Lost in the Supermarket

The strange genius of Danny Turcotte Jr

For the past few weeks I have strongly suspected that my neighbor's dog has been shitting on my lawn with little regard and a wanton abandon that both intrigues me as well as repulses. On more than a few occasions I've awoken to look out over my rich, sprawling lawn only to immediately spot an impressive pile of dog crap mocking me. I asked my neighbor straight out if it was his dog shitting on my lawn, to which he said "no". The very next evening I spotted that same fucking dog all hunkered down shitting on my lawn - in flagrante delicto. I think what really rubbed me raw was how the dog appeared to be actually smiling at me while shitting on my lawn. What a rush! I sprinted and grabbed my camera and took a quick shot of this feral bastard violating my personal property. I didn't rightly know exactly what kind of dog it was, but it could obviously shit a mountain. I figured I could use this photo as proof positive, if, you know, push came to shove with all parties involved ending up in civil court. As it turned out, the picture I took was crappier than the crap the dog crapped. It was out of focus and my fucking thumb was smudged all over the lens. I ended up printing it out anyway and tacking it to my wall down in my sanctum. It fit right in with my Amy Winehouse Crack Head Hall of Fame collage. The point here is that you can give anyone a camera but it takes a photographer to actually take a picture. Circumlocution rules!

Now, I guess what I should have done right at the onset of my trouble with the dog was hire a real photographer to hide in the bushes with all those fucked up paparazzi telephoto lenses and tripods. I should have hired Danny Turcotte Jr. That's what I should have done. I didn't and now there are many piles of dog shit on my lawn.

One picture at a time, Danny's reputation as a ‘photographer's photographer' has been building on itself over the last few years. At this junction I should disclose that I am in no way qualified to accurately tout the myriad of technical aspects that goes into Danny's work - I'm clueless on the theory and mechanics of what's involved in taking a quality snapshot. But what I do know is that a cool picture can do fucked up things to me. I'm one of those guys with an acute sensitivity to visual aesthetics. If I see a cool picture, regardless of the subject, it some how embeds itself into that part of my brain that's essentially empty for the most part - like a 120 GB hard drive all but vacant except for stored mental pictures of some creepy Joel Peter Whitkin monstrosities, a selection of Ralph Stedman illustrated horrors and a candid photo of Wayne County from the Electric Chairs hiding in a closet looking both perverted and petrified.

I know that this tired sentiment is clichéd and looks horrible when committed to print, but there is definitely a story in every picture DTJR takes. Danny's got a strange eye, (no, he's not cock-eyed, nor is he a Cyclops or afflicted with lazy-eye) with the heart of a musician, which he is as well. He has been gifted with a skewered perspective that adds both scope and breadth to those many subjects that on the surface appear mundane. Through his lens Danny shows those who take the time to truly see, the beauty that can be found in the monotonous. Through whatever hellbroth of voodoo and darkroom incantations, his photos shed light on the vibrancy of life that bubbles up from beneath the waves of minutia - a modern malaise that keeps our senses dulled - that Clash song ‘Lost in a Supermarket' comes to mind for some reason. Again, I don't rightly know what the hell is going through his mind's eye, all I know is that when seeing DTJR walking around town with his camera slung low, he reminds me of a jovial stalker, but not in a Richard Ramirez kind of way. Ramirez was a brooding and uppity serial killer who loved Satan. From my meetings with Danny, I don't think he's a serial killer and his moods seem consistently upbeat and optimistic, which is hard in a world going straight to hell in an eco-friendly hand basket mass produced in a tiny Chinese province and sold at Wal-Mart. Whether he loves Satan or not is really of no concern to me. After all, a man's faith in any chosen deity is a personal matter, but I do know he supports the Montreal Canadiens, if this helps.

Turcotte's online portfolio (http://catch-light.ca/index.html) covers a wide spectrum - from the exotic lushness of Thailand, to wheat fields of Southern Ontario, opening our eyes to a wondrous world on a wire - a strange nether region of what is real and what is perceived. He has the capability of taking a picture of a dog shitting on a lawn and making it look fucking beautiful. My picture of a dog shitting on my lawn just pisses me off.

Being born and bred ‘where the waters meet,' I am pumped to see that Mattawa breeds more than just ATV thieves, arsonists and scratch ticket addicts. This strange little town has also produced one of the most exciting photographers on the scene today. If there is, in fact, a scene for photographers - weird bunch they would be - I don't rightly know; I'm too obsessed with that fucking dog shitting on my lawn to focus on anything else.

Brief sidebar: As I wrote this piece for Speak Free, my son Shannon, who was on another computer in the new streamlined Angus HQ, informed me that the Taliban had just made some direct threats to this great country of ours. Shannon asked me of Osama Bin Laden was still hiding in the mountains over in Pakistan or Afghanistan or wherever. I informed him that no one really knows where the hell this guy is. Shannon replied with the nonchalance that only an eleven year old could get away with:

"It would be cool if Bin Laden was really hiding in Magic Mountain in Disney Land. No one would think to look for him there." That's brilliant! I wish I could take credit for this.

Another brief sidebar: He also told me recently how it would be more eco-friendly if we used children's tears to fill our gas tanks thusly weaning ourselves off those flabbly oil teats. Again, this is brilliant.

Cheers

Kevin Pecore, III, Esquire
August something 2008