Now, I’m not the overzealous, privacy-Nazi type, obviously. I sort of live in public after all.

I try to respect peoples privacy to the extent that my trade/hobby/obsession allows me, but I’m a street photographer at the end of the day. If you look like you probably have a home that you can retreat to or make yourself look nice in before you come out into the world, well then, you’re fair game once you hit the street. That’s the main reason I shy away from shooting pictures of the homeless, they’re in their home — nowhere else to go. It’d be like walking into someone’s bedroom when they just woke up and snapping off a couple.  Photographs don’t kill — they sometimes harm, sometimes help — but relatively few people are ever going to see the street images I produce on a daily basis, so I don’t sweat it too much.

Privacy, however you call or crave it, certainly doesn’t extend to communal gym showers though, does it?

I’ve already detailed one method I have for taking a shower, the other is the gym. A dollar a day for a bath, that’s Sally Struthers type money right there. I can swing that. It’s not the ideal situation but it works. Locations throughout the states, open all night long. I’ve never lifted a weight in my life. They don’t seem to mind.

I’m in Los Angeles for work and I go to the club I use the most, in the valley. SportsCenter blares from the dual TV’s in the locker room. World Cup fever is on. Germany or Spain? Easy call — Germany, 2-1. Remember, you heard it here first. First stall on the left is mine. My shower. The water pressure is good, the drain isn’t stopped up. I know just where to turn the knob to get the water to the perfect temperature.

I didn’t pay any mind to the guy in the stall across the way. What do I care, right? In and out. Brush my teeth afterward, I’m out of there. Routinary as hell. Not today.

“Hey man, why do you have to choose that shower?” Angry, annoyed voice. I ignore it.

“Hey!”

I turn around and saw a bit too much of the guy that was questioning why I chose my shower, the one I use every time I’m in the place.

“You couldn’t have chosen a different one, man.” “Now I have to look at your ass while I shower?”

What in the bloody hell? Everyone knows the rule in the gym, you just don’t bring up the nudity, not for any homophobic reason, really, just because it can only get awkward from there. I’m ignoring him. Still.

“Do you mind changing stalls?”

What, I have to move so you’re not tempted to look at my ass. This is my stall. Thing is, it’s mostly blocked from view, a good 8 feet from the one he’s in. You have to really try to cop a look.

I’m trying to be civil here. “Sorry man, I’m already wet.”

That should be the end of it.

“Yeah. Wet behind the ears,” he says as he exits the stall to come stand directly in front of my shower — challenging me to a fight.

Now, I’m sorry, but a naked, slippery brawl with the crazy guy at the gym just ain’t on my agenda for the day. This one of those life situations no one tells you how to handle growing up. How do I wrestle with the problem of the crazy naked guy, without wrestling the crazy naked guy.

Gladly, he seemed to recognize the ridiculousness of the situation. He scampered back to his stall after I shouted at him to shower in his own fucking house if he wanted privacy that bad.

“Well, I don’t have a house to go to,” he said in a voice half the volume of the earlier verbal attacks. “Maybe that’s why I got so upset.” This part completely trailing off, more to himself than to me.

I’m toweling off at this point. “Hey, man, I’m in the same boat.”

I exited the shower and couldn’t stop thinking. This could be me in a few years, ranting about naked mens asses in the shower at a local gym.

I’m hooked.

The most overwhelmingly (over)used phrase during The Great Recession has been, without doubt, the “Main Street v. Wall Street” one. A complete over-simplification, for sure, but it’s one that sounds good in soundbites, and is so very easily understandable. Sure, it furthers the tendency to treat politics like it’s a sports game, where all you have to do is choose a side and argue it, but damn! — ain’t it catchy?

While I can’t credit the fact that I’ve been bombarded with this phrase for the last 3-years as the main spark for my trip to discover my country for myself, I do acknowledge it as the most annoying one, and the one that allowed me to put somewhat of a focus on a trip that could have (and may still) become an aimless wander.

I was in doubt.

Butterflies were raging in my stomach. It was dawning on me.

You’ve got no place to go.

No place to recharge, recoup, relax. Or, as the moose-killa-from-Wasilla would say: reload.

That wasn’t it, though, let’s face it, my living situation has been precarious-on-purpose for well over a year now.

I wasn’t doubting the moves I had made, my prior decisions. What good would that do? I was doubting something fundamentally deeper — whether I could make the necessary connections on a human level to make the trip worthwhile. If i can’t I’ll come back with some nice travel snaps, if I can, well, who knows…

See, anti-social is my default setting. I photograph largely to overcome that.

Usually I’m fairly comfortable on the street, shooting what I want, when I see it, but I’ve been off lately. A most recent human relationship has had me a little tweaked — it threw off my angry zen. I was realizing something… vague… that I was maybe, possibly, no, completely misreading something that seemed un-mis-readable. I’m completely baffled. A perfect example of the personal affecting the professional. Micro to the macro…

Full-fledged doubt. And, “when in doubt, don’t.”

So I did.

And that is how I met Julie.

I jumped in the van and just took off. Keep the forward momentum going, stave off the paralysis.

Damn, it’s early to have to be motivating yourself like this. I hit Santa Paula an hour later. Looks like a nice, sleepy little Main Street. Almost midnight, I turn in and sleep a fitful, doubting sleep.

Wake up. Same mindfuck, ’cause really, that’s what it is.

Tracked down my morning coffee, served up special by the awkward, but pretty, teenage barista and tried to focus on what I was doing. Focus, damn it. No good. Let’s try Ventura.

This is the same thing you’ve been doing day-in, day-out for a few years now. They’re just people, just like other people. So I just did what I always do when I’m a bit out-of-sorts — I got close.

And shot.

She was around 60-years-old, hot pink velour jumpsuit. Fresh from oral surgery and the death of her father from pancreatic cancer. Her hands were weathered, unadorned by jewelry except a single ring on her cigarette-holding hand, she was outside taking a break from grief-driven-impulse-thrift-store-shopping.

“Hey! Don’t take my picture…”

Oh, great. This is really gonna help the doubt — help me reconnect with humanity…

“… with this,” motioning to her cigarette. And smiled. Her four front teeth missing, the most welcoming smile in the world. Just what I needed.

Julie told me all of her current troubles and former triumphs over a couple of hours and a couple of glasses of cheap Chardonnay. They’re just people, just like other people. Different street, same thing.

The picture ain’t much, but…

“When in doubt, tell the truth.” - Mark Twain

I don’t know brother, haven’t looked at my watch in days.”

He pointed his thumb up toward the sun, closed his right eye…

“About 11.”

Call me cynical, no one’s that hippy.

It was 10:40.

On the side of the road, surrounded by yellow and purple wildflowers, the sun beating down. Dust made to mud by my 3-gallon jet-black camping shower. Tied to the roof of my van like an oil-slicked Gulf-bird seeking refuge from the spill — it pisses an endless stream of refreshing 105° water that is my baptism into this newest chapter.

It takes 3 hours for the shower bag to reach 105°, that is, if it’s in direct sunlight. Today was an in-&-out Sun Day. It took 4.

I tried to park the van so that my bathing spot was only barely visible to the cars passing by, but there’s really no way to completely block the view.

3 gallons doesn’t sound like much. I figure 2… maybe 3 minutes of exposure at most. I was wrong. This contraption is amazing. 8 full minutes of free-flowing, wonderful, lukewarm water, by my estimation . Blasting Bon Iver from the one working speaker, I undressed, hopped out the side door — and panicked, realizing I had left the soap behind.

Fuck.

Crawl back in, grab the Old Spice body wash that was a giveaway, along with a loofah that came with the deodorant I picked up on sale at Target last week.

Hop back out and— HOOOOOONK. Honk honk. HONK.

I’d been spotted. I must be a sight. Fellow street photographers would kill to come across this scene. Okay. It’s a rarely traveled side road. No worries. Soap up, twist the plastic lever that delivers the water and it’s on. All the comforts of home. Really.

Minutes feel like, well, long minutes as I try and rinse, lather. Rinse, lather. Just me and the bees and the flowers, communing with natu— HOOONK. Honk. HONK.

Alright, I better wrap it up. Summer is just here in Southern California and by the reactions I’m getting my pale white ass must be gleaming — glowing like a beacon of hope to those on this road I’ve begun traveling.