babinscreams

Dad, A year has passed. It was a blink of an eye; an arduous and painful journey; a powerful, awakening stretch. There were times when I felt myself inching toward the cliff of dreadful feeling, and only by willfully walking there did it dissipate. And of course, then I’d be shanghaied by an image, a song, a film by one of my students. One of those brinks of despair was the gnawing message, “I let you die.” I did. And I know it was right, because I have your words on paper that describe the life not worth living. You had not lived that life for many months. You were diaper-clad, catheterized, pissing blood, and unable to move your legs at all. Remember the night the septic infection hit you like a train, the beginning of the end? That afternoon I put on “Winged Migration” the documentary about the birds flying, and your expression and the way you said, “that’s beautiful” spoke volumes. I think the freedom of those birds flying over land was beckoning. At least I hope that’s what it was...

There is amazing peace driving the open roads.

Dear Dad, Happy New Year. I thought about you a lot today. It will soon be a year since you left your mortal coil and joined the great main-frame in the sky. Today was the first time since 1955 that the Rose Parade was held in driving rain. All I could think about was how year after year you would remark about the beautiful weather on January 1 and the "poor bastards" back east who were surely green with envy watching the telecast from Pasadena. Well, your passing has brought with it change, amazing change. I'm stronger than ever, feel more capable and self-assured than ever. My career, my industry is changing, going through labor strife and technological upheaval. But thanks to the pad your inheritance provides, I can afford to be philosophical about it and keep my eye on the ball, which really just entails learning new technology, staying ahead of the curve by staying smarter than the twit who hires me. This year I have grieved for you far beyond anything I imagined. I...

The past six weeks have been some of the most intensive in my life. With an early July date for putting the house on the market looming, work began with paint applied to every surface, inside and out. The results were so inspiring, that new carpet, tile, refinished wood floors, and landscaping became mandatory. New fixtures, knobs and hinges throughout, and the house became something very exciting and creative. I moved in, working with tilers, painters and handymen to fix and improve, all the while thinking about how much Mom wanted to do the very things I was doing, but didn't. What has emerged is a cleaner, pared down, brighter, less confused, more contemporary home than the one my parents lived in. My hands are knicked, pierced, worn, stained and arthritic. The decorative gaps in my wedding band are clogged with spackle. I've destroyed three pair of Levis and two pair of tennis shoes with paint, mud and bleach. A few days ago I was planting roses in the back yard. It was wel...

After Dad died, I phoned Dr. Whitaker's Corporate Headquarters where a nice lady offered her condolences when I asked her to stop the never-ending deluge of literature and magazines and vitamin ads and seminar invitations emanating from the good Doctor. The cards and letters kept coming, though the magazine stopped after the subscription ran out, but they were nice enough to offer my father several opportunities to renew. When I called the second time, I got another nice lady who offered her condolences; I think I was a little hot under the collar. Now today, I get this nice card in the mail, addressed to my father. Wow, Doctor Whitaker really does care! Had I known....Damn, I'm so embarrassed. I imagine the cremation rules out any chance of a "full" recovery.

My mother was all about pink. From the dress and shoes she wore on her wedding day to the plastic, kitsch knick-knacks that populated her life to the end. The pink plastic mirror that I've been using for a candle holder made a pass at the shoes last night. I had to photograph it.

I'd forgotten how breath taking the beauty of a July evening looking west from our backyard could be. The sun is at it's most northern drop point on the horizon. In the other seasons, it is usually obscured by the hill long before it sets. This vantage point was visited often by me and my friends. I built a brick barbecue pit in honor of the spot. Our backyard was a sanctuary where Spring put on a grand display and came to represent for me the essence of existence. Rebirth. Life erupting in color - a theme that played out in abstract paintings I made. The barbecue oven was rarely used. The shoddy workmanship became an embarrassment over time, still it remained an icon to younger days when pausing before a staggering sunset, I "sucked the marrow of life" oblivious (thank God) to death and finality. Tomorrow I will knock down the brick box, put sod in it's place, and say "goodbye" again to another symbol of times passed.

Yesterday I took apart the bench and shelves that comprised our darkroom. Following the dictates of painters, real estate agents, and common sense, the space in which you and I once shared so much forever changed. What a fabulous laboratory our darkroom was - a goddamn closet in what should have been a bedroom for the sibling I never had (I'm not complaining). The stains of chemical splash marks are still there. The light-tight shade you devised isn't there; when did you take that down? Speak up! So, there I am yesterday, pulling out the structure that held the enlarger and trays of chemicals (By the way, the enlarger and accessories went to Manual Arts High School in South Central Los Angeles. The photography teacher came out and got a bunch of stuff. He showed me the work of one student, an autobiography in captioned, black and white photos that tore my heart out.). I was struck by the craftsmanship of your construction. You actually used oak plywood for the bench; your faste...

One day soon, I will extract and play...hee, hee, hee.

We lived in Gardena, CA in the early 1960's. Next door to us was a family with a dog that barked quite a bit. My father complained without success. He was extremely noise sensitive and only got worse with age. The barking dog phase coincided with the purchase of a toy over which Dad I shared a lot of common ground - a reel to reel tape recorder. It not only became a tool for Dad's audio diaries and communicating with people around the world, but also served to bring out the 12 year old in him. After repeated attempts to get the neighbors to subdue their dog, Dad placed a microphone outside and recorded a few seconds of the barking. He cut the segment of tape out and joined the ends creating a loop of incessant barking. Giggling with delight, we put a speaker outside, next to the fence and played the loop. That's the last I remember. I don't know if it worked, got a response, anything. Just the pure joy of such a technologically creative prank was so thrilling the rest b...

Today I finally made the decision to sell the house. The material thing will be good to let go of. The past will evaporate in a big way as another family takes over the space we once occupied. And speaking of space. The last couple of weeks I've moved the computer and tape recorder(s) into the room and the very space Dad occupied at the end. There, I have been listening and digitizing some of the audio recordings he made ranging over nearly 50 years. The most moving were a monologue recounting his layoff in 1970 and another on a weekend encounter group he attended. The most painful was listening to him patronize a woman who was a friend about her racism in 1963. Dad recorded hundreds of hours of monologue. It was amazing how long he could talk without needing anyone to prompt him, critique or question him. He was for most of his adult life a man who pushed himself to question and learn. My respect for him in that regard continues to grow as I hear him on these tapes, so alive and ...

Fascinating changes keep coming. My directing has taken off via the world of political commercials. I traveled to Hawaii and over the course of four days filmed two spots. There appear to be several more coming in the next few weeks. The day before leaving, I had lunch with the head of the cinematography division of USC cinema. It looks like I'll be teaching a course in the fall there. The week before that, I was asked to become the editor of The Society of Camera Operators Magazine. I accepted. I don't know the first thing about editing a magazine, but ignorance will probably serve me well, and I have a few ideas that people seem intimidated by, so I guess I'm on the right track. And lastly, I've been offered a job operating a "virtual" camera on an animated film called "Monster House". This mostly computer created film started with actors on a stage wearing dots all over their bodies which emitted light. The light information was fed into the compu...

Yesterday, I had to mail documents regarding a pension my father had through his company. This batch of paperwork required a copy of my mother's death certificate, which I'd included. At the last minute, I was instructed to add one of my father's death certificates as well. His are in an envelope, in a box, in the trunk of my car; so, I drove up to the curb-side mail depository at the post office, stepped quickly out of the car, unsealed the package, took one of dad's death certificates from the trunk and clipped it right on top of mom's. And there they were - together again symbolized by two, ornately textured, multi-colored, official, state-sanctioned documents. Then someone honked at me, I was blocking their access to the mail box. I put Mom and Dad in the box and got the hell out of there.

One of the great mysteries of our family is my dad's father, Sidney Homer Babin. Sidney died in Chicago, it is alleged, sometime shortly after my father's birth, in 1925. At that point, my father was living with his maternal grandmother and two aunts on a farm in rural Wisconsin. Sidney's passing is "alleged" because Dad's mother, Maude, was an infamous twister of the truth, and in spite of hours of research, no death certificate for Sid has ever surfaced. There are virtually no details of Sidney's life that survive other than: he was from Louisiana, was 15 to 20 years older than Maude, and worked as a sign painter in Chicago where he supposedly was killed in a car accident. To keep the legend even more intriguing, only one known photo of Sidney was said to exist, an indistinct full-length shot, taken of him on a visit to the farm where my father was raised. This has been the only image I ever had of him. Yesterday, I came down to the last unopened cache o...

Sidney Homer Babin

A new discovery and one of my favorite photos of Dad. I love his serious expression as he cradles his new Leica camera. The date is 1947. He is about 22 years old.

This week I worked on a remake of the classic "My Friend Flicka". Whether this will even approach the level of "classic", I can't predict. On Monday we filmed a "wild horse race", an event that takes place at rodeos and fairs around the country on a regular basis. Wrangling the animals for the movie is one of the foremost experts in the world. The cowboys who participated in the event are real cowboys, huge lugs the size of football players. Groupie cow girls were there too. The race utilizes wild horses released into a ring all at once. Cowboys in pairs try to still the horse long enough to saddle it, mount it and ride it once around the ring. First to do so wins. The first take was exciting, the crowd of extras enjoying the mayhem of wild horses having their way with the cowboys and clowns. At the end of take two most of us looked over to discover a horse down near the fence. It was on it's side, absolutely still. Within a minute a vet hired by t...

I've begun inviting people to view this site. The possibility that I may be judged pretentious and egotistical haunt me. There I got it out.

Right after the last post, I put on music, blessed music, righteous music, silence busting music...Pink Floyd "Division Bell". I opened the windows and turned it up loud. Real loud. Loud enough to get the neighbor's attention, which in this borough is a no-no. And the glorious sensation of doing this reminded me of August 1974. Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency in a televised speech. In preparation of this, I set two speakers at my bedroom window. As the momentous broadcast came to an end, I turned the volume to max and pushed play on Jimi Hendrix's rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner". Music gives expression where words fail.

Silence