SHOOTING THE MONKEYS IN LAUGHLIN, NV: part two

Found a new angle of attack when "shooting the monkeys" in Laughlin, NV.


While driving up the ramp to park at The Golden Nugget (my favorite hotel casino in Laughlin)...I noticed that....with some elevation (7th Floor)...one could get another look at the infamous giant monkey statutes in Laughlin.





Some monkeys have the original light fixture flame...others...seem to be holding a long bugle...to trumpet the banality of our existence on this dying orb?





If you shoot photos around this area....you'll be looking for some different subjects.

And....the giant monkeys....are too funky to ignore.

I think in the morning....the sun out of the east...gives you another chance to do a line up type shot with soft light.

But...I'll save that for another day.





I kind of wonder if "shooting the monkeys" is another new phrase to throw around...while trying to pretend to be hip?


Like "jumping the shark" was used to death after being birthed by some Hollywood hipster referring to that old Happy Days TV show episode...when....FONZI actually did an Evil Knievel jump over a shark tank on his motorcycle.




ABC ran the previews of that...and scored a big ratings win during the crucial time frame for Neilsen ratings.

So...."jumping the shark" means...your "promoting something that fizzles" after people see it.

Remember Geraldo Rivera's "Opening of Al Capone's vault" long ago.

Unbelievable hype over nothing.

Anti climax....was defined by that vain dip shit so long ago...in my youth.

And I think...Geraldo should always be remembered as a gilded edge disappointment to the latino advance on America.

Geraldo's father in law, Kurt Vonnegut, couldn't stand that son of a bitch.

Ya know?

I'll take Ceasar Chavez any day.

A guy who toiled in the fields, then stood up for his people against aerial spraying of herbicide on farm workers who were not allowed to leave the field before the spraying?




Chavez also championed the rights of female workers to NOT BE SEXUALLY HARASSED which is still a problem addressed in The Imperial Valley fields today (California).

I remember seeing Chavez speak at The Univ of Texas in 1990...to a packed exuberant audience...and that was my first experience with Latinos championing their rights, and I was emotionally taken away with the excitement and shouts in support of this very honest, beautiful soul who organized the infamous Grape Boycott so long ago.


So....uh...well...."shooting the monkeys" means...you serendipitously found something that others ignored.....and....you found exalted value in something taken for granted.

"Eureka!...it's gold nuggets as far as the eye can see!".




I think you got to have a little "Aries" personality or pathfinding extincts to look and find your own monkeys.




I think you got to be a bit of a free thinker to see the monkeys that are all around us....and, uh...hey...remember I said that "carrying a camera" changes your vision?

Carrying a camera...can change what you notice while seeing?




You are what you think, and what you think is effected by what you see....and, if you are unfortunate enough (or perhaps lucky) to be isolated you can blaze trails like Georgia O'Keefe finding the magnification of flowers...as a way of worshipping the life force......while totally cut off from New York Art Circles while hermitting at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.....right?




Her isolation created the freedom to notice and then see....what she wanted to exalt...towards a startling artistic vision.

Maybe, you really are a Remote Viewer, but...got jammed up by all the annoyances of everyday life, and "didn't listen to yourself long enough?".



Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm......maybe you need to be out in the wilderness by yourself (with a camera and laptop and maybe a cat named "Sinatra") for long periods of "self affirming, self seeking, self absorbed, self imposed" ISOLATION to confront Eric Fromm's "fear of aloneness"...so you can...uh...BREAK ON THROUGH TO THE OTHER SIDE?




Isolated from any meaningful dissent can be good or bad......sometimes "alienation serves as a caccoon" protecting untested ethics, morals, views of reality ("threat assessments" and "friend assessments").


Isolation of groups....can be disastrous since groups have more power together.




GROUP THINK by definition only crops up when groups are cut off from opposing views or personalities (remember "Hawks vs. Doves" during Viet Nam?).




So be careful choosing and finding your monkeys.

You can easily play the fool to the sound of one hand clapping.

There are hobbyists who restore and drive Ford Edsels from the fifties?




Perhaps...you have to be like Kerouac who admitted, "...the only thing I had to offer was my own confusion...".




PS: "...don't forget the giant eternal flames..." keeping those monkeys warm.