Boy Scouts on a Mountain

I just returned from a trip to Vail, Colorado with a couple of my buddies from high school. I dubbed our trio the Heroes of Paschal High because that is the name of the high school we attended in Fort Worth, Texas in the early sixties. I think of us as heroes because we showed that cool, if not somewhat nerdy, guys did not have to be cheerleaders or members of phony social clubs. We marched to the beat of a different drummer and all our lives turned out just as well (if not better) than many of our so-called popular contemporaries.

Another thing that I shared with my buddies was that we were all members of Scout Troop 21 in Fort Worth and often went camping, canoing and so on together. We are all proud of the many things we learned from those experiences. Not the least of which was the Boy Scout motto: Always be prepared!

On the last day in Vail we decided to ride the Eagle Bahn Gondola to the top of the mountain. Once at the top we headed off on a little hike along one of the many trails there. About an hour into our trek we realized that we had forgotten our Boy Scout motto. We had brought no water, no way to start a fire and none of us had a knife (thanks TSA). Because of the bad weather that day there were very few other people around. We stood in disbelief as we realized how unprepared we were.

Then all at once, as if choreographed, each of us instinctively reached for our cell phones. As each hoisted our phone into the air we simultaneously blurted out "I have a signal!" It was then that we knew we were OK. Boy Scouts of old relied on canteens, flints and Bowie knives but we modern troopers needed only our trusty cell phones to make us feel secure.

Below are pictured the Heroes of Paschal High having lunch at Sweet Basil restaurant in Vail. From left to right: Ron Scott, Ken Routh and Bob Coalson.

My Response to an Ad-Hoc Art Critic

I got the following email while on vacation this week:

375 bucks for a pic of a pile of cola and beer garbage.. you're not serious... most of your photos are boring... sorry but like simon from idol I feel you should hear the truth....

Note the lack of capitalization and overuse of ellipses, always a tip-off that you are dealing with someone who slept a lot in high school English class. Initially I responded thinking he was someone who had inquired earlier about stock image pricing. Anyway, here is how I responded once I realized my mistake:

Dan:

I must apologize. I sent you the wrong reply. I thought you were the person who had inquired about stock photography. You see, I got your email on my Treo phone while sitting in First Class on Continental sipping an imported beer on the way back from my Summer vacation in Vail, Colorado. I did not have the original stock request email on my Treo, having read and filed it on my laptop at the Vail condo while enjoying a fine Chianti wine prior to a gourmet dinner with old friends.

So, it appears that you are simply someone perusing the Galleries on my photography site www.ronscott.com . First, let me explain the mechanics of my site. Everything is run by server-side scripts and each one of my images is offered up automatically with two options to buy prints for wall decor (or collecting). Pricing for all images on my site is the same and does not necessarily reflect what I think the image is worth, just what I think the market might pay for a nice print of any of my images. Art is in the eye of the beholder.

I presume that the image you referenced as "a pic of a pile of cola and beer garbage" is the one titled "Beer Cola" in my "Signs of the Times" Gallery. This image is much more than just a photo of garbage. As art critic Dick Gazinia put it: "This image is a metaphor for the dichotomy of modern lifestyle. The juxtaposition of the remnants of the consumption of both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages cuts a swath across all levels of society."

As far as my photos being boring, I would have been offended by your crude and neophyte remarks. However, your reference to the Fox program "American Idol" and it's no-talent ass-clown creator and host Simon whatever-his-name relieved me of any pain. Clearly you still rely upon training wheels when riding through the modern art landscape and I suspect that as a child you rode to school on the short bus.

Until next time...

Ron Scott


Blog readers: If you guessed that "Dick Gazinia" is not a real art critic, most likely you did not ride to school on the short bus.

August 22 Update:

I got a response from Dan (see below). Note the all lowercase text, run-on sentence, lack of punctuation and misspelling. Yep, he definitely slept through English class.

sure would like to be as deluded as you and your colleges it must be
nice to be so stuck on self and like personalities so as to live in your
own worlds with delusions.of grandeurs and appreciate the mundane so readily building into it that which is not there.

I have decided not to reply. It is unfair to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed fellow.

Perils of Peeling Out at the Ice House

In the past two years I have witnessed three auto wipe outs by people leaving the West Alabama Ice House. In all cases the drivers have done what we called as teenagers a peel out. Today it is also referred to as a burnout, although in these three cases not much smoke was generated, just a big crash at the end. Also common to all three instances was the consumption of adult beverages prior. However, the blame in all cases clearly falls upon the drivers and their hubris.

A small contributing factor (that all three drivers failed to take into consideration) is that with both a carwash and the Ice House's ice coolers nearby, the gutter of the street, which all crossed, always has some water standing in it. A little extra lubrication on the tires (as well as on the psyche of the driver) goes a long way to helping the situation go bad real quickly. In every case the driver turned from McDuffie Street onto West Alabama and then punched it, eventually losing it somewhere down Alabama Street.

In the first instance involving the Mustang, the obviously intoxicated driver was refused service at the Ice House and became enraged. Peeling out must have been his way to show his displeasure if not his false sense of macho (a common thread). After colliding with a sturdy light pole, he bolted the scene and disappeared into the neighborhood. The cops caught up with him later and he was, as they say, "cuffed and stuffed".

The situation with the Corvette was a bit different. I arrived just after the wreck but here is what I was told had transpired: The Corvette's driver had a very cute and flirtatious girlfriend. One of the Ice House regulars had been reciprocal in the flirtation and this annoyed the boyfriend. Once again, trying to regain the upper hand in the macho game, his peel out was meant to show who was top dog while attempting to impress the tarty girlfriend. This incident was the only one involving another moving vehicle. The Vette slammed head on into a smaller car coming the other direction. Fortunately the air bags in that car and the weight of the Vette kept all involved from serious injury.

In the most recent event involving the 1967 Shelby Cobra, the culprit was a mix of alcohol and inability. Also this was the only female (we think) driver involved. Now I am not saying that women cannot be as able drivers as men (don't want to tick off the NASCAR crowd) but clearly this one did not have the skills of the other two drivers. If you watch the video (see link below) you will see that she has trouble getting the car in the right gear or any gear at all. But eventually she got it going forward and peeled out down West Alabama towards a street named (of all things) Hazard! She lost it just shy of that intersection and slammed into a car parked at an auto repair shop on the corner. Fortunately the shop was closed and nobody was in the car (which will be in the shop just a bit longer than its owner anticipated).

The moral to these three tales: don't peel out at the Ice House. It always ends badly.

To see a video of the Cobra wipe out, click the link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNLpZdDz-1k

Unfortunately, no videos of the other two wipe outs. Guess the third time is the charm (oops, sorry about that).

Passport Photos

I got a call yesterday morning and the fellow on the other end asked if I did passport photos. I laughed and told him that I had not shot a passport photo since I was a young pup photographer working for Don Barnett Photography in Fort Worth, Texas in the late 60's. I advised him to go to either the Post Office (one that does passports) or to a Kinko's or similar to get one taken.

This call did remind me of the old days before Polaroid and now digital cameras when we had to do it "old style". Back when I worked for Don in FW we shot passport photos on 4x5 Tri-X film on a large view camera. We took two exposures only. This required a single film holder which held 2 sheets of film, one on each side. The film was developed and dried. We picked the best of the two negatives (or the one with the eyes open) and printed two copies of the passport photo on black and white photographic paper which also had to be developed and dried and finally cut to the exact size required by the passport office.

Because of the odd size required by the passport office, none of our standard easels that held the photo paper under the enlarger were just right. So we had to jigger around a bit to get the two prints done. One day after having to fool around with all this many times I decided to make a little cardboard jig to make things go quicker and easier. Don noticed on that day that it was taking me a little longer than normal to get the two passport prints done. He stuck his head in the darkroom and queried "What the &*%# is taking you so long". I replied that I was making this little jig to make the job easier the next time. In response Don grumbled "If you just did it the way we always do it and quit wasting time on your little projects you would have it done by now." That was just how Don thought about things. However, the next time he had to print up some passport photos he came and thanked me for making it so much easier to do.