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Gemma, our two year old Cocker Spaniel, rolled over and started licking my arm. Lifting up my head from under the pillow, I peered out the windshield of my '06 118 Sprinter and saw nothing but frost. The slight glow of the hands of my watch indicated that it was just after 5, or is that 6 mountain time? Gemma kept licking my arm, nuzzling up for heat. Judging by the frost on the windows, it had to be in the mid 20s.
Two hours or so until dawn. Just enough time to fall back to sleep. Putting the pillow back over my head I rubbed the back of Gemma's ears and fell back to sleep.
Morning calisthenics.
Gemma showing Lula the ropes.
I last posted here with any regularity back in 2015. In the intervening six years I've put my energy into film work, most notably my stop-motion studio Movie Mountain and the feature-length doc on owl pellet collectors I just finished called Puke. I often joke that Instagram killed the blogging star. In the golden age of blogs, from my estimation 2008-2012, people used to have a handful of blogs they would read weekly for inspiration and ideas.
Rim rock in eastern Oregon.
As Instagram emerged and gained popularity, people stopped visiting blogs and tumblr's, instead getting all of their visual content in one place. At its start, Instagram was a place for independent artists and photographers to share their work and lives. It was the wild west in the best way. Today it resembles some milquetoast late '90s shopping mall in a midwestern city where the kids of the day congregate hoping to garner some view of the outside world and culture filtered through Hot Topic, JCPenney and Zoomies.
Jake, waxing poetic at 6 am in a hot springs.
The same can be said for YouTube, although my experiences there other than as a consumer are limited. I think it's safe to say that the pattern is similar on any of these platforms, where independent creators drive the growth of a platform. As the platforms grow and ad money starts flowing from Blue Chip companies, the content morphs into resembling the other content where these companies advertise. AKA mainstream media outlets like Cable TV or large print publications.
Tim and Jake recovering grey gold.
Edgy photos, wrong think, nudity etc. are hidden or limited, not because of the platform's ideological values, but because they are afraid of paying customers AKA advertisers seeing their commercial for hot-pockets next to a naked person or a dissenting idea. The reality is that these social platforms only care about money, not cultural or humanitarian values, and only align with social and political issues when it's professionally convenient.
The doctor, aka Andrew Waller a talented photographer and filmmaker has been working at Movie Mountain for the last year.
As my satisfaction with Instagram and other social platforms waned I started looking for forms of independent content coming direct from other creators in other places. I started listening to podcasts like Red Scare, JRE, Fieldcraft Survival, Popular Front, True Anon and many more. I started thinking fondly of the early days of A Restless Transplant, and I yearned for a creative outlet that I had just for fun. A few weeks back I decided to pull out my Ricoh on a trip to Western Idaho for the puke crew and take photos for a blog post.
Breakfast of champions.
My brother Tim, just after asking the age old hot spring question, “Was that a fart, or just some sulfur bubbles?”
Lula doing her best to warm up Waller by the fire.
“Those cars must be warm”
Lava stream leading into a hot springs in Western Idaho.
Tim and Jake planning out the days route in search of owl pellets.
Tim with a fat sack of Pellets along the snake.
Looking west towards the Oregon Idaho boarder, somewhere near Bliss Idaho.
Gemma wriggled out from under the comforter, jumped off the bed, hopped over the assortment of groceries into the front seat and pawed at the window. Laughter and the ascending crackle of a kicked-together, morning-after campfire permeated from the partially cracked windows. Tim's joyous shrieks and the crack of a Bang energy drink being opened left little doubt that it was only a matter of time until the sliding door stretched open and I was greeted with some variation of adage, "Wakey Wakey, hand of snake."
Crawling out of bed, the cold Idaho air reminded me of the shortcomings of my decade old Marino wool long underwear. "I have to finally throw these fuckers away," I said to myself as I pulled my cold Carharts on and ripped another five-inch tear around the knee.
“One Second Gemma,” I said as I cracked the door open
She was on the ground running towards the fire and the affection of Tim and Jake before door was fully open. Hoping down the to frosted ground I followed suit.
