2003
Lansing, Michigan

I lived in Lansing, Michigan, for two years, and during this time met some of my favorite Bus Folk. When I boarded the route 1 one day in 2003, this gentleman was sitting there: slightly overweight, mussed, thinning hair, sunglasses, and a white t-shirt on which was written “BLUES MAN,” orange and blue marker in a childish script. Until this point all my bus photos had been candid, but from where I was sitting I couldn’t get the shot in my usual sneaky fashion. I knew I needed the photos, so I came right out and asked him.
“I love your shirt. Can I take a picture of it?”
He agreed, and explained to me in slow, deliberate tones, “This means I like an American style of music called the Blues.”
Once I snapped the picture, he turned around to show me the back: it said “CAT LOVER” in that same scrawling hand.

“The Paper-Thin Touch of an Aging Fop”
2003
Lansing, Michigan

“Oouhp, passed it again. Christ. Gotta start paying more attention. Jesus, how long’ve I been saying that to myself? Promised myself, gotta be, what, forty, fifty years? Just a kid. Fifty-five, sixty? Josephine gone since… and that was nineteen—and now it’s—so, Jesus, what, sixty… five years? Always getting lost then, always getting lost now. Terrific. Sixty-five years this same street, still, I miss the, turn—the uh, stop, miss my stop. Ehaaa…” - Joe, May 2007