I’ve been going to a digital photography competition site called dpchallenge for several years (my profile is here). It is unlike any site I’ve ever been involved with in that it has the strongest sense of community of any virtual group I’ve seen. I’ve seen the group come together and collect donations to finance a cross country trip for a member whole adult daughter was in the hospital on the opposite coast. I’ve seen them start an impromptu contest with an entry fee (there normally is none) with all the proceeds going to replace a camera that had been stolen from one of the members. I’ve seen members pool frequent flier miles to get a mother who was in bad financial shape to her daughter’s wedding. There have been many other similar instances. In every case more funds were raised than was needed. It is just that tight of a group.

Life has been busy for the last several months so I’ve not been on there much before last night, so it was with much sadness that I learned one of the members had died unexpectedly. His name was Sean Matos and he went by JawnyRico on the site. He was an amazing photographer but, more importantly, a great guy. I was caught by an unexpected wave of emotion on reading that he’d died. It was made worse by the fact that he was only 27.

I’m not sure why it affected me as strongly it did because I didn’t know him personally. I really only knew about him from discussion threads in which he has participated and photos he has entered in various contests but I had seen enough to know that he was a good guy and was well liked. So I went on to read the thread discussing his passing. The outpouring of grief from people who had never met him in person was touching and was frankly getting to me when a post stopped me cold. His wife, who wasn’t involved in the site, logged into his account and posted to the thread. Even in her obvious grief she’d taken the time to come there to thank everyone for their support and condolences. It was touching beyond words. Here is her post:

This is Melissa, Sean’s wife. Wow. I am so amazed to see what all of you thought of his beautiful photographs. I always knew how talented and special Sean was, and how his gifts could touch people’s lives. It truly takes my breath away to see how much he meant to so many of you. The latest challenge “The Cowboy” being in honor of my husband, means so much to me. He loved photography. It was such a passion of his. We spent hours together working on these photos and traveling to different places to take them. I will miss that. Thank you so much for all your love and support through this time. It is a huge loss in my life. The love of my life, and my forever best friend is no longer here. I pray that I get through this with the support of my family here and the wonderful support from all of you. Thank you so much for helping Sean and honoring him now.

I love you all!!

I went from choked up to tearful then I read on. As the thread unfolded the site admins made his profile a permanent page as a memorial and his wife returned to say that she was taking up photography as her way of staying connected with her late husband. She created her own profile and for a user name chose “Luvagirl”, a nickname her husband had given her back when they were just dating which was evidently when they were 15 or 16. I’m can’t find the words to express how moved I was. I then went to his profile page to look at some of his work. I’d always liked his stuff but hadn’t really looked at it as a single body of work before. Before I ever got to the photos I made the mistake of reading his profile. In part it read:

Love two things, my wife Melissa, and photography. Found this site and it rocks with all the talent, info, learning, and incredible photographers of all types. Hope to learn lots with editing and improving my people shots. Always remember to never take life to seriously, nobody gets out alive anyway. Thanks for stopping by, and we hope you shop with us again soon.

Signature – Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, where the heck is the ceiling.

How prophetic and how terribly sad. I was far from together after reading all of that but then I noticed the user status on the profile. Every profile shows the same line but I never thought much about it until this time. It read:

Status: User is currently offline

I don’t ever recall something so innocuous eliciting the emotional reaction that single line did. It connected with me somewhere deep within and left me completely wrung out. I feel more like I’ve lost a family member than someone I knew of online. And I keep thinking that, but by the grace of God that could be me. As I sit here in need of a tissue I find that I cannot fathom what his wife must have had to endure. My heart goes out to her. I’ve included a few of his pictures below as my own little tribute to him but it hardly seems enough. Perhaps the bigger tribute is in taking his advice: never take life to seriously, nobody gets out alive anyway.

/g

Click on the images to see the originals complete with his commentary.

The title of this shot is “Forever Best Friends”. The same term his wife used to describe their relationship. How poignant.

I got to play water taxi to the kids for a stroll into the deep end. Since Justin tried to drown himself in my sister’s pool last year he has been a little freaked out and clingy around the water but today was digging it. Hopefully we are past that.

For the second time today Justin decided he wanted to take off and swim on his on. Far be it from me to interfere. In fact, I felt obligated to provide a little motivation by chasing them.

After swimming and a brief rest we went over to the great grandparent’s house to visit. Courtney spanked me at Chutes and Ladders. Stupid long slide….

Around 5:30 a professional swing/ragtime band set up by the community pool that is directly out the back door and started playing. This was shot standing in the back door. We opened up all the windows on the sunroom in the back and got a free concert. I have video too that I’ll put up later.

While they were playing we had to suffer through this sunset…

…while the house was filled with the aroma of this cooking. I made a 7 layer lasagna that was criminally good. It will be even better tomorrow and the day after. yay! This shot is scratch-and-sniff. Give it a go.

My mother-in-law suggested I it would be more honest to post the wider version of that shot. I sorta trashed her kitchen in the process of making it. Luckily she really, really likes my lasagna and all was forgiven. After I cleaned it up, of course…

On a scale of 1 to 10 today would be somewhere around an 11, I guess. I think I’m just gonna skip the rest of the week. It could only be down hill from here.

/g

OK, they’ve done it. They’ve finally done it. They have made me write my first crotchety old man post. I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard a song called “Addicted” by the band Saving Abel. I’d heard it before but hadn’t actually listened to the lyrics. Now, let me start out by saying that I am not a prude or even close to it. I may not like the state of what passes for morality these days, but I know the score. I really don’t offend easily but when I actually listened to that song I realized that the lyrics are grossly inappropriate for radio. Well, they’re inappropriate in any context if I’m being completely honest, but even more so on a mainstream radio station. So you know what I am talking about here are the first several lines from the song:

I'm so addicted to
All the things you do
When you're going down on me
In between the sheets
Or the sound you make
With every breath you take
It's unlike anything
When you're loving me

Oh girl lets take it slow
So as for you,
Well you know where to go
I want to take my love
And hate you til the end

I won’t even bother to dissect that little bit of prose. If you need it explained, you really shouldn’t be reading this to begin with. I’m not naïve and I know that there have been lyrics that bad and worse for many years but it used to be that those were only heard by those who bought the album, not on the radio. I grew up when songs like “Pour Some Sugar on Me” got tons of airplay. Rather or not that was also inappropriate is a whole other discussion but at least, at least the overt sexual references were made metaphorically. These lyrics are not just explicit, they are crass.

What ever happened to radio versions of songs? Well, I guess that concept still exists somewhat because on the same station I’ve heard sanitized versions of other songs where drug references are omitted, if just barely. Why that and not this? While I’m on the subject I have another ax to grind. Why is it where ever the term “God damn” is used they bleep “God” and not “damn”? I mean, really. Can someone please explain the thought process that led to that practice? I guess they think we find God more offensive than expletives. By they I mean the brain dead morons at the broadcasting companies, of course. Which would you rather have your child ask:”What does God mean?” or “What does damn mean?” I sincerely hope they wouldn’t have to ask the former, but you get my point. And I know there will be someone who reads this and thinks that I’m overreacting. I would just ask that if that’s you, please email me your phone number. That way, if my kids do somehow hear that song I can call and let you explain it to my six year old when she asks me “Daddy, what does ‘going down on’ mean?” On second thought, nevermind. I’ll field that one, you just stay clear of my kids. Thanks.

You see, I used to listen to the radio in my car when the kids were along. Then it got where the subject matter in the morning and afternoon talk shows were bad enough I couldn’t listen to them with children present. I usually wouldn’t even when alone for that matter. But at least we could listen to the radio the rest of the day when they are actually playing music. We can’t even do that anymore. You just never know what is going to come out of the speakers.

The frustrating thing is that it need not be that way. Equally popular is the song “1,2,3,4″ by Plain White T’s that could’ve been ripped straight from out of the 50′s. Here is the first little bit of that song’s lyrics:

Give me more loving than I’ve ever had
Make me feel better when I’m feeling sad
Tell me I’m special even when I know I’m not
Make it feel good when it hurts so bad
Barely get mad
I’m so glad I found you
I love being around you
You make it easy

It's as easy as 1-2-1-2-3-4
There’s only one thing two do
three words four you...
(I love you) I love you
There’s only one way two say
Those three words
And that’s what I’ll do...
(I love you) I love you

See? Isn’t that nice? OK, so that may be the other extreme, but I’m OK with that. You know, I’m not one of those people who think that any and all sexual references in songs are inappropriate. I’m really not. I think music, or at least good music, is not just listened to, it is experienced. Listening to music that finds you where you are can be a visceral experience. That music both expresses and invokes strong emotion. Given that the most intense human emotions revolve around love, including physical expression of it, I would find it odd it the topic didn’t come up fairly often in music.

Look, I’m not picking on Saving Abel here. The thing that annoys me most, in fact, is how much I liked the song before I stopped and listened to it. And now I can’t. Not all of their music is objectionable and they are far from the only ones out there today spewing garbage onto our airwaves. All I’m asking is this: Keep it tasteful. It doesn’t have to be explicit and it certainly doesn’t need to be crude. If it is, let those who want to buy it listen to it. I don’t need that much detail about you via public broadcast. I think the term is T.M.I. That’s all I’m sayin’. Now, if you’ll excuse me while I go put my soap box back in the closet. In the mean time, thanks for listening.

/g