O'Fallon, Missouri is my hometown, and the world headquarters of
CitiMortgage - the same CitiMortgage that lent more money than existed, through contracts written in a legal Aramaic even Greenspan couldn't read or recite slowly, but that Americans autographed like Mylie Cyrus at a Kids 'R' Us going-out-of-business sale.
On Saturday night, I cruised Hwy K in O'Fallon photographing the downturn for The St. Louis Beacon. After shooting a depressing series of endless "For Lease" & "For Sale" signs in strip malls, factories, and foreclosed American homes, I turned onto Technology Drive, the street built to accomodate CitiMortgage and the feckless American Dream it extinguished. After several twists and turns, I came upon the "No Trespassing" sign pictured below, and was happy to see it there. It was good to know my property was protected by a street sign.
After all, this is my property, is it not? My elected brokers on Capitol Hill just bought me an ownership stake in it at the firesale price of $45 billion. I contemplated having a Super Bowl party the next night on my new asphalt space, and maybe hosting a post-game orgy in the cubicles. There is so much my fellow Americans and I can do with our new real estate, I thought, as I went to work with my camera with Tupac's "Hit 'em up" bumping at top volume through the open windows of my automobile.
Suddenly, my shots were fucked by the brighted headlights of a white Chevy Trailblazer with paper license plates from Enterprise Rent-a-Car. I signaled the driver to dim them.
"Don't worry, chief!" I shouted, "I know you're there!"
A security guard in a tissue-thin white short-sleeve button-up dismounted into the brisk night air and asked, "What're'ya doin' there?"
"Taking pictures for The St. Louis Beacon," I said.
"The wha?"
"The St. Louis Beacon - the best goddamn news website the St. Louis Area ever clicked on. Give it a read after work. You won't regret it."
"Ha, well alright," he laughed. "So you're press?"
"Yup," I said, which felt strange. I often claim to be press to get in where I oughtn't be, but this time I meant it. And I meant every word I said about the Beacon, too. For years, the St. Louis Area has been condemned to depend on the hopelessly inadequate Post-Dispatch, and their equally-Right Wing counterparts on the network TV news, for information. The Beacon is the objective & accurate game-changer, and I am their relentless photojournalist and reporter-in-training in St. Charles County.
The guard took out a notebook. "Lemme git yer information," he said.
"What for?"
"I'm gonna have to make a report of this," he replied. "This here's private property, and you know how it is after 9/11 and all that..."
Two can play that game, I thought. And so I took out my notebook and asked for his name. He gladly provided it (and his rank too). I omit them here, for the same reason I opted that night to do what I was told instead of launching into my ready-made & eloquent misinterpretation of the First Amendment, about the Freedom of the Press and the Press & Democracy.
The security guard was an older Missouri gentleman, and my guess is that his shirt fit him better when he bought it. It was starched with the careful pride older generations take in these things. He struck me as the kind of guy who had seen, brought, and taken an ass-whippin' in his day, and would surely whip mine if I got to running my yap in his ear.
"What kind of car is that?" he asked.
"A Prius," I said.
"Ohhh," he replied, unable to conceal his awe. "So it's a hybrid?"
"It is," I said, before leaving peacefully with his supervisor's contact information to call when I needed more pictures.
To run me off was his job, as he understood it, and he politely afforded me every courtesy his anti-ruffian trade required. A job ain't an easy thing to come by in '09, and I saw no reason to make his any more difficult than sitting alone at his age in an empty parking lot all night already was.
But still, I left with questions like: What does it mean to have an ownership stake in Citi? Why does CitiMortgage rent its security SUVs? With all of their bad credit, did they not qualify for an auto loan? And where do CitiMortgage and post-9/11 legislation intersect?
This last question is the strangest of them all, to me. What would "the evil doers" want with the buildings of a company worth an estimated $300 billion less than just last year, when Citi's tycoons were still happily destroying the American future?
Bill S.
Owl_Says_Who
kipouros
RIRedinPA
StoneParliament
Rachel Tepper
Salon.com
Comments
WOOF
mary
By the same token, you have the right to wander around the White House lawn and take pictures. Don't worry about those Secret Service guys, they're just kidding.
Good job.
But, a hybrid? Where is your testosterone? The security guard probably wasn't in awe, but thinking his daughter's beetle was more appealing.
If you need a job McDonald's is always hiring.
He was professionally dressed, and did not look like a slob at all. His shirt fit loosely, as if bought in heartier times. But he was a capable, honest, and methodical professional of the sort so-desperately needed to patrol Citi's executive-level. And yet, he is relegated to nights in the parking lot.
re: Verbal Remedy
Pablo Ramirez
Our government will get the idea that the vast majority of citizens are fed up with spending endless billions to bailout insolvent companies that cannot be saved. It may take huge protests, riots and other upheaval, but they will eventually get the idea.
The game is over and as usual, the little guy gets the shaft.
To clarify the statement "...I am their relentless photojournalist and reporter-in-training in St. Charles County."
I offered myself up to The Beacon as their photojournalist and reporter-in-training. They accepted, but on a freelance basis. Had I written here that I was a Beacon staff member, it would have surely been a lie, and so I didn't. I similarly did not I write that I was on assignment for The Beacon, despite that my collaboratively pre-conceived and accepted freelance "duties," if you will, were to cover the downturn in St. Charles County. Hence the statement: "On Saturday night, I cruised Hwy K in O'Fallon photographing the downturn for The St. Louis Beacon." If this led you to the assume I was a Beacon staff member...well, then I guess we are both asses, as they say.
I was, however, taking pictures exclusively for publication in The St. Louis Beacon, and so, in essence & in action, I was literally "taking pictures for The St. Louis Beacon," which is exactly what I told the guard and precisely what I wrote here.
In any event, I am no longer The Beacon's relentless photojournalist and reporter-in-training in St. Charles County, as the Beacon has chosen to terminate their relationship with me, which is a shame, because I believe in The Beacon's mission, as I told them from the start.
I don't understand why the Beacon claims this essay violates their "standards". I find it to be an excellent, objective, and well-written account of a situation he encountered while taking photographs for the Beacon (sorry Margaret, I don't believe you on that one). Frankly, it makes me wonder what is wrong at the Beacon that they need to expressly disassociate themselves from and disparage this essay. The subject is innocuous, and Pablo certainly says nothing that hasn't been said before in editorial pages throughout the country.
Obviously there is something else going on here which doesn't concern the story. But the Beacon's actions make me feel like the problem is with them, not the writer.
Weird reaction, if you ask me.
Pablo- given the nature of the current job market, its entirely possible that two days previous he WAS executive-level management.
The situation our country finds itself in today is just CRIMINAL. Its a shame however that none of the architects andmasterminds will ever be brought to justice. In fact, many of them probably WORK at Justice...
Great writin'!