Lauren Greenfield: “Kids and Money”
Screengrab of Lauren Greenfield's site
Related to my post yesterday about AdBusters Magazine “Buy Nothing Day”, Lauren Greenfield’s film “Kids and Money” previewed on HBO yesterday. Perfect timing, I might add. Lauren Greenfield has her finger on the pulse of America, (or at least, the caffeine-fueled pulse of L.A.). With so many photojournalists trying to find an avenue for their work, and to stay current and relevant, she seems to have found the key. She gets it — she’s about the STORY, (and also the proper medium), and not just about individual photographs. She’s thinking big.
Detroit Auto Problems: Sad Song or Proper Karma?
One lonely potted plant in Lobby of Waller Buick, Lafayette Ave, (click/enlarge).
This morning, I was headed downtown for a hot cup of strong coffee at a new place called Crema Coffee. (May I suggest the Cuban, if you go there; light on the sweet milk). Anyway, headed there, I missed my turn, and continued on down Murfreesboro Road. When I got to Waller Buick, my jaw dropped, because it was deserted. Empty. A ghost town. This is a Buick dealer that, over the years, ended up right in the middle of a pretty rough neighborhood, yet, when you’d drive by there, the windows were always clean, and the grass was mowed, and it held its head high. It’s been there for as long as I’ve lived in Nashville, (27 years).
For some reason, I continued on down Murfreesboro Road, because there’s always something “colorful” to see. Whether it’s the Drake Motel, or a sidewalk drug deal, something interesting is always going on. When I got to the old Chrysler dealership, it too was vacant. Again, shock. Then I remembered Performance Ford on Charlotte was empty, and also Bill Heard Chevrolet on I-24; both also abandoned. Maybe it was the grey day, or the weirdness of Murfreesboro Road, or all the news stories I’ve been reading, but at that very moment, I just got the feeling that we’re all entering a new era. I’m not sure what the New Rules are going to be, but there’s just a creepy feeling out there right now.
What a strange time. Memories of being a kid, and being drug around car dealerships by my father. He would usually trade cars every year, and it was a big moment when he’d pull into the driveway with a new car, and we’d pile in and go for a ride. Would this continue to be America without GM and Ford?
But then growing up, and experiencing the slimey sales practices of untold numbers of car dealers. Everyone has a list of underhanded stories attempted by car dealers. (Once, a salesman at Beaman Pontiac asked me to take my checkbook “to his boss” to show him that I was serious about buying; then, when the deal fell apart, he held me hostage by refusing to return my checkbook). There is probably a Google database out there somewhere of all the bizarre stories of car dealership shenanigans.
So I go back home and picked up the camera, and headed back out. These photographs below are not much to speak of as photographs, but to me, these are just recorded documents of current times. I just wanted to shoot the pictures, for the record.
Waller Buick service area, Lafayette Avenue, (would make great photo studio!..)(click/enlarge).
Performance Ford, White Bridge Road, (click/enlarge).
Chrysler dealership, Murfreesboro Road, (click/enlarge).
Abandoned motel, Bell Road exit (next to Heard Chevrolet, which was locked tight) (click/enlarge).
Laptop Theft, and What To Do Next
Partial leftovers of my dining room window
Last Sunday, around noon, I left to go grab a (sorry imitation) bagel and lox at my local joint. Sun was out, weather was nice, birds were chirping. As I was leaving, and regretting the carbs, my cell phone rang; it was my neighbor across the street. Said he’d seen a guy jump my fence, and headed down the street with a 17″ laptop under his arm. “Do you own a silver laptop?”, he asks. My heart sank. I knew immediately what had happened.
I hung a left, and headed home, and sure enough, the bay window in my dining room had been bashed out. Double-pane, insulated glass; it must have taken some brute force to break it. A pretty ballsy move — broad daylight, no one at work, everyone having lunch at home. My neighbor told me what he’d seen, and then the cops arrived — guns drawn, moving through my house, room after room, in case the guy was still inside. How very very surreal.
He’d wrapped a large rock in a shirt (found on the ground outside the window), bashed the glass, reached for the desk and pulled it over to the window. Laptop was on the desk. Turns out, he’d never even entered the house. The whole thing was over in maybe fifteen seconds, I’m betting. Even if the alarm had been on, the motion detector would not have seen him.
I live in what they call a “transitional neighborhood”, (which basically means that I’ve lost less money on my house than in other areas). I’ve been here three years, and the area has improved dramatically. I just got too complacent, and got too sloppy about having too much exposed from the street. So this is partially my fault. I’ve just got too much “California” in me; wanting to throw open the windows and the blinds, and live that way. No more.
So now begins the mental Freakout — the realization that i needed to get to the other Mac and change all my Passwords. (I’d disabled the “password needed to wake from sleep” the night before, ironically).
I realized later that I’d had UnderCover installed on this laptop. I’d recommend this to anyone who travels with their laptop. Make sure and register it, though, otherwise it’s worthless. Undercover is sort of a Poor Man’s LoJack — if a thief tries to log onto the internet after stealing your machine, Undercover secretly sends out a certain type of private signal back to the home company, and they can possibly even track it to the IP Address where the Mac is being used. I doubt if I’ll ever see that Mac again, but it would be cool to know it was off the streets, and not being hacked for passwords. Personally, I would have loved to have bought the UnderCover option where a hand comes out of the bottom of the laptop and firmly grabbed the scrotum of the thief, but that was not offered when I bought the software.
I’ve also ordered those stainless steel security cables with combo locks now; I’ll secure the other computer to the steel desk that it’s sitting on. That might slow someone down. Also, I have a friend who is very methodical about how he sets up his traveling machine. Below is his list; please email me, or write in the Comments section if you have any other good tips for setting up traveling machines to avoid exposure.
Mark,
This is all that’s on my laptop at any given time. No exceptions:
A) Password protected Mac. A password is required when starting or waking from sleep. Although I might consider turning off the password requirement when making a border crossing. I don’t use File Vault because I don’t have any sensitive data on the machine.
B) Firefox browser only. No Safari, Explorer or Camino. I have the default Firefox setting for cookies and history set to clear after closing. There is no retained history saved. No bookmarks saved and no passwords saved. No autofill of forms allowed.
C) No Office apps. For word processing I use GoogleDocs. No local copies of any documents are kept on the machine. No PDFs either. Any document I need is accessible via web.
D) FTP application renamed and hidden. I use Transmit for FTP and “Back to Mac” for remote access. Both of these apps have been renamed and set to not remember login info or passwords. After using either I clear “recent items” from the finder menu.
E) No sync services enabled.
F) No accounting software. Having this on a laptop is beyond insane.
G) No email client. I use web mail and it requires a 16 digit alpha numeric password. I’m amazed that anyone would travel around with an open door to their business and personal life which is what IMAP email offers. Whether it’s on a laptop, blackberry or iPhone if someone gets IMAP access to your email they can really own you. I have email on my mobile phone but it is a forwarded copy so I can read it and then delete it if it’s sensitive. Furthermore if my cell phone is stolen or confiscated I can turn off it’s access immediately and stop further receipt of forwarded messages. The phone only has POP access to a mailbox that is routinely cleansed.
H) No Address Book. If I need an address I access via doc mac web interface or by home machine. Address Book is still on the machine but left blank.
I) No use of Keychain. No saved passwords of any type are saved anywhere on my laptop.
J) Photoshop CS3, Lightroom and Photo Mechanic. All unmodified. There are no other apps besides these.
K) Local folders of raw files and work in progress. (unencrypted and unprotected). As soon as a shoot is copied to my home machine I delete these files.
The Tiny Great Wizard
The Great Wizard, only three feet tall. (click/enlarge).
My cocker spaniel, Clyde, stays with some friends across town when I’m gone. A few days ago, he was met by a special character that he’d never encountered before. This character lives under the tree in the back yard, next to the bunny house.
