Dear Janolytes,

Yea y’all read that correctly this is a season finale. A 4 part season finale IN Black History Month.

But Jano what do you mean a 4 part season finale?

Excellent question. In case you forgot the point of my photo portion of my JRPG Bizarre Art Journey was to get more experience working with models since I’ve mostly done events. However as of now I reached that point i was at in January of the trying times of 2020, where I have no more shoots to talk about. Well I do but they are all events which I legit disassociate while doing. 

I phase out and don’t’ get attached while being there. Like I’m the Watcher from Marvel Comics or something. 

And since I feel like I will be doing filler issues for the next 4 months and literally have no patience for that. Today I give you a rare treat of 4 a part season finale, kinda like 90s cartoon. Prime example, the X-men episodes when Apocalypse was at the nexus of time and we saw Psylocke for the first time and a slew of random team ups. 

This isn’t that epic, but you get the point. The only real comparison is that they came back with new episodes even thought that finale was supposed to be the final arc.

As if.

At least we will get a new X-Men series continuing from the episodes that followed the aforementioned arc.You may want to get a book mark to help you along with the entirety of this issue.

A Quinceañera….with no subtitles

This part of the issue if brought to you by Cotton field 10, the place that inadvertently gave me more than a lumped out throat. Not enough to fully live off,but ya know other things. Case in point even tho I left when the Covid lockdown occurred that accomplished nothing, but pissing off white people.  My girlfriend stayed in that hellish landscape and over time made friends. Look at her making friends and shit. One of her friends knew that I was a photographer and also knew someone who was looking one. Ding Ding Ding. This Spanish family needed someone for their daughters Quinceanera and I was the first person they thought of. Have I ever worked a Quinceanera before? Absolutely not. But i was about to. I didn’t make contact with the client but my girlfriend did, and she literally coordinated the whole thing.

Side note we are in July of 2021 and my car is still very much not working. Actually at this point, it is sitting in a shop being ignored and the owners telling me shit that isn’t true.

Anyway.

So the Saturday comes and after she comes home from work and gets ready, we go to the newly appointed location  since the initial location they wanted was congested with possible Covid contaminated  humans.and we wait….and wait….and wait.

Side note, in case you are wondering why I linked the last sentence twice, it is because I did shoots in the areas this clients wanted, and the current shoot takes place where I shot someone before. Just in case it wasn’t obvious.

We wait for at least 2 hours, because the daughters hair stylist canceled on her or something. I don’t remember. I don’t. It don’t help that I didn’t exactly speak to them, I literally can’t speak Spanish.

At all.

So my Puerto Rican girlfriend was the primary contact with this family. We did some shots in the park, but this portion felt very rushed. They still had to be at the venue at a certain time, despite the 2 hr delay. After the rush job we left and headed to the hotel…and a yo real shit i don’t have a good recollection of events. You know how when you watch something in a foreign language and there is subtitles so you are a little more connected to the event.

Yea, there were no subtitles. No such subtitles exist. It was a fully Spanish event with me being the sole Negro in desperate need of a translator communicating with my brain.

Spoiler Alert.

She told me what was happening and what I needed to get shots that was of significance for this type of event while my photographer instinct helped guide the way. But real shit I was highly detached from this like most events i do.

I can tell you that I realized I had to raise my rate for events.

Why?

Because events are fucking exhausting. That is why. Niggas just be sitting there for elongated periods of time as nothing happens, waiting.

Fucking waiting Janolytes. FUCKING WAITING.

So yeah i raised my rate and realized photo shoots and events are on different levels. On a positive notes besides my amazing ass images with a flash I’ve barely used. The amount of money I got from this helped me repair my car from the problems that were plaguing it since late March. Of course I didn’t get it fixed until October. But you know a win is a win.

Go ahead and read my subtitle less experience and we will fast forward to September.

Mad Monster Expo!

Fall was approaching and I had just started a new cotton field while being on pause from Jeff Bezos slave pit.

Jano how did you pause a slave pit?

Don’t worry about that. Just be happy for me that I found something else that had my body in less pain even though i worked longer hours. Esp since the litany of car repairs that were meaningless had tapped my wallets heart.Plus my trip to New York City wasn’t cheap. Blessed Be for seasonal slave pits that I somehow get kept at.  In midst of me readjusting to a new plantation my actress homegirl hit me up asking if i could video panels at Mad Monster Expo.

Ummm videos?

Legit have never done videos, at all. Luckily Google and You tube are a thing. I watch a few and realize maybe I’m over thinking this process. I def have to buy a bigger memory card.

Side note, I’m legit glad how NOW you can get so much space for like $24, its fucking amazing bro.

I tell her I’m down and make arrangements to borrow my girlfriends car, because sadly my car is still not repaired.

Time Out.

My car literally sat at these south of the border niggas shop for 5 weeks and nothing happened. Nothing Happened. I came back from NYC getting a fucking convo full of fuckery. Luckily someone I met Jeff Bezoes slave pit told me about a place, problem was getting my car in said shop because niggas leave their cars there to die. So that was a thing until the end of September.

Legit wasn’t planning on my car repairs to be a part of my Bizarre art Journey, but here we are.

Time in.

I tell my homegirl that I will do Saturday and Sunday. The weekend comes and before I head to the Expo I have to go buy a lens that I think I lost in the woods.

UGH, the irony is I never bought that lens and now a squirrel is using it help fend off its kids from snakes. FUN.

I arrive at the Expo, and man so many white people. So many white people, enough that i play my usual game of count the ethnic folk just in case. I meet with her and then we meet with the organizer who needs a videographer. He seems chill which is good, and explains to me that the people who he had video taping the panels were so starstruck that they forget to hit record.

AYO!!

I have no clue who these niggas are bro, so don’t worry about that. Spoiler Alert, I’ve seen so little movies in life. SO LITTLE.  Most of my friends are disappointed in me, and I’m ok with that.

I found out my YouTube crash course in Videography was unnecessary, as fuck. He already had equipment and had a whole methodology for it. A simple method,so fucking simple.

He tells me the process and also that i don’t have to do much other than hit record and make sure the guest stay in the frame. And that the only people I should listen to is another Expo Media member.

Pretty Simple right?

MAN. my first celebrity I was recording was Meatloaf. That nigga who sang that song I would do anything for love but i won’t do that, and if that is being a decent human being he died lonely.

OMG JANO HOW COULD YOU TALK ABOUT MEATLOAF?

Spoiler Alert, that nigga was a rude cunt to me and the media team. I legit don’t’ give a fuck who gets upset from reading that. I don’t give a fuck. Being an old white washed up celebrity does not entitle you to be rude and disregard Covid protocols in a pandemic.

Jano, you really are speaking ill of the dead?

Yes, Yes I am because that is what fucking happened.

Anyway fuck him and his carcass. Can’t do shit for love now huh? Man I ain’t said nothing assholic up here in a while. MAN I feel like a whole fuckin Yeet GAWD again.

Anyway on to the rest of the show.

The bulk of my experience there was me hitting record listening to what they had to say in the process and then hitting stop. Besides dealing with the aforementioned bloated gas bag cunt I saw  Shawnee Smith who complimented my hair, legit may watch The Saw movies now. Bonnie Aarons from The Nun, Nick Castle,Will Sanden,  and John Michael Graham from Halloween. The Scream Panel was huge with Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich. Matthew Lillard is a koolio dude, he took a picture of me while i was recording him.It was interesting in listening to about the life of an actor and how productions they didn’t think were going to be big become iconic pieces for a generation. There were a few other people but I don’t remember who they were and the program I had isn’t available anymore. Plus there was a Miss Mad Monster pageant which was interesting.

Eh oh well.

Anyway to see the few images I did snap when not filming go here.

Time for another time leap into the semi frigid month of November.

Kick, Push, Kick, Push

Although this wasn’t as monumental as the last two I thought this was pretty kool. When I met my internet friend turned real life friend and model, I became koolio with her boyfriend as well.

I visited them one weekend to catch up since I hadn’t seen them really since May. While we were chatting he told me about an impromptu skateboard competition. Even though I never skated despite peoples assumption about me, I think its pretty kool. The next day came and I went to the abandoned lot of what use to be Eastland Mall.

MAN the concept of time is terrifying. very. I use to go there when I was a kid and now its demolished. But in its ashes a group of skaters found a new home, which is pretty fucking dope. I got there first and my friend did later.

Bruh, on god. That shit was chill. Niggas were just skating with music blasting from a car with a nice system. I smelled drugs as I practiced my spider sense of knowing when to hit the shutter as I heard the skater approach. Shit was WAKA FLOCKA FIYA FLAME.

Did i fully understand the maneuvers of what they were doing?

Fuck no.

Did I enjoy it?

Fuck yea nigga.

The competition wasn’t long, but it was dope as fuck for me and my home boy. He actually got inspired to start skating again. Thats that yeet bro. It is.

Go ahead and look at a whole culture here bro and embrace for the final time skip.

Femme Fest

I love the simplicity of life sometimes. I do. Legit the day this happened I was going to go see the new Spiderman movie (which at this point is 2 months old, but i’m late because I hadn’t seen Eternals, Shang Chi, and Black Widow yet) with home boy since high school. But he was busy dealing with internet fuckery…CHILD THE FUCKERY.

WHEWWWW!!!

But we had to reschedule which was fine. In the meantime I saw a post that caught my attention. It was a female concert series at Camp North End. I had texted my art journalist  friend I met at my art show in June. He actually was well aware of it and I met him out there. Did I plan on doing photography related things ?

No.

But when your ancestors tell you to go somewhere you go. On Kami.

Eventually I found him. i say eventually because there was a slew of construction that had popped up since my last visit in October when I did my last show. Maneuvering in a newly warped space was a thing.

As if.

It was the first time seeing each other since June, we caught up as I told him journeys are weird and turbulent at times but don’t give up. Artist performed in the background and he went to shoot as I went to appease my stomach.

Yay for dumplings. Yay for fucking dumplings.

He asked would I help interview the musical artist,I was down. Literally all i did was have to hit record on his phone. His first guest was Natalie Carr.

Literally have been listening to her since i heard her, i legit liked her sound. Plus she has a chill spirit.

Next was Reecee Raps, her soud was dope too. I was bopping to her in the cotton field today. In the midst of us waiting for her to come to his station for an interview, he ran into another friend he knows who is an artist, named BlackSmith Sundays.  He introduced us and told me he did the Toonami Beats albums he told me about when we met last June. I legit fan girled out and was like oh shit. I just listened to him the other day. So fucking shway bro. So shway.

I didn’t say shway,but it is tho.

He interviewed them both in aforementioned order i discussed them, not at that exact moment but maybe an hour later.
Shout out to these local artist that make shit i can listen to while on my art journey.

YEET TO THE GAWDZ.

At any rate to see this yeetful images all you have to do is click this word.

And that is it guys. I don’t know why I thought this would be a short blurb of storied, i really forgot how i talk, my random tangents and me talking shit about dead celebrities.

OOPS.

I literally have been typing for damn near 3 hours and my fingers hurt. I don’t know exactly when my next issue will be, I really don’t.  I may be back next month with something, I may let things pile up like I usually do and come back for another season, or I may release issues as I do shoots. I have no clue. I will be releasing issues of my book tho, so there is that at least.

In an ideal world I would have clients and the shoots I’ve been trying to do for the past few years would have happened by now. But nope my JRPG Bizarre Art Adventure is forever full of complication.

But I know I need to step back to focus on my book.

And non profit things, like finding a staff, and getting us funded so that I can stop working these bullshit cotton fields. FUCK THEM ALL!!!

In the meantime if you want to get your monthly fill of Jano, The Azure Prince. Feel free to buy my books, some merchandise, or follow me on my social media channels listed in the side menu.

Until next time Janolytes, whenever that will be.

*Rolls credits on Season 2 of Jano’s Bizarre Art Adventure