Permanence

So Myrtle Beach. WTF. It kinda sucks! I was all “Beach is Beach, yo. Might as well go to a new place with beach, and experience that, right?” But no! Beach is not all the same! The town surrounding beach is not all the same, either! Let me tell you about it! (Warning: this is not a cheerful post, and it’s not even all that funny. It doesn’t wrap up with a feel-good, upbeat ending or anything.)

Savannah? Prettiest place in the world.

See, for the past few years I have vacationed in/around Savannah, Georgia, either in the city itself, or on Tybee Island. Savannah is the prettiest place in the world. If it weren’t for me not knowing a single soul there, I do believe I’d just move there. It’s lovely. It’s graceful and charming and it’s got a slow-paced, languid quality to it that speaks to me of imaginary times gone by when things just might have been easier to deal with. Seriously. Everything there is gorgeous. I’ve said before it’s the kind of beautiful you can’t even photograph, because it’s collective. It’s just beautiful thing after beautiful thing and you’re in the middle of all this enchantment and you can’t even capture it without being there. Old, perfectly restored homes, exquisite gardens and public parks, gigantic old live oaks dripping with Spanish Moss, cobblestone streets, hidden little corners and shops, magical, sleepy things to find everywhere. Tybee is also small, pretty and old fashioned.

Myrtle Beach is none of that.

Driving into town, one is inundated with signage. All the tacky, peeling indicators of impermanence. Fast food, discount stores, designer outlets, big box madness, all the awful, temporary things that make up our world right now. Flashing traffic lights, decaying billboards, nudie bars. When you get into the main part of town, “Ocean Boulevard,” you’re in the middle of a disaster of tacky surf shops, ice cream parlors, miniature golf, go-kart racing, stands selling everything from air-brushed t shirts to tattoos and cheap jewelry. Everything you think you want for five minutes, and discard easily five minutes later.

The buildings are huge and towering, 18 floors and up, each one studded with tiny jutting balconies at odder and odder angles, so that every room can boast an “ocean view” (you just have to crane your neck a bit.) You know none of these buildings were here forty years ago, and none of them will be here forty years hence. The people in this place are pretty much what you’d expect, too. It’s easy to see that this is probably a popular spring break destination, and there are plenty of spring-break types hanging around. There are families too, but there are a lot of young people. Sorry while I whack you with my cane here, but I am not a fan of young people in troupes. They’re loud and erratic and they tend to posture and flail about and altogether they can go sit in the basement with the kids until they know how to act right in public.

So my hotel room (Actually, quite nice. With ocean view!) had a small kitchenette, and I determined to go and get some bottled water/other drinks to take out on the beach with me. I made a trip to the mall (all the same things you can get in St. Louis! Only now you also get to transport them 1000 miles home!) and on the way back the only place I saw to stop and get snacks/drinks was… Wal-mart. Now, being a card-carrying progressive liberal pro-union, anti-waste feminist, I have not shopped in a Wal-mart in probably 15 years. Back when I was in college I went to the one in my town, because that was the only place to go, really. But since then, I’ve avoided them. But this time, I was hot and tired and I didn’t want to look for another place, so I went in. And you know, I realize this will sound very dramatic, but inside that store, I saw everything that’s wrong with our society. All in one tidy little big-box hellhole. Honestly. First of all, it’s clearly set up not for the comfort of patrons or workers, but to maximize profits. It was hot. The A/C was at a barely-tolerable level, and I was just walking around. I can’t imagine having to work all day in that place, as the air did not seem to move. Also, the light? It was gray. I do not know how they managed to make gray artificial light, but  they did somehow. Presumably they’d found some kind of hideous, gray light bulbs, designed to save $.03 per bulb, per year! Increasing shareholder value! And I felt like that awful gray light was leeching the will to live out of my damn soul. So it was hot and stagnant, with evil gray light that cast a deathly pall on everything. And dirty? It was awful, spills on the ground that no one had cleaned up, things flung everywhere in the aisles. The signage was awful, it made no sense, I could not find things. People were going up and down the aisles randomly, so the whole place was a traffic jam. They had some weedy, dirty looking produce, but the main action was in the pre-packaged convenience foods. There, there were cases of crap ripped open, plastic packaging everywhere, carts piled with high-fructose death and destruction. And I looked around at all these people randomly grabbing at this crap with their dirty, mewling children, and I realized just how far out of the mainstream I am.

The other day I was talking to a friend about American attitudes, and how if you took a snapshot of the country’s views, mine (and his) would not be represented. That even though we believe our own liberal ideals are where the country needs to go, that is nowhere near where the majority of the country actually is. And that’s what I saw so clearly at this Wal-mart from hell. That I live a rarefied, organic-produce kind of life. That I have the money and the spare time and the personal interest in leading a very different type of life than most people. That the things that concern me do not concern them. That they’re not worried about high-fructose corn syrup and over-packaged, over-processed food. They don’t care that they’re spending WAY LESS MONEY! to get WAY INFERIOR, DISPOSABLE PRODUCTS! They are fulfilling their needs in the way that’s been presented to them to do so. And it’s cheap. Jesus, I checked out with two big bags of (for me) snacky, crappy food, and it was less than $25. When I shop at home, I buy $4 loaves of bread and $6 organic preserves and $5 organic butter and $6 organic milk. It’s not enough that I have the free-range eggs, or the organic eggs, I have to have the free-range, organic eggs. And they do not come cheap. (And even then I worry that they come in plastic packaging. And my milk is organic, but it’s not in glass bottles, and really, should be I be spending more to get milk in glass? Am I Doing It Wrong?) So typically, breakfast for the week costs me $30. And I know that sounds like an assholish thing to say, and I understand the privilege I have in being able to live my life that way. Honestly I do. But I really had forgotten that the vast majority of people have no such interests and concerns. They want to get some food in their stomachs, and their kids’ stomachs, and they want things for the kids to play with, to shut them up (I agree, they should be shut up!) and they don’t care that those things are going to break by the time they get to the car.

Bizarre, baby-pageant style Paula Deen.

And to top it all off, I am standing there, sweltering, in the gray light, waiting to check out, and I am next to the magazine rack. And on sale are two “lifestyle” magazines, meant to be aspirational for the common person, I think. And they were “O” magazine, and “Cooking with Paula Deen.” And you know what, Oprah and Paula? I am sorry, but you do not look like that. Paula’s pic was a variation on this one from last year (couldn’t find the actual current cover) and Oprah’s featured her laying in a hammock. Analyzing the way that Oprah’s leg and hip intersected, it was pretty clear that some serious Photoshop chicanery had occurred. And gosh-bless, Paula, but no one’s skin looks like this. And this is not even mentioning the other awful “Ten Worst Beach Bods!” and “What does he really think about your skin tone?!” bullshit “women’s” magazines. This is just… non-reality here. Aspirational non-reality. Maybe I, too, can buy enough plastic products so that one day I can look like someone on the cover of a magazine! Except, the people on the covers of magazines do not look like the people on the covers of magazines.

Actual Paula Deen. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with the actual Paula Deen.

And so I checked out. (the checker was wearing medical gloves so that she did not have to touch the products she was ringing out.) And I drove back to the hotel past all the signage (Fine Art Gallery! Giant Clearance Sale!; Live! Nude! Girls! at Club Toxic!; REAL Myrtle Beach Discount Souvenirs!; Exotic Shells and Fireworks!; Keepsake T-Shirts Sold Here!) and I felt like the world was just one giant, overflowing trash can of temporary, plastic, hideous shit. And that no one sees it but me. And that, try as I might, I am also embedded in this process, I take part in it. I support it.

And so, Myrtle Beach? Not for me. The beach itself was lovely, it was wonderful to get sun and be in the ocean. But the environs were not conducive to a healthy state of mind for me. St. Louis has issues aplenty, and the neighborhood where I live has many. Blowing garbage and flying bullets being chief among them. But at least the homes around here have been standing for 100 years, and there is some sense of history, and things that are restored instead of being thrown away.

And so now I go back to my privileged, rarefied life, and I don’t know what it all means, or if it even means anything, really.

Vacation all I ever wanted

…so where did I leave off? Oh yes, that tree coming out from behind a bush and attacking my Mom’s bumper. Tiresome.

After that the day got better. We chilled on the beach, and Dave discovered that the cast cover is suitable for swimming in the ocean, as advertised. We all got a little pink in the sun, then had a pretty bad lunch at The Crab Shack. (Stale kaiser roll with some prefab shrimp salad, microwaved hot pecan pie from a plastic wrapper – bleh.) Also the lackadaisically indifferent waitress seated us as far back as possible, despite Dave’s gimpitude. Rude. Oh and the bathroom was really dark, dirty and spider-y. We all thought we’d like it better if it were cooler outside, and we were drunk.

Dinner wasn’t much of an improvement, we ventured down to the main strip here and tried one restaurant – but no one ever came out to take our order at all, and they kept misting us down with water of questionable origin. We moved on to some Applebee’s wannabe type of place, and the food was OK, but the wait to get in there was quite ridiculous. We left the house at 7pm and we didn’t get food until 9. And the place was about four blocks from here. I guess they don’t have to have good service if they deal with primarily a touristy crowd. Anyway, we did have plenty of time to people- watch while we waited for a table, and that’s where I saw a girl who was maaaaybe 13 years old wearing incredibly short shorts and a very tight black t-shirt that said “I’m Fun Sized.” Good going parents, way to pay attention. She was with a whole cadre of other pre-teen/teen girls, all of whom looked ripe for sexual abuse and drug problems in later life. Once their adult minders showed up, it all made sense though. Todd spotted a super-geeky 14 or so year old boy wearing a “Tell Your Girlfriend I Said ‘Thanks’” tshirt, which made Todd want to give him a smack.

Todd and Dave looking a little pink around the edges at Wannabee's.

After dinner we headed over to Tybee Time for some very strong frozen drinks and more people watching. We discovered that, among gentlemen, the “Captain Ron” look is very big here. Well, if Captain Ron had been played by Richard Dreyfuss, anyway. We saw all kinds of other interesting people, like Little Smokey, a wee man with a cigarette behind his ear, who was vying for the attention/affection of Eve, the lady in the dirty stripey dress. The main problem with this is that Eve was more interested in Captain Ron. Little Smokey got louder and louder in his quest for Eve’s notice, but to no avail. Frustrated, he ended up giving Captain Ron a smack in the mouth as Captain Ron was trying to do a shot. I think there was some blood. Captain Ron had to go to the bathroom to clean up, and Little Smokey took the opportunity to usurp  his seat. Eve was having none of it, however, and moved away to shake her braless tits at other bar patrons until CRs return. After that Little Smokey took his cigarette from behind his grimy ear, smoked it quite forlornly, and then left.

We were pretty worn out after that, and had to retire to our condo for reflection and meditation. Also bed.

Is my arm supposed to be purple?

I am sure there are some noteworthy things happening on this vacation, but I *yawn* can’t really find the *stretch* will or energy to write about them. (is it naptime yet?)

Drive down was uneventful, in a good way. DaveWWT forgot both his sunglasses and his phone charger, and had to cash in 27 gimp credits not to be scorned for his forgetfulness. We stopped somewhere in Kentucky for him to replace both, and this is where we got the first awesome quote of the trip, from the gas station attendant who couldn’t price Dave’s charger and had to hunt all through the racks for one that was “sim-yoo-ler” to that one. Dear South: I had forgotten how dumb your inhabitants sound.

Made really good time getting here, and we were ready to cross over onto Tybee at about 10:30 local time. We were ready for Tybee, but Tybee was not ready for us – the only road to get here was flooded due to high tide. We were told to park it and wait an hour. That would have been annoying on a regular day, but coming off a 13 hour road trip it sucked some serious hairy balls. We pulled into a BP parking lot and prepared to hang out. That’s where we met the charming fellow we’re just going to refer to as “The Racist.”

The Racist was from Hannibal, Missouri, and he struck up a conversation with me based on my having Missouri license plates. It was hot and humid and I was tired and really just wanted a shower, so I gaped dumbly at The Racist while he told me about his grandpa (dying of cancer) his job (pipefitter, local something-or-other) the cops on Tybee Island (assholes) and his plans for the evening (taking his wife and baby daughter over to Tybee Island in order to catch a glimpse of Miley Cyrus filming a movie.) I was barely paying attention to him when the second memorable quote of the trip happened. Looking over at the line of cars waiting to cross over to this island, he saw someone moving their truck out of line. “Whoa, Mexican! Whoa!” he shouted at the dark-skinned man in the truck. I gawped at him wordlessly. As the man pulled out of traffic and proceeded quite innocently with his business, The Racist muttered after him “Awww, go back to Mexico.” His wife shushed him, but I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t really say anything. Again, South, your people do not sound so smart, nor so tolerant. Since then we have been “Whoa! <insert descriptor>, whoa!” at pretty much everthing we see.

We finally made it over to Tybee and into our place at around 12:30 or so. Not too bad, and nothing we could really do about it anyway. Place was even nicer than I expected, so that’s a plus.

Just as nice as they advertised, a pleasant surprise.

We can see the beach from our balcony :-)

The next morning I went to the rental office to pay our balance, and get some info about our wifi (not working.) As I left the office there was a man painting on a big billboard or something. He started humming at me, and then said something about could I hear the steel drums. Since there were none, I could not hear them. I said that maybe he should have a radio on or something. But then he started explaining to me how the steel drums were the manifestation of god’s voice on earth. I said “oh sure” and got in the car to leave. Just then, a large tree jumped out of nowhere, and ran behind my car, causing me to back into it. The trees around here seem to be tricky like that. Since I borrowed my Mom’s SUV for this trip, it wasn’t as small of a deal as it could have been. I can get it fixed, looks like a panel that can be replaced in the back, but still a shitty way to start the day. Fucking shady-ass trees.

…to be continued when I have more energy. *yawn*

Light Through Trees

Picture 364

Originally uploaded by superBadGirl

This ended up being one of my favorite Savannah shots (which needed no Photoshop manipulations to make it beautiful.)

Playing in Painter

Real creativity eludes me at the moment, so playing at creativity while swirling paint around is my temporary substitute.

Painter (plus PSCS3 composite/adjustment) version of photo I took in Savannah. Original photo after the jump. Click to embiggen.

Continue reading »

Fast becoming a series…

This is fun. I forgot what that felt like.

(full size at Rendo)

More Day to Night

Playing with another cemetery image, this one I even “finished” and posted at Rendo.

Here’s the edited:

and original:

See the full size here.

Day to Night

Most of my Savannah pictures were (by necessity) taken in daylight. For, while I am very bold, I am not quite so bold as to go wandering around remote graveyards alone at night in strange cities.

I’ve been playing with turning some of my day pics into night pics, because it pleases me to do so and because in the absence of any real creativity I might as well at least improve my technique. There was a great tutorial in an old issue of Creative Arts about day to night shots, but I can’t be fussed to go digging through all my old magazines to find it. So I just winged this and am mildly satisfied. Masking trees is such a PITA, and that’s where this image really falls down IMO. For your perusal: (and anyone knowing how I can embed rollover image code into my blog posts will be heartily thanked.)

Seahorses in Savannah

At the Marine Science center outside Savannah there was an aquarium with seahorses. I love some seahorses. There was also that red stomping fish thing, I don’t know what that was, or even if it was alive. But anyway. Seahorses!

Note to self - do some sort of After Effects tutorial at some point.

Photos from Drive Home

Was planning (ah, so much optimistic planning) on a longer post about my trip, but haven’t been thusly inspired yet. In the meantime, I took these photos in Kentucky, since I was driving in some truly scary/breathtaking weather. I don’t think they can possibly do the cloud cover justice, but they’re the best I could do one-handed, while driving 85MPH with the other hand.

I would have loved to get some shots of the weather I was fleeing (think clouds of the dramatic, roiling variety) but even I draw the limit at opening the sunroof and one-handedly taking pictures of what’s behind me. Not least because that’s a damn fine way to lose your camera on the highway.

Anyway, my thought at the time (before the rain started) was that I was watching the most amazing show in the world, with the most amazing soundtrack. After the rain started I mostly thought “Crap! Can’t see!”

BTW, it’s about 3:30 pm in these photos, not late evening.

2nd Slideshow – Oatland Island

http://www.flickr.com/photos/superbadgirl/tags/oatlandisland/show/

Second slideshow, these pictures are all from the Oatland Island Wildlife Center

First vacation gallery up at Flickr

These are all Bonaventure cemetery (honestly, I am trying to winnow down the masses I took, so as not to bore anyone.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/superbadgirl/tags/bonaventure/show/

(there’s a setting in the bottom right-hand corner that you can check to read my comments as you watch the slide show)

Some pictures

OK so that last post was a bit of a downer. Here are some pretty pictures of the things I have been seeing.

Protected: Heading back home, with mixed feelings

Oh so hot and steamy…

Forgot that Susans are actually afraid of the woods.