image: recorded by request or by storm?

once people start listening, talking becomes more challenging.
and once people look, they're likely to look again.

i've always favoured anonymity when it comes to performance. reciting a monologue or singing from the heart is fine if no one you know is out there. the audience has nothing invested in you; they don't know the risk involved. the pain even.

most of all, i hate being recorded. when i was a kid i'd dance around to pointer sisters wearing a life jacket and an old wig and heels that were five sizes too big and really throw myself into those moves. i could go all night when it came to lipsyncing. that orange shag carpet on 43rd saw more dropping-to-the-knees action than james brown.

but this was before everyone and their blind, deaf, armless grandmothers had an iphone.

last night whilst drinking copious amounts of vodka in my living room with friends, wearing an old plaid shirt that was literally ripped up one whole side and a pair of slippers, with my hair groomed in the manner of "homeless man" and a wild look in my eye, i was photographed several times!

and today i'm trying to remember just how atrocious the shots were. i think one may have involved a finger microphone, and i also recall myself taking a deep lunge to the right with a saturday night fever point with a friend in the background howling WHAAAAT THE HELLLL doubled over laughing and a whole lot of lip biting and grimacing and white people grooving (i believe rod stewart was pumping at that moment). no one needs to see that!

but they will.

i'm all for breaking out the camera for those moments when you need to make a memory. but sometimes it leads to feeling a bit vulnerable, especially when the pics go home at the end of the night with someone else. you never know which ones will be uploaded to which site, emailed around, tagged, re-posted, tweeted, saved on some stranger's computer, and looked at for years to come while you walk around in utter ignorance.

you need to make sure you're comfortable with the image you project at all times, because while that image used to be forgettable or changeable or maleable (by way of storytelling or recounting for example), now it is always being recorded in some way. media is everywhere, we can't escape it.  i was out for dinner in a restaurant and at one time i looked around to observe six out of eight people were on their iphones. and at some point that night were taking pictures with them.

they never showed me the evidence though.

SNAP! gotcha.