Don't Ask Me To Take Your Picture

I go to bars to drink, be stupid, mix with walks of life, revel in the randomness and drink some more.

What I don't go to a bar to do, however, is work. By work, I'm referring to having to set down my beer, cigarette and halt a conversation in order to photograph a group of rich, vile, judgemental bitches.

I can tell by the shirt you're wearing that you are proud of the new tits you bought, but do you have to photograph them all over town? Is your self esteem that low?

How did we go from simply enjoying the bar, to trying to document and record an experience as common as going out for a drink?

The digital camera, of course. The invention of the digital camera has lowered my quality of life and it is polluting the bar scene.

Now, everytime I go to the bar I turn into fucking Ansel Adams.

It makes me want to fucking puke. Here's how it usually goes down:

I'll be in an in depth conversation with a friend about whether Tiffani Amber Thiessen was hotter as Kelly Kapowski on Saved By The Bell or as Valerie Malone on Beverly Hills 90210 when some girl interupts by handing me a digital camera and asking to take a picture of her and her friends.

Then, like eight girls will gather round. What? Pictures? Women start running out of the bathroom to get in. A trap door opens in the ceiling and women repel down to get into the photo.

Then they begin with what I call the Picture Girl Smile. Most women have this smile that only appears in pictures.

It's the fakest fucking facial expression ever. It's so forced it almost looks like they're taking a shit.

Anyway, I snap the photo. Poof! Half the bar goes blind.

Now comes the sick part. The women start running after the camera like baseball fans scrambling for a foul ball. Somewhere, Ivan Pavlov is smiling. The women grab the camera and immediatley gaze at the picture.

I'm thinking, What?

I guess their mentality is this: "Oh! Remember this one. That was a fun time when we all went out to The Saloon. When was that anyway? .... Oh, I know. IT WAS FIVE FUCKING SECONDS AGO!"

How can you be naustalgic about a concept like five seconds ago?

I have no problem with photographing the party. But only if something extraordinary is going on. Posing for a forced picture at a bar is boring as shit. If you're blowing the bartender or puking on someone's arm, please take a picture of that.

Of course, the saboteur in me likes to play games.

Back in the days of film, I would always frame the picture so none of the girls' faces were in it. Of course, they wouldn't know until a week later when the film came back.

Now, ruining these worthless photos takes imagination. That's where my friend, who we'll call B-Diddy, comes into play.

B-Diddy loves to sneak in the back of these pictures and make inppropriate gestures just to illustrate how childlike, fake and artless these "bar photos" are.

That's my guy. (Editor's Note: To avoid a violation of B-Diddy's probation, he is not the saboteur pictured above, but rather one of his protoges).