Unloosen

Frog, a photographer in east-central Pennsylvania, sent us these photos back in 2002. A giant Polish man plays the role of our Lord and Saviour in an Easter celebration, proving once again just how strange the anthracite coal region is. - CL

Somewhere, at some lonely airport, a pilot is missing the end of his plane and is sobbing:

Photo by my friend, Katie Ressler.

During a recent trip to Arizona, I took this photo in a small town called Jerome. Perched atop a mountain, Jerome's an old mining town that's been taken over by artists and hippies. It's a place where restoration, decay, and conservation seem to coexist. This picture shows a few dying buildings near the edge of the very steep mountain.

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I took this photo about a month ago in Chinatown, just north of downtown Los Angeles. It's a big rotating sign above a cake shop. The bluish-gray background is the sky.

I see many a strange thing in my travels as a coal region photojournalist. This one fried my tiny brain.

-Frog-

a rare studio shot using a co-worker as a model. First in a series of two. Guess what part two is called.

A little late for Mother's Day, I know. but what mother would not like this image slipped into their Mother's Day card next year? The saga is complete, just like the new craptacular Star Wars trilogy.

An insatiable masochist, Hot Dog Boy wants to be eaten. I wonder if that crazy cannibal guy in Germany's still taking volunteers?

Curtis's Ribs in southern Vermont is a restaurant in a school bus. My guess is that this is Curtis, but I've been wrong before (once).

I'll be traveling until the 30th of June, so my site participation will be spotty until after the 4th of July. I'll probably post a few more photos soon.

The Hope Cemetary in Barre, Vermont is home to one of the country's most interesting cemetaries. This is a favorite of mine, this man and his wife, a dreamy poof of smoke.

I saw this sign in east central Pennsylvania and I was nonplussed. I still don't know what to say.

Taken on a cold and wet day in early January of this year. I was driving around looking for anything to take a picture of. My favorite part is the bigfoot figure moving through the bottom of the photo. I waited nearly an hour for someone to walk down that street.

this one is from early last year.

Taken at a fire scene early in 2004. This one has never seen the light of day and reminds me of Dio.

I recently spotted Dio in the area. I didn't get to meet him, though. He turned into a wilderbeast and ran off as soon as I snapped this picture.

He proved to be an elusive subject but I finally caught Cha-Cha on camera. This one is for Weaver. Whenever Weaver or I make a reference to a man called "Cha-Cha" this is who we are talking about.

I forgot to post this. I took it while I was in NYC in late June. The sticker on the post reads, "Artists Are Sissies." Obviously makes more of an impact when the photo's bigger.

I just got back from a ten-day trip to Europe and I'm freaking tired. I saw this in a cemetery near Saint Paul, a walled village in southern France. I used a wide-angle lens and, as a result, this photo looks very "space."

Keeping the parade of pretty pictures rolling, here is my latest entry in the "Weird Things My Roommate Has In Our Dorm Room" file. Not nearly as terrifying as the previous bobble-head (see below) but still enough to give you the willies. I don't even know what to say about this one. It was made in Germany. I think that's really all I need to say about it. I'm just surprised it doesn't play crappy techno music.

Nothing quite screams 80's pop culture than Spuds McKenzie. And sadly, Spuds doesn't scream much anymore. My roommate had him stuffed to preserve the memories. Like that one time, at Daytona beach....you know what I'm talking about.

Ok, I realize I've been absent for a while now, but I've got plenty of great excuses, one of which is another web site I'm working on for a friend's documentary. This is a picture I took in France in September.

Here's the deal: you know he's French, but what's the deal with this guy? My suggestion to spur site activity is to have people submit stories about this dude (fictional, unless you sold him the snazzy orange hat and know his true story). Ten Pork Pony t-shirts to the person with the best story. I'll pay postage. Please post the stories as entries, not as comments. Please reserve comments on this photo for commentary. Please. Please?

Even though I've been back for two months, I'm just now posting my Europe photos. Here's some urban decay from Glasgow, Scotland. Have you noticed that I like the urban decay?

This was in a town near a Loch (not of the Ness variety).

Yet another photo from Scotland. This is in Edinburgh. It is a place where some Scots go to worship and pray and sometimes daydream and other times see what's the highest number they can count up to before they lose track of where they were in the grand scheme of numbers.

I've finally finished my friend's web site, so I'll be back to doing things Unloosen-like very soon. I'm also moving into a new apartment this weekend and I'll have an extra room in the apartment devoted to work (AKA an office) and a lady-type person around the house to make living a little easier in general.

Back in the day, when science was not just science but SCIENCE!, the scientists needed gadgets that really let the layman know that important and explosive knowledge was being gained. Room-sized computers with an infinite amount of knobs and of course the slide rule. It separated the men of SCIENCE! from the men of science.

Then the calculator came along and allowed everyone to enjoy science at a leisurely pace with no emphasis or fancy art deco laboratories.

A chunk of land in downtown LA was threatened by sprawl and dumpy buildings. Some people got upset, so they sought a solution. The solution? A woman/philanthropist said she'd save the land under one condition: that she be allowed to plant corn there. This is the honest-to-God truth.

I don't normally post photos of people here, but I couldn't resist this one. This is my friend Alex mugging for the camera (as usual) near the corn field in downtown LA.

I realize this one's pretty far from the normal stuff I post here, but I really like it so here it is. It's from the Porsche room at the LA auto show.

Something about this horse statue makes it seem a little more "special" than others. He resides in London Tower which is in London, this one city in England.

Here is the girl of Weaver's dreams. Notice how she gets low to create less drag...

Sometimes camo is scary.

Dragons terrorize the helpless inhabitants of LA's Chinatown neighborhood and all this dude on the sidewalk can do is take pictures.

Let the parade of photos continue with...

I just got back from another trip to Arizona (one of my favorite states) and I took a ton of photos. This one's definitely the strangest and most Unloose of the bunch, so here it be. There's just something about mannequins that makes them endlessly bizarre.

...

What would the scary kids do if you did enter?

(How pretentious is that title?)

Oh, the power of words.

I saw this statue at an old Spanish mission in San Juan Capistrano, CA. It depicts a priest "teaching" a scantily-clad native boy. Draw your own conclusions. If demand exists, I've got a few more shots from other angles.

When I was in Seattle, WA, I ran into this masochistic cone o' fries. I suspected he was made by the same sculptor/company that made Hot Dog Boy and I was later informed (by the fry man's owner) that I was correct.

Montano de Oro State Park in Los Osos, CA (central coast of CA).

This is in the part of Seattle that is underground. They raised the city up one story or so after poop geysers started gushing out of toilets due to "technical difficulties" (i.e. little forethought, laziness, and a complete lack of civil engineering).

There'll be a cool avalanche photo later this week.

As any of my friends can tell you, I am guilty of using the word 'awesome' in conversation with a frequency that should not be permitted by law (at least with concern to a 30-year-old man). This sight was truly awesome; I went on a hike north of Seattle in search of an area called the Big Four Ice Caves. What I found instead were avalanches. They sounded like thunder and looked like waterfalls of snow pouring off of the mountain. For a little bit of perspective, look at the pine tree in the foreground and then look at the little spiky 'hairs' on the mountain above the avalanche. Yep, those are more of the same pine trees.

I wish couples at weddings got hit in the face with stuff more often. That would make weddings excellent.

Over the past few years, I've really become a fan of the exclamation point.

There's nothing more inviting than a giant, frozen, vivisected pregnant woman in her third trimester.

I was visiting New York and I noticed that the Fryman had followed me. The Big Apple seems to have taken a bite out of him, however. He's now missing an arm, has a bunch of holes on his body, and there's a bunch of sticker residue on him. Poor Fryman.

In Key West I discovered the Fryman's cousin, Coneman.

Yeah, I don't know either.

These "Tobies" are a creation of an artist named Gary Baseman. They are currently on display at an art museum in Laguna Beach, CA.

More of Gary Baseman's Tobies, this time scaling a wall.

A little speck of the dark side shows through. Is this when he decided to slaughter children?

The following is the English translation provided on the box that my ornamental cat with the swinging paw came with. I purchased it down in Chinatown in Philadelphia.

Do you think there are sweatshops that are filled with nothing but ten year olds copy writing? (And now my brilliant pun in the title is understood!)

On a side note: I hope to get my creative juices flowing and produce a story soon. I have ideas floating in the ethereal void that is my noggin but nothing has manifested itself into the written word. Probably soon as I am back in the city of Brotherly Love and Philadelphia seems to be my muse. To be more exact, my muse and my mugger.

One of my life goals was finally fulfilled on Wednesday night when my friend Alex and I met Chris Elliot. In this photo, the king of absurd comedy is pointing to his cadre of Alsatian bodyguards, each of which, he described, would kick my ass if I didn't leave at that very moment. I counted twenty-four of the the brutes, but there may have been a few little ones hiding in the stovepipe-leg pants of the big guys.

Alex was so scared by the impending doom that he wet himself.

This was given to me as a birthday present a few years ago. It is a marvel of mangled English. Behold, the product of Chinese translation, design, and engineering:

Yes, in case you were wondering what class of vehicle this was, it is the ever-so desirable "Advanced Grade of Contest Model."

This bold illustration entices English-speaking youth everywhere to feel the power and luxury that is an Awning Car.

Here's one specifically for an old friend of mine, Jeff AKA Dr. Hot Lunch. This is not too far from his childhood home in east-central PA. Notice the care these cultured folks have put into the presentation of this "Metal Mementos" installation, meticulously constructed on their front yard. They deserve an NEA grant if nothing else. Keep making PA beautiful, lawn artists.

You do not know how wonderful it was to learn that I, Rick DeMott, was celebrated as one of the "other" guys on Unloosen.com. It is so true that I could not handle the fame and recognition that Unloosen thrust upon me and so left the world wide web to become a paparazzi.

When my Hollywood friends learned of my Unloosen honor they too wanted to join in on the fun.

Here's me telling Toby to pose like distinguished Millard Fillmore.

With the word out more of my Hollywood friends will want to be featured on Unloosen soon too.