While the phrase “shed light” has entered the lexicon as an innocuous term that puts a brighter face on the word “explain,” rarely do we think about light literally. Light is sometimes shed in interesting ways; broadcast, even. It floats around us. Sometimes it’s interesting enough to give the walls of the home office their own signature design. As creative people, it’s part of our job to point out that interest. More importantly though, mundane things sometimes strike the conscious mind and they become engrossing. Those things change perception in forgotten seconds. As an artist, one would hope that over time the whole of those forgotten seconds might add up in some creative account where seeing the world in broader, brighter folds pays off in bolder and more brilliant creative work. As citizens we are unencumbered by interest and accounts. We have, simply, the primary joy of seeing.

One can’t help but to be engrossed sometimes.

As an artist, there’s the hope, the fun, of seeing something cool, spending 20 minutes figuring out how to capture the best image of it, and ushering it off into the world like a child to his first school. Only there are hundreds of children. Some that don’t even make it from the napkin where they were scribbled to the notebook where their siblings and cousins are. And some that grow up and find their homes in the hearts and minds of other people.

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Let’s just say that I’m more than a little bit proud of the extra-long exposure (six seconds) that it took to capture the nighttime dance that happens behind the Code Breaker. Those interesting shapes that reveal themselves by streetlight are part of the reason I haven’t decorated that wall.

Cruise’s latest summer blockbuster delivered on premise. Action. Afterwards, me and the Michael referred to in many of my film credits visited a bar and a restaurant. This bike was parked en route. Somewhere during the walk we discussed the vapid actor and whether or not his lack of interior persona is related to his consuming desire to preserve his fame.

The junkyard dog’s name is Winifred, or Roger, or Augustus, or Rudolph. He barks loudly as you round the corner and rushes toward the fence. But you look at him, Clarence maybe, and his brown eyes tell you, “hey, I’m just doing my job.”

And he stares. And you stare. And the soft light of six a.m. creates the space for empathy.

“Buford,” you say, “come close and I’ll take your picture.” And he smiles inside for the attention.

It’s been a year since I switched over to this wallet. I was amazed that I could still find one online, but the internet is full of specialty stores that haven’t updated their websites since ’97 and sometimes they come in handy. There are a million places online that carry the item, but badmofowallets.com seemed to have the best quality. Plus you get to use the phrase badmofowallets.com in conversation, which is always a plus. They don’t seem to carry the version with the edge stitching anymore though.

I bring this up because I recently read Ryan Irelan’s three week sum-up of the jimi wallet. While the bad mofo doesn’t simplify life in any tangible way like the jimi purports to do, it does come with it’s own built-in retrieval line. “It’s the one that says ‘Bad Motherfucker.'” And if it had a theme song, is there any doubt that it would be “The Boss” by James Brown? I think not.