The Crooked Path

“About two-thirds of the way through the movie, in a scene as gorgeous and transcendent as any I’ve ever seen, Joe, adrift with an unconscious Patricia in the middle of an endless ocean, wasted away by dehydration and exhaustion, lips chapped and limbs shaking, watches the full moon rise above him in the middle of the night and realizes (or perhaps, at last, remembers) the vast enormity of the world around him and the true miracle of his existence within it. He struggles to stand up on his fastened-together life raft—the few square feet he has left to him after a lightning bolt destroyed the ship carrying he and Patricia to the island—and reaches up towards the giant white orb in the dark night sky, with a gratitude and sense of humbled awe that can only come from having every single thing stripped away from one’s self, every fear encountered, and yet continuing to breathe, to dance, to beat on. “Dear God, whose name I do not know,” he says with arms outstretched, “Thank you for my life. I forgot how big… thank you. Thank you for my life.”

“I’ve been miserable so long, years of my life wasted, afraid. Been a long time coming here to meet you – a long time, on a crooked road.”

There are lightning bolts running throughout Joe Versus the Volcano, a recurring visual motif that underscores many of the film’s main themes. It’s part of the logo for the American Panascope Corporation, and the path of the road Joe and his fellow workers walk to get there each day. There’s a lightning-shaped crack on the wall of Joe’s apartment when Mr. Graynamore first visits him. A literal lightning bolt strikes the ship carrying him to Waponi Woo, causing it to sink and leading to his marooned-at-sea struggle for survival and eventual moonrise epiphany. And, when it finally comes time to jump into the volcano, a crooked path leads up to its peak.

While its more obvious interpretations might include danger, confusion, or actual fire, there’s a more subtle—and ultimately more important—meaning to be made of the zig-zag symbol. It represents the crooked road we all must travel in order to find our way to our best selves—to face down the demons of our past and confront all the fears that have locked us in and shut us down. The journey from worried to well is never linear, Joe suggests, but rather a jagged road filled with false starts, poor choices, and bad turns. Eventually, though, if we persevere—if we manage to carry on and struggle forward and right our ships—we can find our way out of fear and into life. To gratitude and awe, to connection and love.”

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Kabul, Afghanistan (2004)

This is a money shot of the KPD protective detail for Hamid Karzai.

On the outer ring are his trained Afghan bodyguards.

On the inner ring are the retired Spec Ops folks from DynCorps.

On the inside is his DS AIC. I’m at his 8 o’clock.

We were going to get our pictures taken.

Arlington, Virginia (2009)

This is Travis and Paully, two of my now real-life “virtual” friends whom I met via my original blog, “Clown Ops” (circa 2006).

I’ve met them in person no more than three or four times but we talk pretty much constantly via FB.

Downingtown, Pennsylvania (2014)

This is the house I grew up in from ages 9-14. Very formative years.

That basketball hoop and driveway extension were not there at the time. Instead, we played tackle football in that area.

We dented up the aluminum siding on the side of the garage so badly from errant punts and kicks that it had to be replaced.

Whenever you returned a kickoff, everyone was obligated to sing the Monday Night Football theme. It was thrilling.

Around the same time “Return of the Jedi” came out in theaters (1983), the house next to us on the right was under construction.

In Pennsylvania they build big basements out of standard concrete block, so they dig a big hole in the earth.

That dirt has to be placed somewhere, so they put a giant pile of it right across the property line near our football field.

After seeing that movie, I was so inspired that I got a broomstick for a lightsaber, and attached a clear plastic bag filled with Nilla Wafers to my makeshift belt and stalked around the dirt pile pretending I was Luke Skywalker in training on the swamp planet of Dagobah.

Boca Ciega, Cuba (2008)

This is another one of my favorite photographs.

“Boca Ciega” means “Blind Mouth” en Español.

Richmond, Virginia (2016)

From FB:

“812 West 31st Street where the Harvey Family was murdered on New Years Day 2006. Stella Harvey would now be 20 (25) and Ruby Harvey would be 15 (20).”

Richmond, Virginia (2014)

From FB:

“Then on March 8, 1934, Ewell M. Huband was driving a Federal Reserve Bank mail truck over a little-used bridge beside Broad Street Station (now the Science Museum of Virginia). Two parked cars blocked his way. Five men leaped out, opened the rear doors of the truck and began shooting. Huband slumped over the steering wheel, dead. The robbers fled with sacks of canceled checks and worthless mail.”

DMV Drive is where the old trestle used to be that connected Broad Street to the trains behind Broad Street Station. It was torn down in 1974.

Gangsters Walter Legenza, 41, a cold-hearted killer with reptilian blue eyes, and Robert Mais, a 29-year-old bootlegger with a boyishly frank face, were arrested, but later escaped from the Richmond City Jail in a brazen shoot out in which Richmond police officer William Toot was killed and two others were injured. Both Leguenza and Mais were executed at the Virginia Penitentiary less than a year later after being finally recaptured.“

And the Democrats in Virginia just abolished the death penalty…

Forest Hill Park, Richmond, Virginia (2014)

From FB:

“This is the reason I wanted to come here, to see the memorial to the Harvey Family, who were murdered in cold blood by two pieces of human excrement eight years ago this New Year’s Day.

As with most Richmonders, we remember it vividly.”

Richmond, Virginia (2018)

From FB:

“Gray and Dandridge would later be linked to a total of six murders and a brutal near-fatal assault of a young man in Arlington, VA in 2005 that put the victim in a coma and left him without the use of his right arm for the rest of his life.The mother and daughter who lived in the brick townhouse were eventually able to call the police after Gray and Dandridge left to tell them they suspected the two of being responsible for the Harvey Family murders. Gray and Dandridge were arrested by U.S. Marshals in a flophouse in Philadelphia several days later. Dandridge plead and received a life sentence without the possibility of parole while Gray was executed by lethal injection on January 18, 2017 at Greensville Correctional Center – the same place where DC Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammad was executed in 2009.”

And now the Democrats in Virginia just abolished the death penalty…

Richmond, Virginia (2018)

From FB:

“After brutally murdering the Harvey Family on New Year’s Day 2006 (including nine year old Stella and four year old Ruby), Ricky Javon Gray and Ray Dandridge holed up in this brick townhouse for six days, smoking pot, watching movies, and trying to figure out who else they could rob. Two days after the murder, they robbed an elderly man named Roy Mason at this blue house, which was right around the corner from the townhouse where they were hiding out. There they stole a TV, a computer and $800 in cash. Mason likely saved his own life when he convinced the gang not to tie him up because he needed to take care of his elderly disabled wife, who also lived in the house.”