"P-Dog"

Hip Hop cassette classic.

"Trading Card Jones"

There use to be quite a few card shops in the Northeast, around 4 or 5 in the early to mid 90's. Recently, I started revisiting one of those card shops. The last one left called "Comics, Cards and Collectibles" on Dyer Street. Around every two months or so I go back to check and see if the owner got those DC Milestone comics he says he has that I keep askin' about. The comics are never there but I always end up finding a box set of cards I use to collect as a kid. The first was the Skybox Milestone Dakota Universe Trading Card box set. It includes a caption on the box that says, "Because Great Cards Are Hard to Find". The second box set I found was the YO! MTV Raps collection from 91'. I haven't collected cards in well over a decade. Back then, I was never able to get around to buyin' a whole box set cause of the cost so when I find the box sets today for around 10 dollars, its a real cool suprise.

This year my family got me a pack of President Obama trading cards for my birthday which I was real hype about. Like I said, having not collected cards in so long, nostalgia hit. Most recently, again, I visited the "Comics, Cards and Collectibles" shop lookin' for my DC Milestones and found another trading card series that I use to collect. The Collegiate Wild Cards. Above is Kenny Anderson, which out of the hundred plus cards in this set, is one of the five worth keeping. Still though, it was cool find. Check out Kenny Anderson here: youtube.com

"soulVerse (photos)"

"Becky & Me"
-click on image-

"...The only one of my kind in so many places,
Alone. In two worlds at the same time."

*Quote from Joe Pacheco's poem titled "The First of the Nuyoricans"
Dedicated to Sonia Maria Sotomayor

"Digital Tears"
-click on image-

Online Life After Death: CNN Article: click here

"Death in the digital age"

"Malcolm X & Bob Haggans"

"But I'm gonna tell you something. I learned an awful lot from this man. He changed my whole life. He changed my attitude about myself. He changed my attitude in relation to other Black people. He said the average Black man don't know what time it is, that's why he can't keep time, he don't know what time it is. He said the first thing you gotta do in the morning is find out what time it is. Then find out how the world is and your relationship to that world. What role do you play? Then you can understand how and who you are. If you don't know who you are, you can't do much." (p. 42)

*Excerpt from:
By Any Means Necessary; The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of Malcolm Xby Spike Lee

| Quote above is from Bob Haggans, Malcolm's "unofficial" photographer |

"Same Ties"

Photograph by: A.Webb

"Buttons"

"Your life is defined by its opportunities,

even the ones you miss." - Benjamin*

Photograph from Benjamin Button (film)*

"The Open Stage 2009"

"Gordon Parks"
Voices in the Mirror

Gordon Parks - "Another significant realization had taken hold - a good documentary photographer's work has as much to do with his heart as it does with his eye. The smoke from those bonfires in Washington gave off some more signals about using the camera to serve a humane purpose. I had learned that it can lie; that not only was it capable of being untruthful, but also that it could be Machiavellian. It all depended on how its users chose to see things. They could wait for a pleasant smile or a frown to cover their subject's face before tripping the shutter. With deliberate intent, an extremely low angle could change a comely face into one of ugliness, and the most righteous human being could be made to look evil. What individuals actually stand for, good or bad, now urges me to try to catch the truth of them. I learned to use the camera as a means of persuasion as long as that persuasiveness is conducted with a sense of fair play. Yet, I remained aware of the possibility that what may appear as truth to me may not be acceptable as truth to others. That's the way things are." (p.87)

"Staring at ASARCO"

Recently, I came across a photo essay request at Newspaper Tree titled "Asarco Smoke Stack" click here. I thought I had a picture of the giant cigarette and wanted to submit it. About three years ago I visited my grandmother's grave in Juárez. At the time I had a Logitech Pocket Digital 130 camera with me, my first digital camera. In (2006) it had been several years since I'd visited Juárez. Most of my life up until the late 90's, every Sunday my mother, father, younger brother and I would visit my grandmother and have dinner with members of my mother's family. I believe the street my grandmother lived on was called Arroyo de las Viboras. Especially during the late 80s early 90s and especially on cold nights, the sky above us would be low and thick with smoke. When my grandmother passed away, they said her lungs were like rocks. She never smoked. No one knew my grandmother's true age and for the last few years of her life her breathing was assissted with treatments.

When I was in middle school, our basketball team was headed out towards the West Side of El Paso in a school bus for a game. It was around the time that the Arrested Development song, "Revolution" was making a lot of noise. I recall a teammate and I redoing the song when we passed by ASARCO, replacing the word "Revolution" with "Pollution". As we sang the revised lyrics out loud we laughed at our impression of the song. When I think about it now it plays back like a strange gray memory with no sound.

One of the last times I saw my grandmother, I sat at the end of her hospital bed. The room was dark and like most visits of grave circumstance in a hospital, the machines supporting my grandmother silenced the life around her. At that moment, I recall wanting to talk to my grandmother and to remember as much as I could about her. However, she was deep in her sleep with her eyes cracked open staring past the realization that anyone was there.

I'm glad ASARCO is never going to open again. I guess no one can prove if the copper smelter had any health implications on people that have lived around it, but sometimes I wonder.

The picture above was taken when I visited my grandmother's grave in 2006. My camera didn't have any zoom. The intention was to capture the smelter pipe that seems to hover above everything else that surrounds it.

Whenever I pass by the ASARCO or am at a location where I can see it, these thoughts cross my mind.

"Blackberry (Pearl Flip)"

*Got a new cell phone, 2 Megapixel Camera,

"Chess Nights"

"PSP (Video Games 09')"

The new generation.

"Zoo (Kodak)"

*Courtesy of my lil' brother, Isaiah. A pic from his first camera session.

"2009"

"Cell Phone View"
-King, Obama & X-

Cover of a shirt my younger brother got me.

"Taekwondo Dad S.Korea (70's)"

"Montana Street, TX"

A shot from my cell phone.

"2008"

Life and times.