothing more. It turned out to be a horrible assumption. Within minutes two Portland Police cruisers were on site and my partner was handcuffed in the back of one of them. I am doing a song and dance to get us out of this situation, as were are now being charged with Criminal Trespassing, Felony Tampering, Resisting Arrest and Interfering with a Police Officer. We found out that “railroad cops” are really cops and we had really pissed this one off. Now the Portland PD officers were really cool. We were playing them the demo tapes and showing them the previews of the pics on the LCD. They were impressed.

“Hey, you guys look cold!” the Federal Guard shouts out us, breaking me out of my flashback. “Freezing!”. He tells us to come around the corner with him and get out of the wind. Cool. this guy has a heart. We are there for about a half an hour, and the great light that we were out there for is all but gone. He comes over and tells us that it is a $175 fine, and that he has to confiscate our cameras. Arrest I can handle, $175 fine no problem, but he thinks for a second that I am going to give him my camera, I am in a world of shit.

Katerina has a breakthrough idea, having a beautiful mind afterall. We can erase the pictures. Of course, we CAN erase the pictures! I explain the process and let him watch while we do it. He is satisfied and he let’s us go. I didn’t have to defend my camera’s life with my own. No handcuffs, no court dates, no comical stories about how I was arrested for taking pictures to the judge. No reduction of charge to a misdemeanor trespassing. Won’t have to fight to get my pictures back, and fail. I don’t have to forget to pay my laughable $55.00 fine, so when a Federal Security Guard does a background check on me, I won’t shit my pants.

Garth Leach: Outlaw Photographer.

Some Things Just Don’t Make Sense

Menu, at a restaurant in Vermont, read’s “Combo Plate for Two – Minimum Order Two – $12.00 each”. I had only one drink, maybe that is why this seemed like such a difficult math equation. Even Einstein would have needed a couple of chalk boards for this. This challenge, this conundrum, this puzzle that only Satan himself could have written, if I could only find the answer I was sure that I would know the meaning of life.

A combo plate for two, easy enough. Enough food for me and Katerina, perfect.

Question #1 Minimum of two, wait, does this mean two people or two combo plates for two?

Answer #1 or Question #2: $12 each, is that for each person in a combo plate for two? Why don’t they call it a combo plate for two for $24.00

I recruit family and friends who are at the table to help me.

Answer #2 and/or Question #3: $12 each. Wait, is that for each person, being four, if the answer to #1 is two combo plates for two? Why don’t they call it a party plate feeding four for $48.00

Answer #3 and/or Question #4: O.K. so let’s say that it costs $12 for each combo plate for two…then what is the minimum of two? Do I have to buy two? Do I have to have another person there to eat it with me?

I recruit the waitress, and kindly ask her to bring me another drink before I can fully wrap my brain around this. She walks away. She comes back. I take a sip and look her directly in the eyes and say:

Garth – “I would like to order a combo plate for two, is that enough for two people?”

Waitress – “Yes it is, but there is a minimum of two.”

Garth – Blank stare.

Garth - “A minimum of two what?”

Waitress – “You have to order two combo plates for two.”

Garth – Blank stare

Garth – “If I have to order two, then why do you call it a combo plate for two.Why not call it a combo plate for four?”

Waitress – Blank stare

Garth – Blank stare. Sip of drink. Thinks to himself, “I am going to get her on this one”

Waitress - “Because it is a lot of work just to make it for two, so we just say minimum of two, this makes it worthwhile.”

Garth – “OK but why don’t you just say a combo plate for four”?

Waitress – “It is too many letters.”

Garth – Blank stare.

Garth – “Huh?”

Waitress – Blank stare

Garth – “Too many letters for what?”

Waitress – “The menu.”

Garth – “No, it’s not.”

Waitress – “Yes it is.”

Garth - “I see”

Garth - “Can I have another drink”

A drink later and enough food for four people has come, because we got two combo platters for two people. Though, Katerina just told me that we actually got three for six people. We all dig in, and Katerina notices that there are only two shrimp. That is two shrimp for four people, because we got two combo plates for two. Now had we only got one combo plate that means that we would have only got one shrimp. That is not enough for two people. Which brings me back to my original question – “Is the combo plate for two enough food for two people.”

See what I mean? The meaning life is still as elusive as it ever was.