Standing on a corner
(not in Winslow, Arizona)
Holding up a Stop sign
Watching the traffic go by
In front of a run down place
Nothing much to do
Nowhere to go
A generation of bored
Illiterate, uncultured
Ignorant of history
Raised on video games
And television
But what's left to say
That hasn't already
Been said
A million times over ?
.
.
So walk away
Take it easy
Not to worry
Things can't help
But get better
Ain't that right ?
Heading for the bar . . .
.
.
.
.
.
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Posts
28 comments:
That's right, this songs for you, big Sis, and I'm sure he's gonna turn up way down yonder any day now...
:-)
PS To all you good people who have been so kindly turning up here... I'm having yet another crazy week at the straight jacket factory... will be back just as soon as I'm able...
Didn't even know Mr. Browne did this one - is he the creator??
Sorry to hear that your life is wild in ways that aren't entirely positive, Owen. I've been inattentive of late as well, but I think my reasons for that are a bit more pleasant! Looking forward to seeing you whenever you can manage it.
What a study in b&w. Looks like scenes caught from another era...
Best wishes during the hectic times.
j'adore tes deux photos noir et blanc owen adoré !
le mouvement de la voiture et le regard de celui qui la regarde, on se croirait dans un vieux film américain :-)
et la façon dont il s'en va, la tête baissée ...
merveilleux !
kisses xxx
Summertime blues 1950's style.
The black and white photo looks like it is fifty years earlier. I like the poem. That is such a button pusher for me personally, people especially young people watching hours of television and playing video games and not running around outside or reading or using their imaginations. It is so sad to me to see the spelling and math deficiencies in the young people even just making small change is beyond some of them. I so appreciate your writing about this.
The vintage feel of these atmospheres tricks us into thinking this is a snapshot of a lost boy of the '50s.
You, Mr Owen, are a very talented capturer of life.
I share your disappointment and lack of faith in our young generations. My 4 year-old son, on the other hand...
;)
I think this activity predates the invention of video games. Case in point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVdDK5psRwo
I love these "slice of life" pictures you've posted here. Captured a moment, an era, an emotion, along with all the other good stuff like compostion, contrasts, textures and movement.
Coincidentally, I spent a few hours the other night cruisin' through some JB songs on UToob and filed 1 or 2 away for future reference. Some good footage from a 2006 concert in Philly. He's definitely lost his baby face but not his chops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iERA9gycLg
BTW: Saj is your BABY sister. Or at least your younger twin. Let's keep the pecking order straight around here.
;-)
You are good, Owen. Busy at work, busy family life and yet you manage to keep us going with this. I've heard of Jackson Browne but this was the first time I *heard* him - yes, not bad at all.
Oh Wow. What time and place was this shot taken? It looks like something from the midwest fifties or even further back! That boarded up corner of an old brick building, his plaid shirt, the middle American boredom, the cultural wasteland, cars whizzing by never caring about the journey, always in a hurry to be somewhere else. Great shots. I love the follow up too! There is too much resignation... Why?
Gee thanks, now I have a certain song stuck in my head - and it's all your fault!
Love these pictures, though.
It's now twenty to four and my son just called me, telling me, he's getting up ... after replying that it is time to sleep, he turned around and continued doing that.
Maybe leaving me enough time to search for a bar open all night.
sigh
Wishing you a wonderful start into the weekend.
Hi Deborah,
Yeah, not always easy to keep up with the pace of posting, answering comments, visiting other blogs and leaving messages around the blogosphere; as well as keeping work and home life on some sort of even keel. Just takes a little craziness at work, and all of a sudden all the rest is stretched pretty thin. But that's what's nice about blogging, one can do as little or as much as one can, and it's best left aside for a while if it's not a pleasure... But seeing you here is always a pleasure, and such pleasures are what keeps me going here... Have met some of the bloggers over the past year who have been in touch via the comment box, and it has been a real pleasure each time... take care...
Lydia, they were indeed photos from another era, back in my bachelor days when I roamed about quite a bit. Just wish I'd done even more photos back then than I did, but there are still a few to come from the archive vaults...
Many thanks...
ah .::Karine::., trop sympa, oui, en effet, c'est tout un court metrage, un court metrage en deux images, mais qui racontent long sur toute une époque et un peuple, le désespoir de petites villes délaissées de l'amérique, frappées par le chomage, la fermeture de sociétés suite à des délocalisations à l'étranger... il y avait de quoi baisser les bras, et la tête...
Merci chère Karine pour ton passage, qui me touche comme chaque fois en plein coeur....
Et bisoux to you too...
:-)
Hey Steve, it was 1950's style from the late 1980's... and definitely a case of the blues...
Hi TechnoB, There is much earth to plow and dig in the field of everything that's going wrong, and has been going wrong for rather a long time now... here I've barely scratched the surface. But if it touched a chord with you then I am a happy toad... connections and finding common vibrations are what this odd form of comment box communication is all about... And I can't tell you how much I appreciate faithful readers like you... I'm a very lucky toad too, as well as happy...
:-)
Hi Lola !
I'm entirely certain that your four year old boy is an exception to some to the rather awful trends occurring among our younger generations. But that is because he has a wonderfully intelligent mother who gives him delicious things to eat, and I have no doubt that he also gets delicious food for the soul in the form of stories read to him and a caring mother's love and attention and discipline. (my 13 and 16 year olds are also in that category...)
:-)
But it frightens me to hear the stories my girls bring home from school about bad behavior and unbelievably poor performance in classes from kids around them. And then one opens the newspaper and sees stories about teachers being attacked in their classrooms... I'm not sure where we are going, but we are going there fast...
Ciao !
Oh, and if you've been following the tennis in Paris this week at all, congratulations to Italy for producing the woman's winner, what a fighter she is, that Franschesca..
Dearest Lynne,
I was so happy to learn from that first (wonderful) video that "you can't go to jail for what you're thinking" ! And it's a good thing too, or I would have been a lifer... But how on earth do you find these things ! Honestly !
:-)
Actually, I think we finally decided that she was my twin sister, but you're quite right, I stand corrected, it is you who has the big sister title. But what did I say just the other day, "the first one now will later be last, oh the times they are a changin"...
Mr JB has long long been one of my favorite artists ever; tunes like A Song For Adam, or Something Fine, just blow me away. I saw him in Paris just last fall, the four of us went to see him in a small theatre here. Took and posted some pictures of him from that show back last Fall... This version of These Days you found is lovely. There is an excellent acoustic double CD around from not too long ago with that tune on it... But yeah, I can spend hours listening to him and David Lindley... no problem...
:-)
Dear FF, I should have been a juggler in a circus somewhere, with a stack of plates spinning on a stick balanced on my nose while keeping five or six balls in the air between both hands, riding a unicycle in tight circles, reciting poetry by TS Eliot aloud distinctly...
:-)
If you ever get a chance to see JB, don't miss it, he still puts on a great show, even at his current advanced age of 62 or thereabouts...
Hey StickupMusician...errr.... artist....
Funny how people said this looks like it's out of the 50's, in fact it's late 80's, in Pennsylvania, on a day trip I took from Philadelphia to go up and look at Centralia, PA, which, as you probably remember, had an underground coal seam fire burning for years and years, may still be going for all I know... There is an interesting web site about Centralia, with alot of photos, at :
http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm
Fascinating and sad story... just another case of man's meddling with nature, gone awry. Coal fires, oil spills, nuclear accidents. Centralia is not all that far up the road from the Susquehanna River and Three Mile Island... Were you around there when that was happening ? Crazy world we live in...
Hi Clytie,
Yep, that's a tough one to get out of one's head, that Take It Easy, but I can think of worse things to have going on auto-replay loops in one's mind... Mr Browne certainly wrote quite a few very catchy tunes...
Guten abend Robert,
Ah, the little one sleeping, waking, dozing, dreaming, perhaps best to watch over him than to go out looking for an all night bar ?
I hear your "sigh", and can only hope all is well with you... and wish you well, as you continue your barefoot navigating through Athens... take care and be well mein freund...
I have checked your site before, and love your photos. The header on your home page is great, and gives a wonderful sense of what is to come on your site.
Thanks for visiting my site. I appreciate your comment. Your photos of the young man say so much.
To answer you question, I was exposed to the Lawrence Welk Show at a very young, impressionable age.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i48BP1PUoFI
Two great photos. Plus, I really like the leaky, rotting boat on your banner. Wonderful color and mood.
Now that we've sorted out the pecking order, I'll just line up to be pecked by JB eh? Baby-faced or not, as long as he does a twirl for me in his jeans and then we can discuss what happens next....
InBackRow, but not in the peanut gallery,
Many thanks !
===========================
Lynne ! Holy shit... my grandmother used to watch the Lawrence Welk Show, I can remember being appalled and running off to go play in the attic where there were many treasures to find in dusty old boxes...
===========================
K.,
Glad you like the boat, that is my most trustworthy means of transportation when setting out by water. On land I have a mule drawn wagon which looks about the same...
Many thanks !
===========================
Saj !
It's the "what happens next" part that worries me...
:-)
"A twirl in his jeans" ! What a way with words you have sis !
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