Category Archives: Portrait

Bowling, Derrick, Movies, Music, Road Trip, Self-Portrait

Tell My Friend Willie Brown

May 6, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I have a week chock full of fun activities, but I think one might stand above all the others. Tonight Derrick and I are having a little bonding time by watching Crossroads.

If you instantly thought of the Britney Spears movie, you are not my friend. Please erase my e-mail from your address book. Delete my phone number from your cell phone. Unless, you are willing to learn. Then you can remain my friend, but you may have to make amends for your sin.

Those of you that instantly thought of the 1986 Walter Hill classic, good job. You get a gold star and might get a birthday present from me if you meet the rest of the birthday present getting criteria.

This movie is so sweet that it even eclipses the other events from this week.

I got this wad of cash last night at the bowling league awards ceremony. Yes ladies and gentleman, that is what 38 smackers looks like.

But even getting money is eclipsed by Crossroads.

New Road Trip Hat

I’m even going on two road trips this week to break in my new Road Trip Hat. The Big Jesus Road Trip on Friday. Then on Saturday I’m going on The Cardiff Giant Road Trip. The Cardiff Giant Road Trip had taken on a bit of an added dimension after some information I received last Wednesday. I don’t want too give too much away, but think “Gypsum Penis”. At least if I correctly deducted what the term “modest” was meant to insinuate.

I’m also going to see Chicago on Thursday at Stephens.

Plus, I’m having supper tomorrow night at Jimmy’s Barbecue.

If that isn’t enough, there is serving food for the Mother-Daughter banquet on Saturday night.

Of course there is the traditional Mother’s Day Barbecue on Sunday.

Yet they are all eclipsed by tonight’s viewing of Crossroads.

Derrick recently went down to the home of Delta Blues for a 3 or 4 day extensive training session with Peavey in Meridian, Mississippi. I gave him the mission of either getting a Mississippi String Tie (which is what a bluesman wears in Mississippi) or at least making it to Highway 61.

The folks at Peavey kept him so busy that he never accomplished either mission. In fact the only time he was free from them he made a trip to a gas station. He did report to me that they served catfish at this gas station. We both agree that Gas Station Catfish would make either a great song or album title.

I thought I would just share some of my favorite scenes from Crossroads.

The Crossroads

“Where I come from, you don’t blow no harp, you don’t get no pussy.”

Highway 61

Mississippi Blues Tie

“Look at this old guitar here you been squeakin’ on. I bet you saw this thing in a music store and bought it just because you thought it was beat up! Well you got it all wrong. Muddy Waters invented electricity.”

“Where you learn to play them pussy chords, in music school?… Now if you spend as much time with your hands on them strings as you do on this girl’s ass, you might get somewhere.”

“Lots of towns… Lots of songs… Lots of women… Good times… Bad times… Only thing I wanted anyone to say is… ‘He could really play… He was good’.”

The Crossroads Again.

The Devil’s Guitarist.

The Guitar Battle.

Now that is a movie. I’m already getting me some of them Crossroads Blues:

I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
Asked the Lord above, have mercy now, save poor Bob if you please

Standin’ at the crossroads, tried to flag a ride
Whee-hee, I tried to flag a ride
Didn’t nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by

Standin’ at the crossroads, risin’ sun goin’ down
Standin’ at the crossroads baby, the risin’ sun goin’ down
I believe to my soul now, po’ Bob is sinkin’ down

You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown
That I got the crossroad blues this mornin’, Lord, baby I’m sinkin’ down

I went to the crossroad, mama, I looked east and west
I went to the crossroad, babe, I looked east and west
Lord, I didn’t have no sweet woman, ooh well, babe, in my distress

Boone FUMC, Candid Portrait, Jaycees, Jeff Kewer, Lowell, Monica, Music, Suzie, Teresa

False Snake Hype

May 4, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I have been looking forward to today for quite some time.

After church Lowell and I attended a Methodist Men board meeting. I learned a lot about our future activities. We are serving the food at the Mother-Daughter Banquet this coming Saturday. We are serving Fellowship in the month of June. We are running the Church Food Stand for some Cattle Shows coming up. We are serving breakfast during one of the days of the coming tractor rally. So there are a lot of things going on this Summer. The convenient part is that most Methodist Men activities take place on Saturdays so it won’t be a scheduling conflict with Ames on the Half Shell.

At 2 PM Teresa and I showed up for an Exclusive Series Preview of the upcoming season at Stephens. I was a little bit worried that we had wandered into a nursing home tour when we got in line to get our packet of information. We were the youngest people in the line by at least 40 years. Well by 50 years for me.

The presentation was on the stage at Stephens. I haven’t been on the stage at Stephens since High School. From the stage you can really see what a beautiful auditorium it is and can tell why it is the Building of the Century.

They did a little program and announced the upcoming season:

September 24 – Sweeney Todd
November 2 – Vanguard Jazz
November 6 – Movin’ Out
November 9 – Jerusalem Symphony
November 23 – Lorie Line and her Pop Chamber Orchestra
December 3 – Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
December 18 – A Skaggs Family Christmas
January 25 – Goodnight Moon/Runaway Bunny
February 8 – The Peking Acrobats
February 13 – The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
February 20 – To Kill a Mockingbird
March 27 – Blue Note Records Tour
April 9 – The Drowsy Chaperone
April 14-15 – Stomp
May 1 – Australian Chamber Orchestra

From our preliminary discussions it seems that Teresa and I are slightly at odds as to what we want to go see. The one event I know that I want to see for sure is the Blue Note Records Tour. Teresa isn’t overly interested in that one. For some reason she thinks that Kenny G. and David Sanborn is jazz. Perhaps, I have a friend out there that likes real jazz that I might be able to persuade into going.

At the end of the presentation they asked everybody to look at the back of their folder. If you had stickers on the back you won a door prize. Teresa had stickers on the back of her folder. I was expecting some cheesy door prize based on the lousy corporate events I had attended in the past, but what Teresa won was pretty sweet. She won 2 free tickets to see the Jerusalem Symphony (over a $100.00 value) and a couple of their CDs. So on November 9th, we will be going to see the Jerusalem Symphony for free and you can’t beat that with a stick.

Roland

After the presentation we went up to Roland to check out the new house that Monica and Jeff are renting. When we got there we were warned to watch the grass because they had seen snakes everywhere in the yard. I was excited. I haven’t seen a snake yet this year. I looked all over the yard (even in a compost pile) but I didn’t find a single snake, let alone snakes. I was the victim of false snake hype.

I got the nickel tour of their new domicile. Monica, Jeff, Suzie and Cassie were painting. I grabbed a few pictures of them at work. I always love watching other people work.

Sweet Windmill. I think it needs to be sanded down and painted, but Monica thinks it looks awesome rusty. I respectfully disagree. It looks awesome rusty if you are going for some kind of Nouveau Texas Chainsaw Massacre look, but a splash of bright red would really do wonders for this thing, but it isn’t mine.

Suzie slacking off.

The bathroom color.

Jeff painting the master bedroom

Monica crawling.

Suzie playing with the master tape.

Cassie painting the living room.

I think it is going to a pretty sweet place when they are done painting.

Ames on the Half Shell

The Band Selection Committee that I was on that kind of half ass did our job and has completed its work. Here is the list of bands that are going to be playing Ames on the Half Shell.

May 30 – Redzband
June 6 – Murphy’s Law (Family Night)
June 13 – Burnin’ Sensations
June 20 – Vivace
June 27 – Box Brothers
July 11 – Saucy Jack
July 18 – Kountertop
July 25 – 3AM Band

If you can only make it to one Ames on the Half Shell event this year, I urge you to attend Kountertop. They are excellent. Unless you have small children. In that case, come on June 6 and see Murphy’s Law on Family Night. There are going to be a lot of cool things for small children on Family Night.

Becky, Black & White, Boone FUMC, Formal Portrait, Photoshop, Shannon, Teresa

Olivia’s Stitching Time

May 1, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I went to the church on Wednesday to take a group photo of the stitching group that Teresa started in Olivia’s name. Here is the result.

This picture is going to go in the church bulletin, so in the end it will end up looking something like this:

I took a couple candid photos of the group.

Then Becky grabbed the camera and took this picture.

Olivia’s Stitching Time meets two more times before taking a hiatus for the Summer. It is a group for people to come and work on and share their sewing projects. It meets from 6:30 – 8:30 on Wednesday nights in the Parlor of the First United Methodist Church. All are welcome to come.

I also fired off a few other random pictures in the sanctuary.

I might be prejudiced, but I think that we have a beautiful sanctuary. I’d love to seriously photograph it at some time in the future.

Andree, Baier, Commercial, Derrick, Faust, Formal Portrait, Jay, Jesse, Nader, Russell, Shannon, Willy

Little White Lye Bonus

April 27, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

What you are about to experience is bits of a national advertising campaign that I would suggest that Little White Lye Soap launch immediately. However, I don’t have much pull in that department. So we’ll have to see what happens.

These pictures are of the actual models that I would use, but the background is not the background that I would use, for most of the models because I just took a picture of them the first time that I ran into them. Just imagine that the background is consistent with the quote underneath the characters.

“After a long day of kissing babies and pressing flesh, nothing cleans off the smell of constituent like Little White Lye Soap.”

“Oh my! After a long evening at the theater with Tennessee Williams, nothing cleans off the powerful odor of mendacity like Little White Lye Soap.”

“Nothing relaxes me and makes me ready for sleep after a long day’s work than a hot shower with Little White Lye Soap.”

“After a long morning of schooling chumps, nothing takes the rank of other people’s failures and broken dreams off me like Little White Lye Soap.”

“After a long night of grinding on the honeys in the clubs, nothing rids a dance machine of the stench of barfly like Little White Lye Soap.”

“There is just no way around it, I’m a handsome man and Little White Lye keeps me handsome by making me clean, while being gentle on my sensitive skin.”

My woman likes my skin to be soft to the touch and Little White Lye Soap keeps my skin soft and that makes my woman happy.”

“After a long night of rocking, Little White Lye Soap cleans off the reek of groupie and leaves me smelling fresh in the morning.”

“After a long day at the office explaining to old people that their 401K dropping 25% in value in the last week is just a normal market fluctuation I feel morally dirty. Nothing restores me to moral equilibrium like a long bath with Little White Lye Soap.”

I imagine these running in GQ. I’ll have to wait and see what the boss says.

Candid Portrait, Commercial, Shannon

LWL Photo Shoot

April 14, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I’ve been working on some commercial photography for Shannon’s company Little White Lye Soap. This Sunday was the most recent photo shoot. I can’t reveal any of those images yet, but I can show a couple pictures of Shannon taking pictures of her soap.

Some soap pictures should be posted in the near future.

Monica, Photoshop, Self-Portrait

Shave and a Haircut

April 12, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I went in to see Monica to get my quarterly shearing. Do you see a difference?

I feel much better now.

Black & White, Formal Portrait, Shannon

A New Gig

March 26, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

Shannon started her new gig with United Way of Story County. Her new job is worthy of a press release and she needed a head shot for this press release and their website. I got the pleasure to take this picture and below are some of the results.

The Winner, I Think

My Old Friend Black & White

But this one is my favorite

I think we put in a good day’s work.

Black & White, Dawn, Photoshop, Self-Portrait, Writing

The Calling

March 3, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I got an interesting MySpace e-mail today. It was related to the picture below.

The Waiting

It is from a woman I graduated from dear old BHS from all those years ago named Dawn.

I like to give credit where credit is due, and as one creative person to another, I thought you would enjoy knowing that your latest default picture helped influence my latest poem “the calling”. I had already been working on another poem about Spirit Lake, but your picture took me in an entirely different direction. Anyway, enjoy!

The Calling

Looking upon nobility of the sea
Ebbing tide whispers
Follow me…follow me

Life’s course has been set for me
Seagulls cry
Break free…break free

Thoughtful now I can’t turn to flee
Buoy holds tight
Let me be…let me be

My savior has set me free
Steady pier
Just for me…just for me

It feels good to have helped influence a fellow artist. This e-mail comes at a good time. I have felt less than creative lately. It does remind me that I wish I had poetry writing in my skill set.

Animals, Basketball, Candid Portrait, Flowers, Jay, Jesse, Nader, Nature, Night, Schmidt, Self-Portrait, Vest, Willy

Test Camera

February 26, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

A few months ago Nader gave me a camera to test for his trip to London. I put in a roll of film and took some test shots. Then I put the camera away and forgot about it. I finally finished off the roll and got it developed. I thought I would share some of the images, not because of any of them are particularly interesting, but because maybe they are interesting as a whole. A study of intermittent shots taking over time from a forgotten camera.

Computer Mine Basketball Hoop

Flowers

Self Portrait

Fat Jake

Jay Snuggly

Fat Jake

Willy: Keeper of Fat Jake

Fat Jake

Experiment

Vest

Frame

Party in Jesse’s Office

Cory

Deer

Deer through Windows of “The Quad”

Computer Mine Basketball Hoop

Basketball, Holidays, Self-Portrait, Work

Broken

January 15, 2008 Christopher D. Bennett

I got one of the ugliest Christmas presents from Mary Beth this Christmas. I wasn’t really sure what to do with it, but in the end I decided to hang it up at work. Take a look:

Yesterday I picked up another cheap mirror. I sat it outside for the night. After sitting in the extreme cold for about 24 hours it broke just like I was hoping when I brought the thunder.