The Starry-eyed Environmental Guru

Some people are either ahead of their times or others may say

they're 'not connected'. This wide-eyed environmental guru in Santa

Cruz, California -- a place that never really said good-bye to

the '60s and its hippies -- is trying to convert the world to burning

french fry oil (huile de pommes frites) in place of

gasoline/benzine/petrol in his vehicle. Here at a 'Farmers Market'

in his home town. Your ratings and critiques are invited and most

welcome. If you rate harshly or very critically, please submit a

helpful and constructive comment; please share your superior

photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thanks!

Enjoy! John

I'm a founding member of the Sierra Club (before it reduced into an organization that primarily sues), and have the greatest respect for the world's need for alternative fuels.

 

This fellow revealed that he burns french fry oil in his diesel vehicle for transport, and since it's essentially 'free' for him, he reasons that's the 'cure' for the world's fuel shortages and he's devoted much of his life to converting the world to burning 'free' french fry oil.

 

(Regrettably, he couldn't answer one simple question: 'If a group of people with converted diesels started bidding for the french fry oil from the restaurants that give it to you free, then how much would it cost -- would it remain free?)

 

The answer to the above question probably should be obvious to most -- there's hardly enough leftover french fry grease to take a fleet of ten trucks from Mexico border in the south to the Oregon border in California's north -- just one time (someone did the calculations -- honest!!!).

 

Actually I think the scientist's calculation involved far fewer the ten trucks.

 

In any case, diesel engines will burn almost anything that's liquid and full of carbon, albeit with plenty of exhaust smoke, but the problem is there's very little of such liquid hydrocarbons compared to the country's (and world's) needs, and what this fellow sees as an easy 'solution' to oil dominance just can't be sustained if there are more than a few such vehicles.

 

In any case, if push comes to shove, he suggests studies show that we can make fuel (petrol) out of water . . . . . and so the scientists will be turning oceans into oil and then we'll have no energy problems at all. . . .

 

And so, if this guy's french fry oil runs out, he'll start converting water, once the science is perfected.

 

Such is the community in Santa Cruz, California -- a lovely place where this armload of mid-March flowers was harvested.

 

;~)

 

John (Crosley)

... Brassai did it in Paris, and we are left with at least a sense of what Paris was like in the 30's. It won't be long before Silicon Valley completely takes over Santa Cruz and these California originals will be gone from there, replaced by young corporate types drinking blue martinis, smoking cigars and listening to soft jazz. Sorry, that really isn't a note of bitterness, but it happened in Santa Monica, it happened in all the beach towns in Southern California. It's moving up from the south and south from San Francisco and Santa Cruz will succumb, just like everyone else. C'est dommage. One day we'll look at these pictures with a sense of nostalgia for lost freedom and lost innocence.

Well, who can refuse the charm of someone carrying flowers and looking straight at you? The perspective is engaging and I like how it points back to the truck in the background. Photographing people is quite a challenge and you are the master of the genre.

I met a man named 'Bear' in Santa Cruz. He had been a businessman in Southern California who about 20 years ago 'dropped out'.

 

I asked him why he called himself 'Bear' and he answered: 'does a bear **** in the woods?'

 

The implication was that he called himself 'Bear' because he lived in the woods, which are just down the old logging train tracks to Felton through heavily populated woods -- full of bums, dopies and street people.

 

'Bear' also once had been a tobacco-style auctioneer -- something I marvel at when I hear them go through their spiel, and also sang wonderful country music. He had started at about age 13 singing and performing at County Fairs throughout California. He was the 'genuine thing'. He should have been recorded, if only for a limited distribution or for PBS.

 

Well, Santa Cruz, because of its proximity to the 'woods' where 'Bear' (*)hat, may be one reason the area never will be rid of its old timers.

 

It's also the Lesbian capital of California and maybe the West Coast -- second maybe to San Francisco in terms of total numbers, but in percentages there are a very large number of lesbians in Santa Cruz who live openly lesbian lifestyles.

 

Want a lesbian realtor, there are several . . . and not just two lipstick lesbians, either. And the other week, I was on main street (Pacific Avenue) when 20 naked 'Dykes on Bikes' drove by in formation in their Harleys (yes, i got photos, but they were not wonderful and it was after dark; they were usable photos but not exemplary enough to show here or I would have shown them, you can be sure.

 

Seems the fat seats of a Harley were made for these dykes, also, as none of them was 'young and pretty' . . . in the sense I know . . . . there wasn't a girly girl among them, not even as a rear seat occupant.

 

But the did make a statement, and they may not have been 'local' as 'Dykes on Bikes' is a Bay Area (San Francisco/San Pablo) phenomenon, not just Monterey Bay. (lots of bays hereabouts).

 

Well, with the woods full of people like this guy (or his cohorts as I don't know where he lives), there is a daily and nightly inundation of the downtown.

 

But as you predicted, after the '89 Earthquake ane all the street people who hung out and panhandled aggressively, things have changed.

 

Old businesses are being gobbled up by chain stores, though the venerable Pizza My Heart pizza restaurant (the second in a chain and its mainstay), still gets all the town's citizens who have the munchies for a NY Slice, which means just about everybody.

 

And we all know what causes the munchies, don't we; and so the woods here (as well as North of San Francisco) are noted for their fertility in growing weed -- a pot smoker is known in singles magazine code as being '404 friendly' or some such, after the number of a state law relating to drugs/marijuana.

 

And the state officially has decriminalized marijuana in medicina quantities,and all of the students and old-timers in Santa Cruz have their 'Prescriptions' at the ready.

 

It's virtually impossible to get a conviction in urban California for violating pot laws, and in fact the cities of Oakland and San Francisco officially sanctioned so-called 'pot clubs' -- cooperatives where marijuana was sold, but it's still against federal law (the state law is invalid in 'decriminalizing marijuana) as any lawyer (or ex-lawyer) can tell you.

 

Once recently the federal government tried the head of an Oakland pot club for violating federal laws, even though he was sponsored by City of Oakland (a fact kept from the jury along with other facts), and the nice man was convicted. He got 1 day in jail, and I think credit for time served -- essentially they just took away his right to vote in certain states (not in California where felons can vote after parole is finished, or during their probation.).

 

But in Washington, Oregon, Nevada and numerous other states, having a felony conviction takes away the right to vote (don't quote me on the law of each of those states - they may have changed since I researched it.)

 

And if the poor guy goes to Nevada overnight, he must 'register' as a convicted felon . . . .

 

All for his $1 fine and a day in jail (time served).

 

Phyrric victory for the United States.

 

But the doctors, lawyers and others all imbibe in marijuana, or so I am told (I'm allergic so I stay away from the stuff.)

 

And as long as their are woods and the University of California acts as a feeder for the couterculture (which it does, and the campus is growing too), then there will be a population of guys like this guy.

 

But you're right about Brassai, although i'd rather make my reputatio taking 'Crosley' photographs rather than Brassai photographs of the druggies and fake hippiees (most are bums) who populate the woods, and harass the citizenry (not all, but many).

 

So, in that respect, maybe Santa Cruz will be somewhat different than Santa Monica and other places that turned too chi-chi, like nearby Capitola Village (my semi-official residence for some purposes).

 

Though the downtown is getting more and more chi-chi, downtown streetside hootenannies are still happening regularly, and in that respect, Santa Cruz is more like Berkeley.

 

Still, electronic barons from over the hill in Silicon Valley or from nearby Scotts Valley do like to move to Santa Cruz for the fresh air (I had a neighbor in La Selva Beach who for a while -- until they shut him down -- had his own private helipad out in our flower-growing country overlooking the ocean.

 

The guy I bought my former property from was a chiropractor who bought what may have been one of the most spectacular ocean views without ever seeing the ocean. 'I could hear the waves, but couldn't see the ocean,' he told me later, because of the thick summer fog.

 

He paid $8,000 for what later turned out to be a million-dollar view and five acres, because that onetime farmhand liked 'the soil'. Yes, indeed, and now people are fighting to get their hands on that land.

 

It was time for me to get out.

 

I'm nearby now, (at least when I'm not abroad and still a legal resident I guess, but don't long to return; it's getting too sterile for my blood (I was that sterilie in my '40s, but i've regressed -- or progressed -- depending on how you look at it.)

 

But save your 'c'est dommages'; Santa Cruz is likely to be populated with this kind of guy for some time to come.

 

It cherishes its oddballs and pseudo-hippies or neo-hippies.

 

And so do I, truth be told.

 

Good observation worthy of a long discussion (see above for proof).

 

John (Crosley)

I'm no 'master' of the genre, but I hope my ability to make a pleasing composition shows through -- note the distribution of light and dark spaces in this photo and the offsetting grays of the flowers.

 

The proportions of the subject and the background in this photo are the main reason it got posted, as well as the eyes of our slightly ignorant but well-meaning 'guru' here.

 

He truly believes that 'like fish and loaves' you just can split up all tha french fry grease and power everything. He belonged in old Nazareth or Gallilee where people could challenge him to produce fuel from water or to divide up the french fry grease to fuel a fleet of cars to attend an environmental gathering where he could preach to them about 'flower power'.

 

Alas, he's no Jesus (but then neither am I), but at least he's sincere.

 

But this wasn't posted just to poke fun at his reasoning skils (that was an extra), but to show the 'look' on his face, there for a microsecond, and the proportions of lights and darks and offsetting multi-toned grays.

 

The object here, was to make and post a pleasing photo; no frills intended.

 

The story just kind of took off on its own power.

 

So, when you are outta gas and wanta to power your car with french fry grease (huile de pommes de terres), or are even more adventuresome and want to put water into your fuel tank to make petrol, just look this guy up; he's found a web site that explains it all 'just look at this web site and you'll see', he explained to me.

 

Maybe you can look for that web site in your spare time and post a link here; I want to get in on the ground floor of the ocean water to fuel bonanza.

 

;~)

 

John (Crosley)

A note: Aperture's web site shows some photos taken during the '60s of protestors, and they're becoming the photos that are showing our history.

 

I was browsing gallery art today and came across one artist who had an entire collection of photos taken of bystanders as the train bearing the slain Bobby Kennedy went past, and those who were waiting for the train (seems the photographer spent time on the train and time ahead waiting as well - must have been quick on his feet with a standby car and driver.)

 

Photojournalists and photo documentarians now create our visual history, but in the future, newspapers are talking about excerpting stills from television footage and dispensing with still photographers altogether. . . .

 

I think it will work to save money but will serve the message of the photo (whatever it might be) very poorly.

 

I try to add some photo composition to make things appeal; whether or not they're just of 'street oddballs'.

 

I want my photos to have appeal even if no one knows why they might some day be significant as little pieces of history.

 

John (Crosley)

I most carefully read your dissertations. I found them most interesting.

But nary a word was said about the photograph...Why not?

Bert

Actually there was discussion of the photograph, especially composition.

 

Perhaps you didn't look.

 

As for the photograph itself, it may have importance, as Dennis Aubrey said, for its chronicle of the City of Santa Cruz, which involves a discussion of WHY this city is different from others, hence the discussion about 'this guy'.

 

Also, these comments are free-wheeling -- most slightly relevant remarks are welcome here, including your questioning one.

 

John (Crosley)