Rosewita

On my flickr page i have gotten mostly 5 or 6 hits on each of my photographs, the portraits, of course, being the most popular. people like to look at other people. lots of people like to look at my brother apparently. for some reason though, this one of Rosewita has gotten over 100 hits. maybe someone linked to it. i honestly don't know what the fuck is going on. is it a great picture? i met Rosewita on plaka beach (the nude beach) on naxos in greece. She lives in Gratz, austria, and has spent the summer on plaka beach every year for the past 30 years. She remembers in the 6o's when everyone lived in bamboo huts and then the police came and burned them all down (same story as everywhere else) because they weren't bringing money to spend on the island. also probably because no one likes hippies!

anyway, she was awesome. we slept on the beach for two weeks until one night someone tried to rob us. for the next few nights she let us sleep under this huge tree on the property her broken down old bus was parked on - this tree itself used to house dozens of people. she came by our beach encampment (which consisted of two beach umbrellas and a broken windsurfing board) every day and gave us tomatoes that she had stolen from the landlord's field, and also introduced me to the idea of slathering myself in olive oil, since i could not afford sunblock. i must say i looked fucking great when i came back from that trip. she referred to greek men as "macho's" as in, "oh, great, here comes another fucking macho..." and taught me how to say 'we are not slaves' (we as in women) and 'get away from me' in greek, and demystified all of that "ELLA! ELLA! ELLA!" bullshit (it means 'come here') and hated it as much as i did. greek men yell this as you walk down the street. it's like their 'HOLLA' or whatever.

this picture was taken the morning i left naxos. i was so happy to be able to say goodbye to her. i found her to be a tremendously welcoming and giving person. she also said that whenever i was in gratz to look her up and gave me her address and phone number. The reason the horizon is blurred in the background is because this just happened to be the first day of the sirocco, the wind from the south that brings humidity, and we awoke to these conditions. Rosewita said that we were lucky, it was the perfect day to be leaving naxos, because the sirocco makes people miserable and paranoid and act crazy. there was something else she said about the wind being from africa, and about how that is why the greek people hate it so much. i guess they don't like the blacks! i was more than happy, by then, to get the fuck off of that island. i asked her if i could take her picture, and this was one of only two that i took.