Dear Friends of Jano,
Damn its February already, fuck thats wild. But this polar vortex is even wilder, FUCK its so fucking cold when I leave my house to go pick cotton before the freaking sun is up. Its 2019 and I’ve never heard of a polar vortex ever in my life prior to this week. Is this the end of everything??? If it is I hope I get my X-Men Vs Street Fighter game first, it still hasn’t arrived since last issue. GRRRSSSH.
Anyway.
I type this as I breath in Lavender and Peppermint mist from my diffuser, hopefully it will calm me down as I type this.
But Jano Why?
Because 2018 was a fucking existential photographic nightmare. Thats right, as of this issue we are now in 2018 and will be for only 5 issues after this issue. I had so many photographic aspirations and goals last years that went unfulfilled. And here I was thinking that it would be simpler than the concepts I tried to pursue in 2017. Definitely found out there are deeper levels to feeling like trash. But we will get to that later.
As for right now we are gonna flashback to January 2018. My actress homegirl friend England Simpson, wanted to do another birthday photoshoot with her sister like we did in 2017. Her and her sister share the same birthday as Edgar Allen Poe, yes the Edgar Allen Poe. I don’t know why I felt the need to say the Edgar Allen Poe like there is more than one. Fuck its 2019 and I’m going for dramatic effect for no reason. Anyway after our initial convo I started thinking of places where we could shoot at. The first place I thought of was McGill Rose Garden, figured it would be a nice ambiance.
Well it would have been. The original day we were going to do it England was on her deathbed (not really) and since I don’t like the idea of shooting someone when they are not feeling good we postponed it. The new shoot day became that Monday on Martin Luther King Jr Day, but we found out that the rose garden was closed on Mondays.
FUUUUUCK.
Spoiler Alert, I wasn’t that upset.
I scrolled my brain for possible new places and I remembered Stone Jackson Military School. My spirit was hit with so much joy.
But Jano why?
Stone Jackson Military School is an abandoned school with a mass amount of empty buildings. And I legit have been wanting to do an abandoned shoot for the longest period in my life. Well more so since I got serious about my photography journey in 2016. I had scouted it back in the summer of 2017, I had only drove by it though. But the campus is huge, impressive as fuck, and filled with so much potential.
That Monday came, the girls met at my house on the frigid fucking morning and we headed toward the campus. In retrospect there may have been a polar vortex that day too, cuz NIGGA it was cold. Oppressively and disrespectfully cold. England had told me on the drive up there that she was excited because she had viewed it online and saw some of the photos others had shot there. We were all filled with high hopes and magical negro joy.
Right about that.
We got there and all the buildings were fenced up, not regular fences but Jurassic Park style fences. Nigga is there a T-Rex here?
Oh nigga I was upset, when I drove by this place a few months prior these fences weren’t in existence. Well they were in existence but not there. Since the vibe from this place was forbidden as fuck, I parked at a store strip mall down the street from the school and we walked to the school.
Did I say it was cold as fuck? No well it was cold as fuck.
It only took a few minutes to get to campus from where I parked. We had to make sure not to step and slip on freshly frozen patches, the last thing was 3 negroes seen busting their asses on forbidden property. We looked around trying to see if there was any place we could sneak in a building.
*sigh*
Everything was boarded up and if it wasn’t boarded it was enclosed by fences that might as well be electric. At some point an old black man drove by and gave us a warning about us being on the property. At first we thought he was gonna be an informant and the cops would pull up and arrest us shortly after. But in retrospect he probably was just looking out for us so we wouldn’t be a new statistic of cop racism.
Despite his warning we stayed on campus a little while longer trying to make the best out of a blarghed scenario. The whole gated ambiance legit killed my mood, worse than an anime death scene I’ve seen. Shit was worse than seeing Neji die. At some point we saw a gated building that had a hole in it, so England and I decided that we were gonna sneak in to get some shots while her sister decided to watch out. We literally just got in the gate and she told us that she heard a car, we bolted out of the enclosure ASAP. England escaped with no problems, me not so much. My coat got snagged as did my jeans, HARD. Cotton oozed from my goat and my thigh to my shin was exposed.
NIGGA!!!
That frigid weather is way worse when your body is exposed. I felt the wind fill my pants and tickle my balls. My whole ball sack and butt hole was frozen.
Spoiler Alert it is not a pleasant feeling, no such feelings existed for me that day. GOD DAMN IT my balls were cold.
We stayed a little bit longer to get some more shots of what we could so this trip wouldn’t be a total waste, but at some point our collective negro spider senses said we should leave to avoid police confrontation. The last thing I wanted was to have icicles growing out my asshole while dealing with a problematic racist cop while pursing my dreams.
We left, arrived back at my house, and as they chose their photos I changed pants and reclaimed the heat that I had been deprived of for the past 2 hours. The shoot was ok, minus that and everything being fucking gated as fuck. Maybe one day I’ll get to shoot an abandoned building without fear of prosecution. Martin Luther King Jr died for the right to purse my art dreams.
Anyway to view some of the photos from the day my nuts became surrounded by ice click here.
Anyway as Bugs Bunny says Thats All Folks, for this issue at least. Hopefully by the next issue I will have gotten my damn X-Men Vs Street Fighter game, beaten Final Fantasy 7, went to Anderson Paaks Concert, and somehow managed to finish coloring as issue of my comic series. Yo real shit I miss being unemployed like I was in 2016 – early 2017, I could stay up all night and work on my art all night. I just wanna color damn it.
Hail to the Guardian of the Watch Tower. Sun, Moon, Star, North, South, East and West. Help me find time and give me the strength to color the rest of my comic series Azure Ascendance. Help me get it to where it is on Netflix and never have work these jobs I care nothing for ever again. And that I do the photoshoots that I didn’t get to last year.
Blessed Be.
