Origins

Madison, Wisconsin, on April 5, 2009. That's my good friend Strawberry Snatchcake of the North Star Roller Girls hanging out, waiting for the game to begin.

It's appropriate I start this blog with her.

Strawberry (obviously that's her 'pirate' name - all the girls in roller derby have them) and I used to work together at the same company. About three years ago she introduced me to roller derby. That one single step, combined with a few other things, literally created the life that I live today. And that I shall blog about here.

So, since this is called "Origins," let me tell you a little about it.

Three years ago I was going through an aimless period where I wasn't sure what to do with my life. For the previous 25 years - from age 17 to age 43 - I had been an aspiring professional actor, and my life took it's shape and sense of purpose from that. I first lived in Toronto, then New York City, then Hollywood California, all in pursuit of furthering my performing career. I was in plays on large stages and small, and appeared in a smattering of TV shows and films too. The whole adventure was a lot of fun, and I often (this is true) at random moments would look up at the sky with a big smile and say "Thank you!" for having such a cool life.

But by my mid-forties, I have to say, these feelings were starting to change a little. The whole theatre lifestyle was starting to wear me down. It's perfectly fine to be a staving actor when you're 23 years old and you feel you have nothing but endless amounts of time and health and energy to spend. It's quite another thing when you're 43 years old and start realizing that your time, health and energy are not infinite. Life is short, in fact. You don't have endless time to come to grips with your dreams - not if you want them to stop being dreams and start being reality. But wasn't I living my dream? The thing is, it didn't feel that way anymore. I was acting a lot, true. But what did I have to show for it? Where was my life's work? The fact is, theatre is ephemeral, and while that can make it poignant and exciting - you'd better see that great show tonight because next week it will be gone forever - it was for me starting to feel hollow. When a show is over there's nothing left but a few photographs and memories. Good God, I found myself thinking more and more often, is that all I'll have to show for it when my life is done? A bunch of thin air, newspaper clippings and stories?

Around the early summer of 2002 things came to a head. I was living in Los Angeles and my financial situation abruptly crashed. I was evicted from my apartment, then I got back in, then I was evicted again ... all for having no money. Meanwhile, across town, I was appearing in a play at one of Los Angeles' more beautiful and reputable non-union-contract theatres, but because I received not a penny for my performances it was actually *costing* me money - in gas and meals - to do the show. It was absurd.

Something had to give, and finally I sat down one day and faced reality. I had to get a full-time job of some kind. So I did. I took a position at a financial printing company. And I did something that in twenty-five years of acting I never, ever did, not even once: I quit the play.

When I settled into my new job it was with a strange, brand-new feeling. One of deep humility. For the first time in my life I had to admit that I wasn't (probably, anyway) going to become famous sometime in the next week or month, therefore becoming rich and solving all my financial problems in a stroke. In fact, I would have to be much more like regular people now. I had to actually plan my life ... with healthy respect for the money I could earn. This was a major adjustment for me. It's still one I have trouble with, frankly. I don't think we were meant to be born and live according to a financial system that people basically made up out of thin air about 3,000 years ago. I think surely life is about priorities that are more sublime and eternal than that. But oh, what the hell. That's the kind of thinking that got me into trouble in the first place. So be it. A job.

I made a mental deal with myself. I would stick at the job until a number of financial goals had been reached. I would pay off certain debts, I would replace my current car, and I would take care of my teeth. Then I would quit and return to the world of acting, with my life now on a much more secure footing.

Well, that was the plan. But the Buddhists have a saying that very roughly goes, be where you are. It implies that a healthy spirit doesn't spend all its time lost in imagination, pining to be in some other place, but instead takes the place where it finds itself right here and now - whatever that place may be - and begins to create life and peace and happiness. And that's kind of what happened to me at this new job. As I showed up for work day after day and began collecting a paycheck and retiring old worrisome bills, I began to realize how much I really kind of liked living this way. It was such a change, such a relief, after so many years of hand-to-mouth. I began to feel, not simply less worried about money, but also in a very deep and profound way more peaceful, more at ease with the world. My spirit began unfolding and relaxing as it gradually healed from all the distortions that an adult life mostly ruled by poverty had inflicted on it. Having a job, it turned out, wasn't making a deal with the devil. It was bringing sunshine and water to a parched and needy soul.

Over the years I had gotten in the habit of thinking that I just couldn't afford major things in life, so it was better not to think about them at all. Now I realized this wasn't necessary anymore. If I wanted to, I could plan for a purchase, or a trip, or whatever else I liked. The sheer novelty of this was breathtaking. If I wanted to go to Hawaii, all I had to do was save the money and make the arrangements at work. New clothes? Go get them. Car needs fixing? Make an appointment.

Wow.

This may sound like a "well, duh" concept to many people reading this. "Gee, Paul, so you discovered in your forties that regular employment is a good thing. You don't say?" Okay, okay - go easy on me. I wasn't just your average dedicated artistic nut, you know. I was a very, very, very dedicated artistic nut. I had been living in a self-constructed ivory tower of the mind for twenty-five years. This new lifestyle took some adjusting.

Flash forward.

Two years after starting my job I was completely settled into it. I still called myself an actor, but I was now comfortable with the concept that I would stay at this job, not merely until my debts were paid and my car was fixed, but until something more fundamental happened - until I felt my spirit was completely healed and happy again. To tell the truth, I was no longer in any hurry about it. It was such fun to be a non-acting 'civilian' for a change. Such a *relief* not to have to plan each day, week and month after the next show, the next role. I could wear my hair the way I wanted it, not the way some part demanded. If I gained a few pounds, it didn't matter. It was so great to be out from under that constant pressure, that theatre yoke. I really felt like a huge amount of weight was off my shoulders. And then, one day, into this life of new bliss there walked an opportunity. On the internal bulletin board at work I saw a posting: applicants wanted for an open position in the company's training department. The money would be better. The atmosphere would certainly be fun and interesting. The training department's people were among the coolest people I knew at the company. The only catch was, if I got the job I would have to move from Los Angeles to Saint Paul, Minnesota.

I remember the giddy, liberated feeling that came over me when I thought, "Why not?" If I wasn't going to be acting anytime in the near future, what did I need to hang around Los Angeles for? It's a big city, true, but not exactly one of the world's most beautiful. It's not even what I'd call one of the world's 'great' cities (like New York). It's just there, a sprawling monster, founded on show biz and railroads and tourism. I could definitely use a break from it. So I applied for the new job. And a couple of months and a few telephone interviews later, to my delight, I was informed that I had gotten it.

In the mid-summer of 2005 I packed most of my belongings and gave away the rest, and drove my car with a U-Haul on the back across the country. By August, I was a newly-ensconced resident of the Twin Cities, MN.

When the dust settled, I loved my new life. I was a trainer. Part of the job was writing manuals and teaching materials, which I love to do. And another part was leading classes, which was enough like being a ham actor to satisfy my latent performing urges. The pay was good, the benefits too, and the company had a cheerful (if always-busy) atmosphere that I thought was marvelous. My new life in Minnesota quickly became almost dream-like in its perfectness. Outside lay the streams, forests, lakes and meadows of one of the most beautiful states in the Union. Inside, my new friends a new job were a constant challenge and source of fun. My gosh, I felt lucky.

There was only one thing. Downtime. I've never been good at having downtime. I get too restless. I really love the sense of having a project I'm working on, and not just any project, but a creative one. While I may have made peace with not being an actor at this time, that didn't mean I had no need of doing something. So I began to cast around for ideas. In my mind, I went for a stroll back through my life and asked myself what had I ever done - or run into - over the years that was creative and fun, and looked like something I'd like to try?

My first answer was, models. As a kid I used to make model airplanes. Now that I was a grown-up, I could ramp up the scale. What kind of models? Ships, of course! And not just any old ship. I was going to build a sailing ship! Yes, by God, that was the answer. In fact, I already knew the exact ship model I wanted to build. I wanted to build the Cutty Sark, an old English tea clipper from the 19th century and in many people's opinions one of the most beautiful sailing ships ever built. I could fill a lot of this blog with my adventures on this project, but let me give the short version here. I bought the kit and supplies; I set to work; and for the next year I labored on that thing. But one day I looked up and saw that the project was only half-finished and I thought, that's it, I can't do this anymore.

The problem was that ship-model-building is a very finicky, and very lonely, business. You sit by yourself for hours and hours sanding this part, painting that one, talking to no one, and often making very little visible progress each day. In my case, the project was especially slow because I was determined not to compromise - I wanted this model to be museum-quality. So each little binnacle and brace got the same slow, meticulous attention. After a year of this, however, I was going genuinely batty. I kept thinking in the back of my mind, "What am I going to do with this thing when it's finished, exactly?" I didn't have an answer that really satisfied me. Show it off at work? Put it on a shelf in my living room? None of those sounded nearly as resounding as they needed to, given the fact that I had pored twelve fucking months into this thing, with more to come.

Finally around November of 2006 I took a break. I went a week without working on the ship. Then two. Then three. And then I had to admit it - I didn't want to go back to the project. I was finished with it.

The Cutty Sark today sits in the spare room of my apartment, with the hull, deck, and masts all looking very pretty but with a good year's worth of work still needed to put them in shape. But to be honest, I don't miss working on it. Ship building didn't really match my temperament very well. As you can see by this blog (and my life, if you know me), I prefer my art projects to be a bit more social. I either need co-creators, or an audience, for creativity to feel like more than self-involvedness. Building ships was bound to frustrate me sooner or later.

But once I retired the ship, I was free to look around at other possibilities. And in December of 2006 I rediscovered photography.

I have always been fascinated by cameras, but that doesn't mean I've always pursued photography as a serious art. In the late seventies, when I left home for college and then moved away to Toronto to start my life as an actor, I bought a used Rolleflex SLR and went around late at night taking arty black & white photos of the city. In those days, of course, everything was film, and that meant quite a few limitations. First, you could only take up to 36 shots on a roll. Second, film and processing cost money, so every time you had one of these artistic inspirations you had to have a little cash to make it workable. And third, you never really knew what you had photographed until you got your prints back from the lab days after taking them. All this taken together was just enough to keep me from being a serious photographer, for in those days I already saw myself as primarily an actor, which was already a complex and demanding lifestyle (with many unique expenses to go along with it). I didn't have the time, or money, for a second calling.

But now, 25 years later, it was a different story. I was prosperous now and working at a job. I had time. And it was the age of digital, where you didn't need film to take photographs, just a decent computer and a copy of Photoshop. I plunged in and bought myself a Nikon D200. It arrived in the middle of December, 2006.

And this finally brings me back to my friend, Strawberry Snatchcake.

Strawberry is one of my favorite people in the world. She's one of the coolest women I've ever known anywhere. She's bright, witty, funny, affectionate, artsy, unaffected ... the list goes on and on. She has a knack for forming relationships with interesting people and turning up interesting activities. For some time now she had been a member of the North Star Roller Girls roller derby league. For several months previously, in fact, she had tried to sell me tickets to the league's bouts. I had declined, mostly because I was at home going through my little artistic identity crisis. Strawberry knew I was working on the Cutty Sark, but she also knew I had recently bought a camera. She approached me at work with a ticket in her hand and said, "Come on. Buy this! And come! You'll have fun and you can take lots of pictures with your new camera."

To my eternal gratitude, I said, "Okay, I will!" And I did.

My first view of the North Star Roller Girls was less than a week later when I drove from my apartment in Saint Paul to Coon Rapids, Minnesota - about half an hour away - and parked in front of a roller rink called Cheap Skate. I went inside, where the lights were multicolor and the rock 'n' roll music was blasting away. I saw other people from work, and at some point I saw Strawberry too ... so different from her work persona, in a short-skirted derby uniform with fishnet stockings, roller skates, knee and elbow and wrist pads, and helmet. She looked like a cross between a biker chick and a gladiator - which, now that I think of it, is pretty much what all derby girls look like (with lots of ingenious variation). I took a few photos of her and some of her teammates, and then pretty much spent the rest of the night hanging around near the track trying to take photos of the action. When I got home, I had nearly 600 shots.

I won't say that I was instantly hooked on roller derby. It was fun, yes, but my photographic interests lay in other directions at that time. When I first had my new camera, and first began to take photography seriously, it was nature and landscapes and cityscapes that I wanted to shoot. I wanted to get out there in the world and photograph majestic beauty. That was my first notion of what photographers did. I wasn't going to shoot roller derby, which was so Annie Leibowitz; I was going to shoot breathtaking sunrises over the graveyard and other sweeping scenes, and be known as the new Ansel Adams.

I was therefore in no particular hurry to get back to Cheap Skate and shoot more roller derby. I went to another bout a few weeks later, and didn't even bring along my camera!

But as the weeks turned into months, and as I began to get more comfortable with photography, then I began to get more restless about my early notions of subject matter. A sunset is a lovely thing, no question. But if you go join an online photo-networking site like Flickr (which I did) you'll soon see hundreds of thousands of them. All lovely. So I had to wonder, was I really contributing anything to the betterment of humankind by capturing yet another pretty shot of our closest star going down beyond that far-off hill?

I had the same vaguely dissatisfied feelings about shooting beautiful architecture and scenery of the Twin Cities. Especially when I began seeing dozens of other people on Flickr doing the exact same thing. Why even have a camera if all you're going to do is take the same old photos as everyone else? It's not like it's any kind of brilliant technical accomplishment: if you have a good camera, folks, then catching sunsets is pretty easy. Pretty sunrises too. Ditto barns, ducks, falling water, majestic buildings, and the glint of sunshine on a drop of dew on a leaf. These are all subjects that have been explored so many times they amount to enervating cliches. Even when taken by a master photographer, do I really need to see another image of a tulip moist with dew? Unless it's from a completely new perspective, the answer is no.

And that's the thing. Perspective.

Here's what I think: I think every photographer has a unique opportunity to be an explorer. I think a photographer goes out into the world, captures an image, and brings it back for the rest of us to see. Sometimes these photographs are of familiar subjects - in which case, the photographer is being something of a recordist or historian, capturing and preserving the life that we know. But other photographers, the explorer-artists, ask more of themselves. They go out and bring back images that surprise, or dazzle, or mystify, or provoke us. They capture images that we never imagined existed, or were possible. Images that, but for the alchemy of the photographer, we would otherwise never have seen.

Scenic beauty is sometimes part of this. I've seen beautiful landscapes ... in particular a series of foggy woodlands at dawn in the middle of the French countryside ... that I'm immensely grateful for, because the chances of my getting to French countryside at dawn in the fog anytime soon are pretty slim. But I'm not talking about exceptional scenic beauty shots. I'm talking about routine beauty shots. If you go to, say, Niagara Falls and set up your camera and take a routine beauty shot of the water plunging over the cliffs into the valley below ... then you're being a recordist, in my opinion, not an artist. You're reproducing a photo taken thousands of times before. This documents the fact that you were there, and that may be in fact what you want to achieve. But if take a shot like this and think you're an artist, in my opinion you need to think again.

The Statue of Liberty, Niagara Falls, the White House, the local graveyard ... we all know what these things look like. Sad but true, thousands of photographers have gotten there first, and all the standard angles have been covered to death. If you don't find some new way to treat these subjects, but instead go and repeat the same set-piece photos that everyone else has taken for years, then you've completely failed in your very first duty as a photographic artist by choosing a trite subject and covering it tritely. In heaven's name, there are already millions of stock images of Niagara Falls on this planet. We don't need more.

This is how I feel about local photographers in the Twin Cities area. Yes, there is a lot of beauty here. Yes, it's understandable that new photographers want to photograph the same subjects as those who have gone before them, as a learning experience. But honestly if I see another shot of the Stone Arch Bridge taken from the east shore looking west towards the Minneapolis skyline, day or night, I'm gonna puke. Seriously people, get some imagination! Ask more of yourself. Stretch a little.

This is how my mind was running when I began thinking of roller derby again.

It took time, but by the middle of 2007 I began to realize that roller derby was not just some weird sport that my friend was constantly bugging me to buy tickets to; it was, in fact, exactly the kind of photographic subject I was looking for. Here was originality itself: a group of women, ages 21 to late 40's, not only playing a rough contact team sport but also organizing and running the league on their own. And doing it, I discovered, with a wit, style, and friendliness that you just don't see in most organized men's sports. Yet roller derby was still underground as far as most of America was concerned. Simply by covering it, I could possibly help it get off the ground by exposing it to a wider audience. And in the meantime, I could experience the thrill of covering a largely un-covered sport (and culture) while improving my photography by chasing some of the most colorful, fantastic on- and off-track action you can imagine.

All my instincts said, go back to derby.

And so I did.

In the fall of 2007 I learned that the North Star Roller Girls had moved their bouts to the Minneapolis Convention Center, which was not only a bigger and more impressive venue, but one that's much easier to get to than Cheap Skate. I started going to bouts regularly and started taking pictures. Lots of them.

At first they sucked, but I was determined to improve. And I also wasn't shy about spending money. One of the advantages of being a 40-something bachelor with a full-time job is I had no other life commitments demanding my paycheck, so I could save my money relatively quickly to improve my camera gear. In March of 2008 I bought Nikon's best sports lens, the 70-200 2.8 VR. In May I sold my Nikon D200 for a brand-new D300, which was much better in lower light conditions. Around this time I also began using a flash on my camera, and learning how to use it artfully. By midsummer I also began using Adobe Lightroom for post-processing. And so on and so on. It's a process that continues to this day.

I have often said that for me, derby was photography boot camp. In about one year flat it turned me from a nervous newbie into a confident shooter.

And as my art developed, my life blossomed too. Mostly because my relationship with NSRG has brought humanity whooshing back into my life in the form of friendships with the skaters, referees and other league volunteers. Derby folk, it turns out, are very exceptional people. It's a bit like a sport, and a bit like being in the circus.

Derby skaters, in particular, make an interesting contrast with the actresses who used to fill my life. Both groups of women have a special spark that is immediately striking. But derby girls, in their role as serious athletes, have an extra dimension of pioneer strength that actresses as a group don't require. The arts, after all, have been full of women for decades. But competitive team contact sports? Before derby came along, exactly how many shining examples of that for women have there been out there? I'll tell you. Next to zero.

By playing any sort of sport seriously, then, derby girls rock. That they do so against the counterpressure of society - a world that still wants women to look pretty, stay home, make babies, worry about their weight, and otherwise leave the world of the locker room and bruises and sweat and aggression to men - means they doubly rock. But it goes even further. Derby is not just any old sport; it's a truly punishing sport demanding endurance, agility, flexibility, strategic thinking, and an ability and willingness to bash the lights out of opposing players while occasionally being bashed yourself. I used to play ice hockey and I'm telling you, I wince when I see some of the shoulder-blocks these women dish out while wearing no shoulder padding whatsoever. Those who play roller derby are not faint-hearted debutantes, sham-beautiful while they worry about about split ends and china patterns. They are dedicated athletes, hurling around the track, playing an exceptional sport exceptionally, fast and alive and beautiful - and awesome - to behold.

And from a social point of view ... where else, I ask you, do you find a sport where the players will bake you cookies for being their loyal cameraman? Where else do you see players on opposing teams laughing and smiling and talking to each other just before the whistle blows? Where else do you find a sport where, in some far off city on a traveling team trip, you show up and are immediately surrounded by players who want to gush thanks at you for making the trip? In a life that has not been without its share of exceptional people, derby has got to be one of the most fun and rewarding families I've ever been a part of. I wouldn't trade my position with NSRG today for all the tea in China.

And that pretty much brings us up to now.

Thank God! I can finally stop blathering and get down to what this blog is really about, which is, the daily and weekly adventures of me with a camera in my hand. Since starting to shoot for the North Star Roller Girls I've picked up a second amazing gig, becoming (starting this year) the official photographer for the Saint Paul Saints baseball club. The Saints are another amazing family, and their ballpark, Midway Stadium, is a mecca for some of the most delightful characters and fans and players I've ever met. Every time I go there it's a pleasure, and that's a good thing, since I just got this summer's schedule and there's a LOT of home games on it. It's not time to rev up yet. But almost. The fun starts next month, in mid-late May.

Meantime, NSRG has its championship bout on May 9th. I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a doozy.

And that's all. Except:

Thank you Strawberry for bringing me into this life. Thank you, guardian angels, for kicking me in the pants enough times to realize what I had. Thank you, roller girls and volunteers and refs and fellow photographers of the NSRG, for adopting me into this family.

And thank you, who are reading this now, for being my new friend. I hope you'll come back often. I have lots to tell and show you. Meantime, leave me a comment! I look forward to it.

:-)
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