This is where I met Tommy Eric Logan.
Tommy Eric Logan, or Logan as he first introduced himself as. Logan was a homeless person, a drunk, and possibly a schizophrenic. He asked me basic questions, how long had I been doing photography(which I said jokingly "This thing? I just point and shoot man."), if I had seen The Crow, and if I wanted to grab a beer with him. Sure I said. I wasn't sure if I was going to get shanked and robbed or some miraculous event was going to occur, I wanted to stick around anyway.
So we walked towards 7-11 which was a couple yards away, it was nicely snugged into the corner of Harbor and McFadden. I walked in not really knowing what the hell to expect but he did just as he said, walked in and grabbed himself a tallboy of Steel Reserve. We walked around the corner and he began telling me about The Crow, Brandon Lee, and how he was going to kill himself within the next 24 hours.
I sat idly by listening mostly and trying not to piss off the drunk bum with my questions. Eventually after sitting next to him for awhile I asked him if I could take some shots of him while we talked, he agreed and kindly asked me - and this is verbatim - "Would you please get some pictures of me suffering, I want you to capture my raw spirit before I leave this earth.".
I was a little hesitant, mostly because I was supposed to be working but I agreed. I figured if I was a bum and had not one thing to myself all I would want is someone to listen to me before I hung myself or whatever bum thing you do to kill yourself. So we talked for awhile and he told me about music, movies, and life.
He was completely in love with music though. He knew facts, histories, and collaborations of all the artists he listened too...which was all good classic rock stuff. It blew my mind. It was sad though because you could tell when a song changed because his expression would get really stoic, his eyes would focus on one point, and you could tell that gears were moving in his head. Eventually a sniffle would sneak out, and then his eyes would glass over...
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I always found it interesting to talk to people that have gone through a lot because they usually have a lot of words of wisdom to share and at the least they put your life in perspective. While he talked I noticed that he would hold back his tears constantly, even while he listened to his little old mp3 player he would hold back his tears when a song he liked would play. It was almost a constant struggle for the poor man to even formulate a paragraph without him having to sniffle or tear up. It was horrible.
The experiences and stories he shared blew my mind, but most importantly his broken spirit and his skewed view on life and religion left me overwhelmed. I think the religion part left me amazed. That this "man of god" had fallen so far from the tree, but he wouldn't curse the religion he would instead curse god for putting him on Earth. Constantly he would stare up at the sky and constantly he clench his fists, bite his lip and through the spit and clenched jaw would slither "I hate you for giving me this consciousness."
I took the shots, bought him some double A batteries and left him 4 bucks and told him "peace." because honestly I couldn't handle this guys depression any longer. Call me self absorbed or whatever you want but I work hard every day to be what I want to be, and this guy was just another example of how fragile and precious life is. It could be one thing one minute...and the next it could be hell on earth.
I think some of the shots speak for themselves.
R.I.P. Tommy Eric Logan, or whatever your real name was.
-Rod
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