Au Cochonnet Marin

“Prescription: A physician’s guess at what will best prolong the situation with least harm to the patient.”
Ambrose Bierce

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Like millions of Americans, I am a pill popper, a junkie, a stoner, a drug abuser.
Every day, under doctor’s orders, I generously contribute to Big Pharma’s retirement fund.

Because no matter what, some day your doctor will sharpen his pencil and prescribe some little blue, pink, green or whatever color pills to cure what is bothering you. It might possibly alleviate (not cure) your problem.

In the evening I watch my fair share of TV and I am subjected daily to a slew of pill commercials bearing very peculiar names. As a matter of fact, I always wondered where and how they get these names.
From another planet?

But (under activists’ pressure) Big Pharma must now warn you that their multicolor offerings might have some undesirable side effects. You might get gastrointestinal problems, blurred vision, become impotent or even worse.
Not a problem. If the green pills don’t work, your doctor will prescribe pink pills or even horse pills.
Doctors have thousands of them in their arsenal and every day they get more ammo.

“If all the medicine in the world where thrown into the sea, It would be bad for the fish and good for humanity.”
O.W. Holmes (Prof. of medicine, Harvard University)

I believe that and that’s why I have been fighting a protracted war with my doctor. Each time I see him, I ask him “is this particular drug really necessary?”
My old Pakistani quack would say, “you take it or you die”. I fired him after a few months. Yes, you can do that and you definitely should. If your doctor does not listen to you or has second-rate bedside manners, give him the boot.

To his credit, my relatively new doctor listens to me.
Let’s try to gradually decrease the dosage he says. Good man.

My ultimate goal is to entirely get rid of all medications through exercise, meditation, goat milk baths and a weekly regimen of oysters and Champagne.
It might sound peculiar, but Charlie Sheen (I have a different constitution. I have a different brain; I have a different heart; I got tiger blood, man) swears by it.

You cannot argue with a guy like that.

Get rid of those freaking pills! They are costly and might be entirely unnecessary.

Alain

 

I am sick and tired of hearing about the Super Bowl but I am even sicker of hearing about an odd duck named Donald.

Being a fairly unsophisticated political bumpkin and desirous to further my education I checked Wikipedia for further details about Donald Duck.

Here is what I found:

“Donald is most famous for his semi-intelligible speech and his mischievous and temperamental personality.

His anger is a great cause of suffering in his life. On multiple occasions, it has caused him to get in over his head and lose competitions.

There are times when he fights to keep his temper, and he sometimes succeeds in doing so temporarily, but he always returns to his normal angry self in the end.

Donald is also a bit of a show-off. He likes to brag, especially about how skilled he is at something.”

 Blimey! Is this the character running for president? No?
Is there another Donald?

Excuse my French, but the above description fitted mister Trump so well that I thought they were really talking about him.

Wanting to know a little more about mister Trump I went back to the Internet and I found that this is what the man said while campaigning for the highest office in the land:

• “I’m the most successful person to ever run for the presidency, by far”
• “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
• “I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me —and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.”
• “One of the key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace. Good people don’t go into government.”
• “The only kind of people I want counting my money are little short guys that wear “yamaka”s every day.”
• “Hillary Clinton was the worst Secretary of State in the history of the United States. There’s never been a Secretary of State so bad as Hillary. The world blew up around us. We lost everything, including all relationships. There wasn’t one good thing that came out of that administration or her being Secretary of State.”
• “You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”

After carefully reviewing his background and profanity laden tirades, I reluctantly (not really) came to the conclusion that Donald Trump is egotistic, bombastic, crude, racist, sexist, prejudiced.
Am I leaving something out?

And this is the man who is going to “Make America great again”. I don’t think so.

I cannot help thinking that this guy reminds of Benito. Do you remember him? Il Duce. “Il Duce ha sempre ragione” (The Duce is always right).
This fellow also wanted to make Italy great again. If I remember correctly, it did not work too well for him.

But like all bullies, Donald has a tongue of steel and feet of clay.
I predict that by mid-summer this duck will stop quacking and return to live in splendid isolation in his golden pond.

Alain

Photography is the only language that can be understood worldwide.
Bruno Barbey 

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People like to look at photographs.
I can testify to this. Each time I display pictures on my website, the subsequent traffic jumps up significantly.

For there is a universal fascination with photographs, and interestingly people looking at the same snapshots will see widely different things.
Women for instance will notice details that men totally don’t care about, and vice-versa.

I have been an informal photographer for a very long time. I started in my twenties and I am still at it.
I never took any course; I am entirely self-taught.
I have learned throughout the years (by trial and error) what makes a good shot.

To take a good snapshot, you have to be alert, fast and unobtrusive.
That’s why I favor carrying a small, good quality camera. Something that you can quickly hide in your pocket after the dirty deed is done.

“You can easily recognize a professional photographer in a herd of tourists: he is the one who hides his camera.”

You also have to be mindful of the light. Light is extremely important.
It is not widely known, but pictures look best when taken in overcast weather.

A wise photographer always takes multiple shots of a single subject.
As the saying goes, you have to kiss many frogs to find a prince, and similarly you have to take many photographs to come up with a good one.
I usually take at least three shots of the same subject and keep the best.

My favorites pictures are candid shots. Pictures taken when a person’s official mask is temporarily down and when the subject is totally unaware of what is happening.
But I will never publish an unflattering picture. I leave this underhanded demeanor to politicians.

Nowadays when I show up at some event, people expect me to be there with my camera and I am glad to oblige. The following day they rush to my website to see who was there and if they compare favorably with the competition.
Don’t deny it. I know that you do it.

Finally, you cannot be a Sunday photographer and expect great shots. Like any discipline, you have to practice almost daily to achieve a respectable level and take pleasing shots.

It is not easy, but it is fun trying.

Alain

There are no rules for good photographs; there are only good photographs.
Ansel Adams