all we ever wanted... (was everything)

been 6 yrs… where we at? on top.

amogulinmymind:

From “Block Shots”

Versus Magazine SF (2005)

Writer and Photographer Anonymous

These numbered days are our only opportunity to experience our lives.  For
me, there is no such thing as an afterlife.  There is only the birth and
death.  It is everything I experience in between those two events that
really matters.  These experiences have seem to come in stages.  There has
been this stage in my 20’s where I feel invincible.   I live with the goal
of having fun every single day on my own terms and seem to be very
successful at achieving this goal.  I always have people ask me how I do it
to which I often reply that living life in the fast lane is not always as
easy as it looks. To truly say fuck you to the 4 makeshift cubicle walls,
the bluetooth headset, the TPS reports, the 2 way pager connected to a
supervisor and the fax machine spitting out your directions for the day. 
For a time I opted to forfeit the lifestyle of responsibility in exchange
for sitting in booths at bars with my friends, my version of the cubicle. 
It was about using my prepaid cell phone attached to fake a name to secure
my drug of choice for the evening.  Racking and returning became a means to
pay my rent in a Tenderloin shit hole I was forced to live in due to my bad
credit and my constant unwillingness to do anything about it.  San
Francisco’s streets became my playground.  The BMW, Bike Muni Walking, took
me wherever I needed to go 24 hours a day throughout the city.  It was not
uncommon to see my bike locked to the no parking signs downtown out in front
of one of the many 5 star hotels where 20 of us pitched in for our after
hours binge suite on the top floor.  I was gluttonous with my consumption of
substances and was unconcerned with the long term effects.  I loved to “make
out” with multiple partners and thought nothing of the risks involved.  My
goal was, and is, to stay forever young as I find myself using the saying
that “30 is the new 20.”  However, also as I approach 30 I feel like all of
this craziness has to lead into something more.  It is like my Mom told me
not too long ago during a conversation I was having with her about my
lifestyle.  Her advice to me was “you can beat the hell out of yourself when
you are in your 20’s but your 30’s should be a time where you use those past
experiences to build yourself into something greater.”   As I sit here I can
not help but agree.  I have been involved in a lot of crazy shit thus far
and I know there is still more awaiting, but still I can’t help but feel
that the “something greater” needs to happen for my friends and I.  We are
all talented and some of us are more entrepreneurial than we give ourselves
credit for.  When I was in Paris recently there was a saying that stuck in
my head and seemed to resonate with the promise of something more.  It was
“la belle epoque”, which translates into “these beautiful times.”  When I
think about the simple truth that lies within that sentiment, I feel
inspired to create something out of my past experiences and have them evolve
into the new experiences that inherently await me.  With that in mind I
present a few of the pictures I have taken along the way to help document my
own version of  “La Belle Epoque.”