Artwork by Katie Kerl, Copyright 2021
Artwork and Text by Katie Kerl, Copyright 2021
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The Ascension
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After the most horrific year 2020 is finally coming to an end!! When the smoke clears, and you start to feel whole again might just be the best feeling. My father is cancer free and on the mend. My mother and I gave him the support he needed to find the will to live though stage four throat Cancer. Our friends and family could not have been more caring and constantly checking in during this time. He is the true miracle this Christmas, and just turned 65, before Thanksgiving. My mom is healthy, and all three of us in our house together. By the end of Christmas Eve, I was sobbing because that feeling is not one to be topped. It was the first time in 24 years we were all under one roof. My mom really made it perfect from the décor, baking, presents, and the people you found necessary to be in your presence are the ones who counted.
No looming feeling of dread to see people you do not find meaningful in your life.
In a way that is amazing when you think about it. Maybe your family is divided, and you did it separately for the first time. There was no arguing just peace. PEACE when was the last time you felt that?! I fought through every minute of the last two years of my life in different ways. I changed my way of living 130%. Which I am grateful for choosing my family over everything, and everyone.
I tried my hardest and someone lived.
I am the lucky one this year. No matter what happens from here. I have these moments to remember forever. I will never take that for granted. Even though the virus is still raging in a disgraceful government; honestly, it is how we the people treat each other that matter. Other than on the financial end, they have nothing to do with you being a good person and looking out for people you care about!! There is no one to blame if you have not immersed yourself in the forward-thinking changes that we are about to embark on in our country.
I always talked about my odd black cloud jokingly through the years. A series of injuries, illnesses, and recoveries. Maybe all of that prepared me for this.
I have been home since March 16th, 2020 with no real end in sight.
I still have a place in the city, but is it worth it to keep, or time to see something new?
I have moved onto crypto from the larger stock market tickers. If Corona did not show us we are going paperless with money, I am not sure what will. I guess we will see what that brings me. Currently Ethereum is up to $740 as I am looking at my phone. I started with penny stocks, educated myself, waited until Tesla was about to hit the S&P 500 sold, and bought Ethereum. I talked about a little of that in my previous piece, for better clarification. I still am not exactly sure what I am doing, but I know enough to be happy at my rising portfolio. Which also Includes Derek Automotive, who will be going public in 2021.
Derek has built an up-and-coming empire in a global pandemic, all while using his forward-thinking ideas to take on the clean electric car movement. Derek Mobility is the second sector of Derek Automotive. The little lover scooter, e-bike, and commercial van. His company is a force to recon with in 2021. I cannot wait to write the full piece about all his progress. Being a black business developer with new technology taking on the world in 2020 and winning!! Also, who I now call a friend. You want people that do not let you make excuses for your circumstances, and help you rise with them in your life. That is true entrepreneurship.
Some of the companies I partnered with this year, sent me an overwhelming allotment of product to protect my family’s immune systems during COVID.
Which were my favorites?
Liquid-Iv every month by the bags. Not just the “influencer” promo pack for the month. I drink that every day! I hate the word influencer, but if I can promote being yourself and telling everyone to fuck off that does not like it so be it!! I wondered how I missed out on this hydration pack for so long. One packet on your worst hungover day, and you will feel 100 times better. The tangerine wellmune helps protect your immune system is my favorite flavor! The energy multiplier with matcha, lemon, and ginger is my second.
I also receive the Splendid Spoon box. They like my content, so they give me the box full of smoothies, detox shots, and vegetarian bowls. My favorite is the green goddess bowl, digestive shot, and the power greens smoothie. Please refer to my Instagram for promos on boxes, and other partnered products. I will not be posting that here. I only talk about the wellness products I use in my everyday life.
Verb Energy bars are great for that afternoon pick me up as well. There is no crash or bloating from drinking too many fluids. It is powered by 65mg of green tea caffeine no matter the flavor you choose. Which is less harsh than coffee.
Quest Nutrition sent me the biggest box of goodies. I have to say; the salted caramel shakes are my favorite. They are also great protein coffee creamers! The loaded taco chips, sprinkle donut, fiesta chips, and the lemon protein bars all measure up the same, drool worthy.
To the companies that have shown my whole family love in COVID thank you!!
On the opposite end of that spectrum, there is still no Toilet paper in stores and the vitamins still stocked.
That alone makes me question people’s sanity. I have a mask for every outfit, and I still have melt downs keeping people away from my compromised parents in food stores etc. I do not see that letting up any time soon. We still do not get it here in America. Speaking of vitamins, I personally take a quite a few including a B-Complex stress formula, calcium and magnesium, vitamin-c, and astragalus which oddly enough protects your respiratory system during cold and flu season.
The news is telling us to stay home yet promoting shopping across the city, and holidays things to do. I wonder if they hate their jobs as much as we hate hearing their utter daily dose of Bullshit. The funny thing is I have more freedom here to write about my experience than I would if I were on the news reporting something similar.
It is REAL…
I feel terrible for the teachers in our country who were, and some still are being subject to exposure everyday by germy kids!! One of my best friends is having to deal with this and I am not so sure I would have been able to keep going in. I give her so much credit for sticking to what she also fought so hard for to achieve. I love kids, but there is not a right amount of money to pay someone when that was never part of what they signed up for at that income rate.
It is kind of like the under performing NFL. Why would you risk your full potential as an athlete to have respiratory, and heart issues? Eight months in and some people are still recovering from COVID. We do not know the real long-term damage of this virus yet. The fact they are still playing games shows you how much money is dumped into gambling. Believe me I learned about that too. I rode that DraftKings rise as well in the end of summer early fall when sports came back.
Thanksgiving crept up and I was feeling kind of lost not being able to do anything positive to give back.
Then I volunteered again and saw firsthand what the hospital first responders are going though. The Trauma Survivors Foundation has fed 17k front line workers as of Thanksgiving Day. Ronnie Chakler has been there for my family and I through this entire thing. Another person that when they say they got you, they do. Ronnie and the members of his Lodge made that 100 Turkey Dinner meal run possible from Manny’s Deli. They put together delicious plates for all. Dennis Carraidin the curator of the foundation met us at Jefferson Emergency entrance. We made a lot of heroes happy that day. We were on a few of the news stations as they were covering people giving back in this hard time. I went home to make the Thanksgiving Turkey and was never more thankful in my life for what I have. I went to sleep happy that night.
Only to wake to a nightmare, I have been writing about my life, and the ups and downs of dating someone with a demanding job for years. If you take anything away from this piece; check on your friends in high positions. If you think something is wrong keep asking. Tell people what is going on. At least if they pushed you away it is because they were not ready to face change, but you still fought for them to live. Stress kills, apart of me died on the day after Thanksgiving. My phone rang and it was the last person on earth I would wanted to speak to.
Especially after having such a nice holiday with my family.
I was informed my ex passed away. At first, I just fuck you buttoned him, because why disrupt my actual peace? After I heard what he had to say I have never felt such rage. When you talk to an entire group of people begging for help and they do not. How did you have the nerve to call me? The funny thing is we kept in touch, so he was still telling me about his life issues even with a new girlfriend. Which was fine, for the same reason I had left our home a year ago. Nothing changed; and the stress mounted. I have the utmost respect for him even though we did not work out. He deserved to live for himself and feel free. My heart aches for his mother, and I hope she one day she finds peace. Being highly intuitive sometimes can be a burden you do not want to bear. I saw something no one else wanted to wake up to. At least I know he is at peace and will always hold a piece of my soul. He was my past and will be part of my drive to not only be better but to protect my own happiness.
I have the right people in my life to be there for me and that is what matters. It took a long time to find that and I will not give that up. It is not the money; it is who really will ride with you on the way up. Not showing up on the doorstep once they made it. Be careful who you let in your life. It means everything in the end. A lot of people do not like me for this. You know pointing out the truth, and what is right. I’m glad I never gave a shit about that or I would probably be dead now too.
When I really think about it. This year alone we have lived through two sets of riots in Philadelphia and watched the Cheeto bunker dive. There were a few hurricanes and tornados. The entire service industry here is dead. There is no indoor dining, or anything to do to bring joy, hobbies, etc. On this second round of semi lockdown. They want the people who are still employed to work and have no joy after? Fuck that.
The number of tears I cried this year for people going through so many different things including myself; makes me confident the people whose lives have not changed in this will be hard for them to adapt/ relate to people who have seen it all. Especially with no cohesive plans for our country to heal.
I lost 3 people that I am still processing.
If your friends/ family are not taking care of their health now again, please try to help them.
Check in and tell them you love them.
Stress relievers for me:
Medical marijuana has kept me in shape and honestly sedated thankfully, an appetite, and a few pounds gained purposely.
Yoga took a while to get acclimated to years ago, I thank god I learned that patience.
If you are suffering insomnia try it before bed.
Writing always clears my head. Although at this point, I feel so overwhelmed I started painting instead. I guess it is true if you are creative you can really channel it anywhere.
I am sure I’d pass the kindergarten art test, although my content maybe questionable.
Food and cooking used to be my thing; if I ever cook another meal after this ……..
I do miss my top 50 in Philly and fine dining. I pray for our friends in the service industry dying in a state that refuses to help small business yet is the only thing it thrives on besides its history.
I voted in person and there was no better feeling than voting for change.
Before all this insane madness, I had a few brief moments of peace in the Hamptons, Philly, and NYC. Distanced of course to feel a shred of my own existence again. When your friends take a giant chance to see you getting covid tests and all; that means something! I do not care if you are not supposed to fly at this point. If someone went through all of that to see friends who are dealing with ill family members, I am doing the exact same thing for them on New Year’s. I am going to live, mask, and distance out of this god-awful state.
We also watched our country run into the streets and celebrate the demise of Trump.
That was a defining moment. All cultures coming together in the streets to cheer despite covid/ riots.
That type of victory is history.
We are living though American history.
If you made it this far you should feel lucky to be alive
with 336k dead as of December 30th, 2020 in the United States alone!!
When this is over are you going to be happy with how you spent your time?
Did you do enough?
I have been happy, depressed, enraged, hopeful, & flat out floored over a cancer win, and all mixed with my ADD brain worst nightmare, but that ADD gave me the ability to do 5 things at once and finish the projects.
I am not sure what 2021 is going to bring, but I hope more understanding and empathy for people no matter their situations. I personally have been through enough. I am raising the white flag to 2020.
I will be in Miami when this bitch turns 21.
If I die from that decision so be it. After living though everything above to feel alive again is everything to me.
I have done my due diligence here. It is time for me to breathe again before all the government aid runs out.
When it does it is going to be bad here.
Take your opportunities to do good things, but also still be good to yourself now.
Parents that have lost jobs or have kids to provide meals, toys, winter coats, at home learning tools, or deliver to the compromised elderly. Do something!
Unfortunately, it is not our greatest victories that define us.
We may think that way, but it is selfish.
It is your ability to Rise up and keep going despite the above, being resilient and helping people that need it.
Something we should be teaching if we embody that in our personalities.
Have a safe and healthy New Year Friends!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Katie Kerl was raised in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. She is currently living in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia. Katie has a background in Psychology from Drexel University. She is a manager in the commercial/residential design field . Katie can be reached on Instagram @kerlupwithkate
For collaboration e-mail: Kate.kerl32@gmail.com
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To access additional article by Katie Kerl, click here: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/thriving-through-anarchy/
Bob Shell: The Incredible Shrinking Business
Text by Bob Shell, Copyright 2021
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The Incredible Shrinking Business
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I didn’t come up with that title. An old friend, veteran of the photography magazine business, used that phrase and it stuck in my mind. When I first got serious about photography in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were many quality 35 mm SLRs to choose from. For those unfamiliar with the terminology, SLR stands for ‘Single Lens Reflex’, the type of camera that uses a flipping mirror to let you see the view from your lens directly, projected onto a viewing screen. Most allow lens interchangeably. Until recently, almost all high end cameras were SLRs. But, recently, a new type of camera has come along, generally referred to as ‘mirrorless’. One disadvantage of the SLR design is that the mirror must flip out of the way during the actual exposure, causing a momentary loss of the image at the moment of exposure, and vibration in some cases. This led to incidences of eyes closed in photos when someone blinked at just the wrong instant, and worse, you never knew it until the film was developed. This is one of the things that mirrorless cameras eliminate.
Back in ‘those thrilling days of yesteryear,’ when I first delved into photography, we had many brands of SLR cameras to choose from. Some, in no particular order, were Alpa, Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Yashica, Contax, Miranda, Rolleiflex, Ricoh, Cosina, Chinon, Exakta, Edixa, Praktica, Praktina, Olympus, Voigtlander, Pentax, Kiev, Topcon, Kowa, Samsung, Contarex, Contaflex, Icarex, Kodak Retina Reflex, Petri, Mamiya, Vivitar, Konica, and, of course, Leica, although the first Leicaflex SLR was a wildly impractical design.
All were either Japanese or German, with a few Russian and Ukrainian, and the outliers Samsung, the sole offering from South Korea, and Alpa from Switzerland. I’m sure I missed some, but all were capable of making decent images.
My first serious SLR camera was a somewhat beat up Nikon F that I bought from a friend when I was living in DC around 1967. It had a 50 mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens, but no light meter, so somewhere I got a Gossen Lunasix hand meter to use with it. Camera and meter were later stolen when I was away from my apartment for a few days.
I didn’t have much money in those days, so my next camera was a Zenit B Russian-made SLR that I bought from Cambridge Camera Exchange in New York, $ 39.95 mail order, brand new. It produced surprisingly good images, but was clunky design. Later I had more money, so I bought a Mamiya/Sekor 1000 DTL from the camera department at J.C. Penney. In those days every major retailer had a camera department, and price competition was fierce.
I’ve always been a tinkerer. I have to know how things work. I never owned a 35 mm camera that I didn’t take apart to see how it worked. So, in the early 70s I took the camera repair mail order course from National Camera in Colorado. I had a ball taking cameras apart and putting them back together, usually with no pieces left over! Once I gained some confidence, I began repairing cameras for money. But, in those days camera repairmen were mechanics, electronics hadn’t invaded the insides of cameras much, aside from the simple electronics of built-in light meters.
All of this is leading up to the electronic invasion of cameras, first starting in the later 70s. I’d be totally out of my depth trying to fix one of today’s digital cameras.
In many ways, it’s like cars. I was at home when cars had points and plugs to be gapped, and the only electronic item in my tool chest was a timing light. Work on one of today’s cars without a diagnostic computer — forget it!
Same with cameras, in many cases they require diagnostic equipment only factory service technicians have access to.
Not long after I got serious about photography and camera repair the first attrition of camera brands began, with brands like Edixa, Praktina, Kowa, Petri, falling by the wayside. In the mid-70s Zeiss-Ikon, the famous German camera maker folded its tent and dropped out of the camera business, their last camera the gorgeous Zeiss-Ikon SL706. They just couldn’t compete with Japanese prices, although the Zeiss-Ikon SL706 was reborn as the Rollei SL35M with cosmetic changes, built at Rollei’s ill-fated manufacturing plant in Singapore.
I won’t try to list the companies that collapsed over the 70s and 80s and into the 90s, but suffice it to say that they fell like leaves in a forest, the last collapses being those that couldn’t make the transition to digital imaging. Minolta, one of the oldest Japanese brands, went into bankruptcy and was bought by Konica, only to have that iconic brand itself go bankrupt. It’s an open secret that Minolta was acquired by Sony, a company that had avoided the SLR market for years. That’s why Minolta lenses fit the first generations of Sony SLRs before they went mirrorless. Even the Minolta Alpha designation for their SLRs was retained by Sony.
With the recent announcement that Olympus is shutting down its camera division, a serious photographer has only Canon, Nikon, Sony, Leica, and Pentax to choose from, Pentax being the only one not to go mirrorless and retain the flipping mirror. I wouldn’t invest in Pentax’s long term survival, but I’ve been wrong before, and some photographers prefer the traditional mirrored SLR’s viewfinder.
Do I expect the photo business to shrink even more? Certainty. Demand for high end cameras is way down, and lower end cameras were killed by cellphones with built-in cameras, some of which produce remarkably good images. I’ve seen full page pictures in several magazines shot with iPhones. But, for those times when the cellphone just won’t do, such as long telephoto shots of nature and sports, the high end camera is still essential.
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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence for involuntary manslaughter for the death of Marion Franklin, one of his former models. He is serving the 13th year of his sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Facility, Virginia. To read Bob Shell’s, first essay on civil war, click here: https://tonywardstudio.com/blog/in-praise-of-reality/
Editor’s Note: If you like Bob Shell’s blog posts, you’re sure to like his new book, COSMIC DANCE by Bob Shell (ISBN: 9781799224747, $ 12.95 book, $ 5.99 eBook) available now on Amazon.com . The book, his 26th, is a collection of essays written over the last twelve years in prison, none published anywhere before. It is subtitled, “A biologist’s reflections on space, time, reality, evolution, and the nature of consciousness,” which describes it pretty well. You can read a sample section and reviews on Amazon.com.