Oy, Azerbaijan

I know many of you have never heard of Azerbaijan, and for that you should be glad. There were some scenes in a James Bond movie filmed in this former Soviet republic and lifelong enemy of Armenia, with a casino and Russian babes draped around rich men in tuxedos--which is utter bullshit--and a scene in an icky-looking caviar processing place, which is a lot more like it, but don't eat the fish eggs till you read more about this place. And boy did they get the corruption part right, and you know how I get around assholes in authority. . .

For the first time in a long time I wasn't interested in shooting personal photos of my present locale, just what I was being paid to shoot. Not that there weren't a lot of good shots. . . it was just all so depressing. Especially after you go to a museum and see what the place used to look like before all the oil started getting pumped out. I was told Baku is now considered the most polluted big city on the planet--Beijing breathes a big sigh of relief. . . and promptly chokes--so there was plenty of opportunity to shoot and write about that, but I gave up photojournalism a long time ago, except for that week in Darfur.

Nice, huh? Bet you guys in El Lay are breathing deeply today.

Some years ago I resolved to only photograph beautiful and optimistic things, exactly because of places like this. And some fat assholes in suits smoking brown dicks want to turn the Arctic and other wild areas into places just like this. So it was a tough week, and I really enjoyed the time I spent in Frankfurt, which is far from my favorite German city, because of it.

I almost felt sorry for all the Russian chicks--that part of the movie was true, anyway--who think life might be better here than in Moscow and St. Pete, with all the money from the oil boom, only to find it isn't that much different; rich guys are especially similar around the world. Well, the weather might be better, but you can breathe in Moscow. On the other hand, I guess it makes this place similar to El Lay, with all the starlets trying to break into entertainment and get rich and famous--like the girl from Iowa who told me, "When the barn burned, I knew it was a sign to go to Hollywood."

Stilll, every meteorological event has a metallic edge, and there were some nice moments, not counting the Russian girls mentioned above. For one thing, even though backgammon, or some local form, seemed to be the national game, there were enough Armenians around playing dominoes to keep me entertained. Don't ever gamble at dominoes, people, ever. And then there was the asshole who tried to cheat me at chess! . . .