DON'T GET LOST, AMERICA!

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LOST AMERICA
by Troy Paiva
released: 2003
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I received Troy Paiva's LOST AMERICA this past Christmas from the Mother of a girl I went with from 1989 to 1994, and I'd like to think that this says something positive about both her Mother and myself. The book is filled with dramatic and intriguing photographs executed by a true artist. It seems that Paiva petitioned Stan Ridgway (a Rock star) to write the Forward to LOST AMERICA, but ironically - based on what I found in the book - Ridgway isn't half the writer that Troy Paiva is. (That's right - Paiva is as good a writer as he is a photographer! This guy has really been blessed with talent!) Ridgway nails it when he says, "Some people can be obsessive. Artists usually are, and the great ones are excessively so. They are driven by an inner vision."
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And the attempt to manifest this inner vision for the benefit of others can often come at a price for the artist. Paiva is a junky joint junkie: his vision is to take long exposure photographs at night of abandoned things and places. He attempts to capture the Lost and Lonely Heart of the Past (usually with a mixture of hot and cool colored lights illuminating certain areas of his subject matter).
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It is important to remember when viewing these poetic and mysterious photos, that Paiva often had to pay a price for them beyond the cost of film, developing and printing: in the course of tramping through junkyards and forlorn places at night, he has been swarmed by bats, attacked by owls, and chased back to his truck by packs of wild dogs. He's had heart-stopping encounters with angry rattlesnakes and witnessed mysterious tarantula and cricket migrations. Once, a praying mantis as big as his hand followed him around an old junkyard like a pet, for most of an evening. More than once, his hand has swollen up like a balloon from painful spider bites. So, unless the idea of being stalked by a monstrous praying mantis all evening is your idea of a fun Friday night, you shouldn't take these very cool photos for granted.
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As I said, Troy Paiva's writing impressed me as much as his photographs did, and on page 14 he writes, "The songs of old broken things are everywhere". The moment I read that, the perfect song sprang into my mind. Composed by another artist with the poetic heart of a juice joint junkie (Tom Waits) is the song, 'BROKEN BICYCLES' from the movie soundtrack for 'One From The Heart':
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"Broken bicycles, old busted chains 
With rusted handle bars, out in the rain 
Somebody must have an orphanage for 
All these things that nobody wants any more" 
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Well, there IS an orphanage for these abandoned things and it's called, "Troy Paiva's Camera". Let Tom sing the song while you explore Paiva's photos, and you will have discovered a match made in the junkyard of your dreams!
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Now, I will confess that there are a few times when I feel Paiva's lighting is detrimental to the image. Occasionally the colored lights infuse the scene with an artificiality that spoils it. Nowhere is this more evident than in 'Daggett Beams, 2000' in which an otherwise truly stunning photo is spoiled by a harsh yellow spotlight in the background. I sometimes preferred his photos with less intrusive, minimal lighting. For example: the moody blue 'Road Closed, 2001' which features two battered, old pickup trucks parked like sentinels under an unhappy Winter sky.
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But most of his photos do feature spotlighted areas of red, green, blue or yellow - this is Paiva's style - and the vast majority of the time, it works; it adds a sense of supernatural foreboding, or Little Boy Lost to his "Broken Bicycle" scenes.
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Some of the real standouts for me are 'Ludlow Cafe, 1990'; 'Concourse, 2001'; 'Salton Sea Beach Trailer, 1992' (so creepy that I could probably write an entire horror story around that one image); 'Cabover And Tires, 1992' - maybe my favorite photo in the book. Who or WHAT might live in that abandoned camper? I think I'd rather not know! And then there's 'The King, 2002', which looks like some nightmarish image from a bizarre, childlike somnambulistic landscape - Alice in Vegasland! Quickly click those heels and scream, "There's no place like home!"
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Many of Paiva's photos would make great imagination-starters for would-be writers.
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'CL, 2001' shows us the dilapidated snack bar of the abandoned Burlingame Drive-in Theatre. In the foreground is an old sign, with the only remaining letters on it being "CL." The caption states, "So far past being closed, it's only CL now." I told you this guy could write!
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Chapter Four, titled "Salvage", contains several shots of old and weathered Las Vegas casino signs taken in the Vegas Neon Museum's "boneyard." It's interesting to note that the scene in the movie, 'One From The Heart' in which the plaintive Tom Waits song 'Broken Bicycles' plays, occurs in a Las Vegas junkyard littered with old, dismantled casino signs, and a mournful train whistling in the background. I never imagined that such a place really existed... until I got LOST AMERICA. The book is sure to appeal to every melancholy weirdo like me, and I would recommend you buy it, except for one thing: it was printed in China...
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Yes, this is the same China that embraces Communism - a failed economic / social system responsible for murdering approximately 100 million human beings worldwide, and torturing and starving many millions more. The same China that enforces its one-child family policy with forced abortions. The same China that got caught smuggling AK-47s into the U.S. to be sold to Los Angeles street gangs; threatened to nuke L.A. if the U.S. militarily defends Taiwan; kills its citizens who have the audacity to publicly request freedom; sells body parts of executed prisoners to medical facilities; enslaves political opponents & Christians for their faith, and puts them to work in forced labor camps, producing all imaginable types of goods, and printing books, all to be sold to Americans.
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Every time we purchase a Chinese-made product, we are feeding the human rights-abusing monster that has made no secret of its hatred for us - a monster that is increasing its military might at an astonishing rate and will someday overrun its neighbor, Taiwan, and declare war on the United States. Let's have a little foresight for once. Let's stop building our enemies. Let's boycott ALL Chinese products and sleep better at night.
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LOST AMERICA is a nice book, but until it is being produced in a country that values human life, it's a book that we can LIVE WITHOUT! (Of course, if you're buying a used copy, this is not an issue.) The good news, however, is that many of Troy Paiva's photos can be viewed at his lostamerica website. It may not be this book, but it's still worth a look.
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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