Dr. Schlock's Epiphany
Or, A Wet Finger in a Live Socket . . .
The Rest Is History!
To hear Schlock tell it in his own words:
So, there I was, just an ordinary clean-cut papparazzo trying to turn a dishonest buck on the side as part-time Dog Officer for the Town of Redmonds. The year was 1991; Nirvana was topping the charts and I was working in the lab late one night, doing five things at once: drying some might-ty commercial prints of body-piercing faddists, processing color slides of trashy metal sculptures which had been introduced into downtown Fremont, juggling two calls on my cell phone, and playing Super Mario Brothers on my computer. I musta zigged when I shoulda zagged, touching a socket on my laptop (or was it the safelight switch?) with a finger soaked in E-6 bleach:
BLAM! POP!
There was a burst of white light, a mighty jolt, and I was out cold on the darkroom floor, with Cobain blasting on the box and no one to know!
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
After what seemed an eternity, I staggered to my feet; glancing at the darkroom clock through the stars swimming in front of my eyes, I saw that twelve minutes had elapsed! My film! Ach! Out with the bleach; in with the Formalin Fix -- and just then I chanced to look in the shiny surface of my print dryer--AIYEE! Who was that STRANGE man?? I had been transformed from a seedy small-time shooter into a bug-eyed buffoon, with holes burnt in his lab coat, singed moustachios, and premature white in his corkscrewcurls!
Minutes later, as I checked my films before drying them, I experienced a revelation.. I was looking at the whimsical art of the street corners with new eyes: it wasn't just schlock, it was GOOD!* In a flash, my mission in life stood revealed: as proponent of the funky, offbeat vision of the Street Artists! How well I have followed the Muse is for you, dear Reader, to judge!
*Well, some of it was, anyway; some of it was just so BAD it was good, like old Fifties Sci-fi, or doo-wop vocal groups--art forms of which I am also (ahem) a recognized connoisseur. But modesty forbids . . .
