Danny lion never made a picture he
wasn’t a part of he was a
twenty-something dropped into a
simmering pot of 1960s American scene
that was about to boil civil rights war
politics culture the landscapes of all
things held familiar were about to
change borders were being drawn simply
to be crossed and erased and it’s safe
to say that Danny Lyon was there
somewhere at large but largely absent
from a world presented by life and look
and very present in his time of
photography films and books he is still
there today at large
always the protagonist sometimes the
antagonist and always at work on a
perpetual director’s cut of his life’s
work each take revealing something old
something new a performance that might
include a rare track or an acoustic
version of a well-known photograph the
liner notes from a life’s work with the
eye of a documentarian and the soul of a
radical Danny Lyon made some of the
greatest photographs of a greatest
generation a few that few knew or
understood or even cared about the
abandoned the incarcerated the outcast
the illegal the native the isolated that
outlaws biker crosses the Ohio River his
motorcycle is moving forward but his
head is turned the other way looking
back a shock of hair pointing to the
past almost in an acknowledgment that
Danny Lyons photograph still time and
that by the time you see this it will be
gone gone like those great buildings and
neighborhoods that once made up lower
Manhattan go on like the working men who
reduced them to dust and gone like the
injustice represented in one of
America’s darkest times the sacrifice is
gone but not forgotten because although
time and all that may have held have
gone Danny Lyon made some pictures that
will never go away
please welcome Danny Lyon
it’s pretty nice Thanks hello I wrote
something it says oh thank Julien
Vincent Elizabeth it’s a great honor to
have Julian here I asked you I I’m also
a filmmaker
and since you know my ticket was paid
for about National Geographic I thought
I’d skip the conference and work so I
was I filmed Julian yesterday he’s
amazing on film and I asked him if he
remembered when I first walked into the
snick office and he said no so so this
morning I filmed John Lewis and I did
want to say something bout that I’m
gonna I wrote anyway thanks Vince and
thanks Elizabeth for inviting me and you
may regret this but the you know I got
it the Missouri honor mental about two
years ago and a fella came I I’m ashamed
I’m bad with names and he was in the
photography department and I didn’t know
why I had gotten this medal because they
gave it to Walter Cronkite Winston
Churchill and Tom Brokaw and other
people and me and I so I got up and I
said I don’t know who is responsible but
you probably lose your job after you
hear what I have to say but he still has
this job so we’re in a new America here
we’re off to worry about stuff like that
and nobody works for the NSA here right
no no seriously I mean we don’t we’re
off to war even though in National
Geographic in the capital of the most
powerful country in the history of the
universe we think so I’m going to read
to you which is I think a terrible
experience and I’m not good at speaking
Julian is a great speaker but he
wouldn’t read this and so I wanted to
start with it with a extemporaneous
story so this morning I went to film
John
and I’ve been filming him two or three
times and I just hit the jackpot this
morning I was alone with him in his
office there was nobody else to see him
I had him for about two hours the light
was great and it was it was filmic it
was great he he was amazing
and at one point he started picking up
photographs and he’s saying oh this is
you know when I got clubbed and and we
got into this kind of thing because you
know I knew he had been knocked
unconscious he had been gassed his teeth
these are separate incidents so I
started saying like oh and then and I
said oh yeah and then what happened when
was the next time in he so we’re going
through this kind of laundry list of
assaults on this guy’s head and and the
first time he ever got hit he got hit
with a milk crate now you think of this
now he says a guy came out and and and
grabbed him he was on one of these buses
that got off at a cafeteria guy comes
out has this milk crate and he hits him
in the head just blood everywhere and
now John Lewis is in Congress and the
guy who hit him he’s probably in the
Senate you know and and the thing is we
have a right to walk around with a milk
crate this is America you know they
don’t we can have you can walk down the
street with a milk crate no I’m serious
about this it’s a milk crate and and we
have that right to walk around
I mean who you hit with it is a you know
that’s a debate we’re gonna have you
know okay that was a too warm he appears
that what I wrote I wanted to talk I
wanted to talk a bit about Norman Mailer
whose biography by J Michael Leonard
Lennon called a double life I have been
reading is that what he all right
that’s all right the most time I spent
with Norman Mailer was when we were both
in jail across the Potomac River in
Alexandria Virginia
this was 1967 and I
I was near the end of the destruction of
lower Manhattan and about to do my work
in the Texas prisons I’d driven down
from New York early that day with the
sculptor marked a Subaru we both planned
to be arrested that day and since mark
was walking with a cane we parked as
close as we could to the Pentagon
arriving at the massive building very
early far in front of the marchers and
protestors which I now know reached
100,000 people just think of that
astounding number 100,000 people this
was very early this was a very early
protest against a war that would go on
for another seven and a half years the
Pentagon has long flat steps leading up
to it in that morning they were covered
with interlocking rows of the United
States Marshals and military MPs
soldiers held out rifles with bayonets
fixed into the face of children that
would stuff flowers into the barrels
while the marshals and the MP stood in
rows holding long batons what we call
billy clubs in the south after making
some pictures with a nikon f reflex
that’s a 35-millimeter camera which you
could sorry if a guy was at a
photography seminar okay so I had
removed the 35 millimeter lens and
buried it deep into one of the pockets
of my blue jeans I did the same with the
flat body two more rolls of Triax were
deep inside another pocket I might have
removed the prison and wrapped that in
handkerchief the idea was to get inside
the jail with my camera when two silver
across the line that was bit and was
being manhandled by the baton swinging
MPs
I want to defend him two US Marshals
grabbed my arms while another standing
directly
in front of me hit me across the crown
of my head with his club knocking me
unconscious it took either four or six
stitches to close the wound I don’t
remember when I awoke I had been dragged
over a thousand feet around the building
the largest in the United States at the
end of the building and what looked like
a loading dock I was handed a number to
hold across my chest while I was
photographed then motioned inside to
into a waiting and near empty prison bus
my number was for a mark of Honor on a
day that would see seven hundred
protestors going to jail the largest
tally so far and the struggle to stop
the war
inside the bus i reassemble the camera
making noises inside the bus i
reassembled the Cameron began making
pictures first through the window of
other prisoners being brought in the
number placed on Norman Mailer’s chest
was number ten eventually this group was
driven to the Alexandria County Jail and
left an assault holding cell about 15 by
20 feet where I proceeded to make
pictures of the dozen other protesters
and mailer who was playing chess with a
board mate someone made out of paper
when an attorney appeared outside the
bars to speak with mailer
I pulled the exposed film from my
pockets and camera handed him to the
attorney with a note get them to Magnum
where they were processed and quickly
published mostly in Europe what we now
call the media here at home had almost
no interest in the anti-war movement I
was at the time between my second and
third book books conceived in a picture
world dominated by magazines all of
which I objected to if I was going to
work so hard to risk my life to devote
my waking consciousness and time to a
single object making pictures how could
I turn them over to someone else to
select to crop to arrange and worse to
place words with pictures that were not
my words my pictures had to be protected
a silver print is among the most fragile
objects in the fine arts world a grain
of sand can ruin one and I’ve ruined my
own slides with a speck of saliva which
burns a hole into them the image itself
is fragile it is an anonymous rendition
of reality to which the viewer brings
emotion and feelings and the caption the
layout the sequence the text the
settings they are presented in I was
determined to do that myself the bike
ride is Republic was published in 1968 I
received the book in Texas seven
pictures were out of register the result
of running the book off in a single
night in a New Jersey print shop that
probably paid a kickback to someone at
Macmillan to get the job in the first
place
it is now 40 years later and I’m still
making books only now I control
everything including the printing and
great expense and time and work is
devoted by my publishers and the people
that make my books to do them properly I
have always seen myself as a realist
someone that takes everything he needs
directly from reality my weapons are
first of all the camera also tape
recorders and motion picture cameras and
now digital video cameras I am also a
deep romantic the works I do are works
of dreams and vision and in that sense
the only reality they actually listen to
is the reality inside my head reality to
me is made up I make it up I entered the
Texas prisons determined to destroy them
and once I began to read about prison
and people said things like what are you
going to do with them meaning the
inmates I thought I do not want to be a
criminologist I was not interested in
improving prisons I wanted to destroy
them now we are in the future the
population of the Texas prisons where I
work
12500 now it is over 200,000 so that
body of work which took two years of my
life was not a success my life and I
suspect the lives of many of you and I
say this with a nod to Norman Mailer has
been about action about risk about
adventure that is why we love this life
it takes us outside of ourselves we
escape our personal miseries we lose
ourselves in a world much faster than
our own looking back now I can say I’ve
devoted most of my life to making
photography books a form that is not
even recognized as a form photography
books have never been reviewed the way
novels and nonfiction are although they
are branch of nonfiction over 20 years
ago
snick had a rare reunion at Trinity
College and clay Carson was there he had
published an early account of snick
Howard Zinn had of course done this even
earlier by then cost him control the
King archives we sat down together at a
table and I said America will never
change until there is a revolution in
the media a few years later I put it in
writing which it still sits buried on my
website titled revolution in the media
addressed to something I called the
media worker so there’s no one from the
NSA yeah that’s why I asked that already
right so you know this is kind of a pre
tweet tweet I don’t really understand
how to tweet but this is really simple
minded but I had teenagers and young
people and I was kind of addressing my
daughter so this is what I put on in the
website one to change society change the
media two to change the media change
yourself three personalise the media
personalize yourself and finally
something that we’ve known since the
time of the Greeks beauty is power and I
was glad to hear the
last person addressed that issue when
someone said oh gee these beautiful
pictures of a waistline beauty is power
I could argue standing here that
technology something mailer hated has an
effect if not made that revolution has
created a forum for it young people did
not take any of our old forum seriously
they communicate among themselves in
mysterious ways the problem remains
where is the vision I have always loved
what I did I wanted more than anything
else to leave a mark to return something
to the country in which I and my
immigrant parents both of whom came here
from certified dictatorships flourished
did that make sense doesn’t have to make
sense I wanted to do that by myself as
an individual my own preservation as an
individual was central to my
contribution to journalism and
photography I’m the generation that had
to crawl under my little wooden desk at
school to protect myself from the blast
of hydrogen bombs
I’m the generation that had to wear a
dog tag so my incinerated body could be
recognized I never took my life for
granted what I did take for granted was
that someone wanted to destroy me and
not one of me they wanted to control
what I thought and how I lived my
mission was to defy them I took it for
granted that all the magazine’s lied and
since I chose the media as my field I
was determined to create an American
media that was truthful in my America
people were all different
they were handsome and everything around
them was beautiful don’t chuckle I’m
we’re gonna show these pictures next and
most of all they were free none of my
films are about Chicanos or poverty or
prison or the border all of which I deal
with they are about the existential
struggle to be free that is what unites
everything I have done and the first
person that has to be
three is me by the time I was finished
about 1971 all of my books were
remaindered meaning the publishers chose
to to dump the books on the market all
remaining copies were sold for a dollar
I bought a case of the bike riders in
1970 for 16 cents a copy my poor father
I picked on him and my father said what
do you want a case of your own book for
younger people cannot imagine how
someone like me views our present world
Edward Snowden is to me a young man with
the stature of John Brown though he’s
presented to us more like John Wilkes
Booth when many years ago I first heard
the term virtual reality I thought are
they kidding
every morning I awake to an electronic
version of chess I play with my son
2,000 miles away they were not kidding
many people seem to feel that an
experience on an electronic screen is an
experience I’ve tried to imagine what I
might do if I were allowed to edit or
control an issue of the National
Geographic oh that got a chuckle what
reality would I present what would I do
other than get rid of the running images
across the centerfolds forbidding bleeds
I think a gone to pot issue would be
good ideally with a joint stamped
welcome to Colorado state stable than a
baggie inside the back back cover
this special issue could include a lot
of outdoor stuff with what 20% of the
issue interviews with the destroyed
lives of young people in jail for
selling weed something considered a
public service by my generation perhaps
another 20% of the on the 10th of
interviews on the tens of millions of
successful Americans like myself we
spent at least a third of their time
lives as potheads the border would be
another good issue the present
militarization of the southwest
including Albuquerque where I live where
the police of shot and killed 20 people
recently a truly life-threatening place
to encounter a cop you know the problem
of police is not that you might get shot
the problem is fear if you are afraid
you do what you are told the southwest
is being occupied by the police a quasi
military force all in the name of
stopping Mexicans from coming here to
clean the house and plant the garden and
I would suggest that historically issue
on Vietnam showing all the publications
and photographers with the correct
publication dates who beat the drums of
war then close with a long piece on the
back bankers who like to take cycling
trips to Vietnam with their wives when
Vince asked me to come here we spoke on
the phone and I said you know since I
started as a journalist but I ended up
in the art world and he said all
photographers wanted to do that to have
a gallery be careful what you wish for
it is of course a so-called art world
that has really driven the nails into
the coffin of photography so that what
then is the point of this all I think
the point remains what it was for me as
a boy I wanted to change America that is
the point that is the point of all good
books as male or wrote and I use my
words here not his the point is to
replace the rotten hysterical fear and
greed driven myths that have so much
power
or with our own myths truth justice and
the beauty of this our mother earth
thank you
wasn’t a part of he was a
twenty-something dropped into a
simmering pot of 1960s American scene
that was about to boil civil rights war
politics culture the landscapes of all
things held familiar were about to
change borders were being drawn simply
to be crossed and erased and it’s safe
to say that Danny Lyon was there
somewhere at large but largely absent
from a world presented by life and look
and very present in his time of
photography films and books he is still
there today at large
always the protagonist sometimes the
antagonist and always at work on a
perpetual director’s cut of his life’s
work each take revealing something old
something new a performance that might
include a rare track or an acoustic
version of a well-known photograph the
liner notes from a life’s work with the
eye of a documentarian and the soul of a
radical Danny Lyon made some of the
greatest photographs of a greatest
generation a few that few knew or
understood or even cared about the
abandoned the incarcerated the outcast
the illegal the native the isolated that
outlaws biker crosses the Ohio River his
motorcycle is moving forward but his
head is turned the other way looking
back a shock of hair pointing to the
past almost in an acknowledgment that
Danny Lyons photograph still time and
that by the time you see this it will be
gone gone like those great buildings and
neighborhoods that once made up lower
Manhattan go on like the working men who
reduced them to dust and gone like the
injustice represented in one of
America’s darkest times the sacrifice is
gone but not forgotten because although
time and all that may have held have
gone Danny Lyon made some pictures that
will never go away
please welcome Danny Lyon
it’s pretty nice Thanks hello I wrote
something it says oh thank Julien
Vincent Elizabeth it’s a great honor to
have Julian here I asked you I I’m also
a filmmaker
and since you know my ticket was paid
for about National Geographic I thought
I’d skip the conference and work so I
was I filmed Julian yesterday he’s
amazing on film and I asked him if he
remembered when I first walked into the
snick office and he said no so so this
morning I filmed John Lewis and I did
want to say something bout that I’m
gonna I wrote anyway thanks Vince and
thanks Elizabeth for inviting me and you
may regret this but the you know I got
it the Missouri honor mental about two
years ago and a fella came I I’m ashamed
I’m bad with names and he was in the
photography department and I didn’t know
why I had gotten this medal because they
gave it to Walter Cronkite Winston
Churchill and Tom Brokaw and other
people and me and I so I got up and I
said I don’t know who is responsible but
you probably lose your job after you
hear what I have to say but he still has
this job so we’re in a new America here
we’re off to worry about stuff like that
and nobody works for the NSA here right
no no seriously I mean we don’t we’re
off to war even though in National
Geographic in the capital of the most
powerful country in the history of the
universe we think so I’m going to read
to you which is I think a terrible
experience and I’m not good at speaking
Julian is a great speaker but he
wouldn’t read this and so I wanted to
start with it with a extemporaneous
story so this morning I went to film
John
and I’ve been filming him two or three
times and I just hit the jackpot this
morning I was alone with him in his
office there was nobody else to see him
I had him for about two hours the light
was great and it was it was filmic it
was great he he was amazing
and at one point he started picking up
photographs and he’s saying oh this is
you know when I got clubbed and and we
got into this kind of thing because you
know I knew he had been knocked
unconscious he had been gassed his teeth
these are separate incidents so I
started saying like oh and then and I
said oh yeah and then what happened when
was the next time in he so we’re going
through this kind of laundry list of
assaults on this guy’s head and and the
first time he ever got hit he got hit
with a milk crate now you think of this
now he says a guy came out and and and
grabbed him he was on one of these buses
that got off at a cafeteria guy comes
out has this milk crate and he hits him
in the head just blood everywhere and
now John Lewis is in Congress and the
guy who hit him he’s probably in the
Senate you know and and the thing is we
have a right to walk around with a milk
crate this is America you know they
don’t we can have you can walk down the
street with a milk crate no I’m serious
about this it’s a milk crate and and we
have that right to walk around
I mean who you hit with it is a you know
that’s a debate we’re gonna have you
know okay that was a too warm he appears
that what I wrote I wanted to talk I
wanted to talk a bit about Norman Mailer
whose biography by J Michael Leonard
Lennon called a double life I have been
reading is that what he all right
that’s all right the most time I spent
with Norman Mailer was when we were both
in jail across the Potomac River in
Alexandria Virginia
this was 1967 and I
I was near the end of the destruction of
lower Manhattan and about to do my work
in the Texas prisons I’d driven down
from New York early that day with the
sculptor marked a Subaru we both planned
to be arrested that day and since mark
was walking with a cane we parked as
close as we could to the Pentagon
arriving at the massive building very
early far in front of the marchers and
protestors which I now know reached
100,000 people just think of that
astounding number 100,000 people this
was very early this was a very early
protest against a war that would go on
for another seven and a half years the
Pentagon has long flat steps leading up
to it in that morning they were covered
with interlocking rows of the United
States Marshals and military MPs
soldiers held out rifles with bayonets
fixed into the face of children that
would stuff flowers into the barrels
while the marshals and the MP stood in
rows holding long batons what we call
billy clubs in the south after making
some pictures with a nikon f reflex
that’s a 35-millimeter camera which you
could sorry if a guy was at a
photography seminar okay so I had
removed the 35 millimeter lens and
buried it deep into one of the pockets
of my blue jeans I did the same with the
flat body two more rolls of Triax were
deep inside another pocket I might have
removed the prison and wrapped that in
handkerchief the idea was to get inside
the jail with my camera when two silver
across the line that was bit and was
being manhandled by the baton swinging
MPs
I want to defend him two US Marshals
grabbed my arms while another standing
directly
in front of me hit me across the crown
of my head with his club knocking me
unconscious it took either four or six
stitches to close the wound I don’t
remember when I awoke I had been dragged
over a thousand feet around the building
the largest in the United States at the
end of the building and what looked like
a loading dock I was handed a number to
hold across my chest while I was
photographed then motioned inside to
into a waiting and near empty prison bus
my number was for a mark of Honor on a
day that would see seven hundred
protestors going to jail the largest
tally so far and the struggle to stop
the war
inside the bus i reassemble the camera
making noises inside the bus i
reassembled the Cameron began making
pictures first through the window of
other prisoners being brought in the
number placed on Norman Mailer’s chest
was number ten eventually this group was
driven to the Alexandria County Jail and
left an assault holding cell about 15 by
20 feet where I proceeded to make
pictures of the dozen other protesters
and mailer who was playing chess with a
board mate someone made out of paper
when an attorney appeared outside the
bars to speak with mailer
I pulled the exposed film from my
pockets and camera handed him to the
attorney with a note get them to Magnum
where they were processed and quickly
published mostly in Europe what we now
call the media here at home had almost
no interest in the anti-war movement I
was at the time between my second and
third book books conceived in a picture
world dominated by magazines all of
which I objected to if I was going to
work so hard to risk my life to devote
my waking consciousness and time to a
single object making pictures how could
I turn them over to someone else to
select to crop to arrange and worse to
place words with pictures that were not
my words my pictures had to be protected
a silver print is among the most fragile
objects in the fine arts world a grain
of sand can ruin one and I’ve ruined my
own slides with a speck of saliva which
burns a hole into them the image itself
is fragile it is an anonymous rendition
of reality to which the viewer brings
emotion and feelings and the caption the
layout the sequence the text the
settings they are presented in I was
determined to do that myself the bike
ride is Republic was published in 1968 I
received the book in Texas seven
pictures were out of register the result
of running the book off in a single
night in a New Jersey print shop that
probably paid a kickback to someone at
Macmillan to get the job in the first
place
it is now 40 years later and I’m still
making books only now I control
everything including the printing and
great expense and time and work is
devoted by my publishers and the people
that make my books to do them properly I
have always seen myself as a realist
someone that takes everything he needs
directly from reality my weapons are
first of all the camera also tape
recorders and motion picture cameras and
now digital video cameras I am also a
deep romantic the works I do are works
of dreams and vision and in that sense
the only reality they actually listen to
is the reality inside my head reality to
me is made up I make it up I entered the
Texas prisons determined to destroy them
and once I began to read about prison
and people said things like what are you
going to do with them meaning the
inmates I thought I do not want to be a
criminologist I was not interested in
improving prisons I wanted to destroy
them now we are in the future the
population of the Texas prisons where I
work
12500 now it is over 200,000 so that
body of work which took two years of my
life was not a success my life and I
suspect the lives of many of you and I
say this with a nod to Norman Mailer has
been about action about risk about
adventure that is why we love this life
it takes us outside of ourselves we
escape our personal miseries we lose
ourselves in a world much faster than
our own looking back now I can say I’ve
devoted most of my life to making
photography books a form that is not
even recognized as a form photography
books have never been reviewed the way
novels and nonfiction are although they
are branch of nonfiction over 20 years
ago
snick had a rare reunion at Trinity
College and clay Carson was there he had
published an early account of snick
Howard Zinn had of course done this even
earlier by then cost him control the
King archives we sat down together at a
table and I said America will never
change until there is a revolution in
the media a few years later I put it in
writing which it still sits buried on my
website titled revolution in the media
addressed to something I called the
media worker so there’s no one from the
NSA yeah that’s why I asked that already
right so you know this is kind of a pre
tweet tweet I don’t really understand
how to tweet but this is really simple
minded but I had teenagers and young
people and I was kind of addressing my
daughter so this is what I put on in the
website one to change society change the
media two to change the media change
yourself three personalise the media
personalize yourself and finally
something that we’ve known since the
time of the Greeks beauty is power and I
was glad to hear the
last person addressed that issue when
someone said oh gee these beautiful
pictures of a waistline beauty is power
I could argue standing here that
technology something mailer hated has an
effect if not made that revolution has
created a forum for it young people did
not take any of our old forum seriously
they communicate among themselves in
mysterious ways the problem remains
where is the vision I have always loved
what I did I wanted more than anything
else to leave a mark to return something
to the country in which I and my
immigrant parents both of whom came here
from certified dictatorships flourished
did that make sense doesn’t have to make
sense I wanted to do that by myself as
an individual my own preservation as an
individual was central to my
contribution to journalism and
photography I’m the generation that had
to crawl under my little wooden desk at
school to protect myself from the blast
of hydrogen bombs
I’m the generation that had to wear a
dog tag so my incinerated body could be
recognized I never took my life for
granted what I did take for granted was
that someone wanted to destroy me and
not one of me they wanted to control
what I thought and how I lived my
mission was to defy them I took it for
granted that all the magazine’s lied and
since I chose the media as my field I
was determined to create an American
media that was truthful in my America
people were all different
they were handsome and everything around
them was beautiful don’t chuckle I’m
we’re gonna show these pictures next and
most of all they were free none of my
films are about Chicanos or poverty or
prison or the border all of which I deal
with they are about the existential
struggle to be free that is what unites
everything I have done and the first
person that has to be
three is me by the time I was finished
about 1971 all of my books were
remaindered meaning the publishers chose
to to dump the books on the market all
remaining copies were sold for a dollar
I bought a case of the bike riders in
1970 for 16 cents a copy my poor father
I picked on him and my father said what
do you want a case of your own book for
younger people cannot imagine how
someone like me views our present world
Edward Snowden is to me a young man with
the stature of John Brown though he’s
presented to us more like John Wilkes
Booth when many years ago I first heard
the term virtual reality I thought are
they kidding
every morning I awake to an electronic
version of chess I play with my son
2,000 miles away they were not kidding
many people seem to feel that an
experience on an electronic screen is an
experience I’ve tried to imagine what I
might do if I were allowed to edit or
control an issue of the National
Geographic oh that got a chuckle what
reality would I present what would I do
other than get rid of the running images
across the centerfolds forbidding bleeds
I think a gone to pot issue would be
good ideally with a joint stamped
welcome to Colorado state stable than a
baggie inside the back back cover
this special issue could include a lot
of outdoor stuff with what 20% of the
issue interviews with the destroyed
lives of young people in jail for
selling weed something considered a
public service by my generation perhaps
another 20% of the on the 10th of
interviews on the tens of millions of
successful Americans like myself we
spent at least a third of their time
lives as potheads the border would be
another good issue the present
militarization of the southwest
including Albuquerque where I live where
the police of shot and killed 20 people
recently a truly life-threatening place
to encounter a cop you know the problem
of police is not that you might get shot
the problem is fear if you are afraid
you do what you are told the southwest
is being occupied by the police a quasi
military force all in the name of
stopping Mexicans from coming here to
clean the house and plant the garden and
I would suggest that historically issue
on Vietnam showing all the publications
and photographers with the correct
publication dates who beat the drums of
war then close with a long piece on the
back bankers who like to take cycling
trips to Vietnam with their wives when
Vince asked me to come here we spoke on
the phone and I said you know since I
started as a journalist but I ended up
in the art world and he said all
photographers wanted to do that to have
a gallery be careful what you wish for
it is of course a so-called art world
that has really driven the nails into
the coffin of photography so that what
then is the point of this all I think
the point remains what it was for me as
a boy I wanted to change America that is
the point that is the point of all good
books as male or wrote and I use my
words here not his the point is to
replace the rotten hysterical fear and
greed driven myths that have so much
power
or with our own myths truth justice and
the beauty of this our mother earth
thank you
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