Fuck Mike Brodie (Part1)

Two questions to that asshole Mike Brodie.

If there is anything that pisses off photography lovers, who in most cases have never ever picked up a camera in their hands, it is to dismantle their myths, humanize them, juxtapose them with all that unresolved stuff that will one way or another lead to their collective denouncement in the most obvious and predictable way. Anything that may go wrong will only formally align with the shared beliefs,and just as you stand at the fifth warm beer, you will remember abandoning your mother in that nursing home: there at that very moment what was supposed to go wrong will regain its nature. Without a lot of pleasantries.

I don't know Mike, I've seen his work on train hoppers and it didn't leave me with shit, all this bohemian romanticism and tons of golden hours on the metal of freight trains, plastic subcultures daughters of a nation unable to have a history with a capital S, gets on my nerves and bores me. We wrote each other a handful of e-mails though. Inside this gut, though, I hear a dissonant echo; a wrong note that is barely audible, and you don't have to have a trained ear to catch it; maybe you just need to look inside. In any corner where dust has taken solid form; like kidney stones that you won't be able to piss away xcept by tearing up your urethra.

I don't do it on purpose, photography generally depresses me, I get depressed by explicit intentions, in fact I get depressed by intentions themselves, even if artfully concealed. I immediately sense the stench of backroom, not sure how to explain it, perhaps we can glimpse the observer's level of sincerity even through a complicity forced imposed by the creator of the object of the image, like, Hey come on, we both know how things must go, what the nature of our interaction must be. For this reason I don't appreciate my work at all; I know it and you know it but nobody says anything. Good shit huh?

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Nobody knows anything about each other, I don't know how you are doing, and if we go beyond gossip, very little remains. The information about you comes to me indirectly, by side ways, sometimes polluted or otherwise distorted. There's Mike, there's Polaroidkidd, there's Mia Smith, there's Slack, there's trains, there's substances, there's the dimness, the blinding light, the darkness so thick as to make any description an insinuation. All this exists regardless of your photography but also not, otherwise we would not be here, this is enough to confuse me.

If this is a new beginning let's start from the end, how did it end?

Indeed! Mike is not necessarily the "Polaroid Kid", and Mia is not "Slack".

In ways, both became road names which will perpetually serve as egos of our former selves. In Mias case, it was far more extreme, as she essentially destabilized her previous identity.

For 23 years she lived as Mia Smith, and for only 9 months lived as "Slack" or "Slack Action." Which most would agree, is a completely absurd name. Slack was a shapeshifter, and these identities were malleable depending on her friend group at any given moment. Among her old friends and family, she was Mia. A more soft spoken but outgoing mommas girl, who struggled with addiction and the ability to harness her true potential, which were the love of photography, traveling and the hopes of one day becoming a mother. To fellow punks however, she was this hyper sexual obnoxious queer person who either wanted to fight or fuck you.

I was definitely attracted to the latter, but fell in love with the former-Mia, who in my opinion, was an absolute perfect being, full of so much love and light.

Ph. Mike Brodie

To your question, our relationship is somehow ongoing...hence this interview. But her life ended like this - she died. She died of a drug overdose, laying in a bed alone, in a state far away and 9 weeks pregnant with a child she wanted, a child I wanted. She left my foolish-yet-unconditional-loving arms to fly away to Boston, to meet an anonymous man she met online. This man bought the flight, and was going to pay her and her friend to have sex with him. You see, as her addictions slowly overwhelmed her, she lost control of her life and morality, and was unwilling to sustain any meaningful employment. In order to support her lifestyle and drug habit, she would occasionally prostitute herself, typically by negotiating jobs with men online.

Which is increasingly common among young women today, some circles have even normalized it, viewing it as empowering and heroic.

Ph. Mike Brodie

I personally feel guilty about this, about letting her go to Boston. I believe it was March 18th 2022, I dropped her off at the Pensacola airport, we hugged and kissed goodbye. There's actually a video of this moment, my friend had recorded. She was wearing her fathers overalls. 

I recall putting some paint markers in her pockets so she could tag things. She liked writing "Slack" or "Burning at Both Ends" and drawing candles, the candles served as a tragic metaphor, as if she was always about to burn out, about to die. I remember driving away, watching her in the rearview mirror, somehow I knew I would never see her again. We talked on the phone the following night, on the afternoon of March 20th she sent me these last messages.

I've been pondering lately how easy it is to fall into an unconscious process similar to vampirism, (I even made a short film about it that you participated in, lol)process that comes alive in human relationships, manipulates expectations and turns them into sharp tools with which we interface with the world. What does Mike feed on? What can't he do without?

Good question, I had to look up the definition of 'vampirism" to properly frame the question. Websters gave me this, vam-pir-ism 3 the act or practice of preying ruthlessly on other people. Was I doing that? No. But manipulating expectations and turning them into sharp tools which we interface with the world? Absolutely.

I always knew Mia would probably die, I think friends and family probably shared this sentiment. So against all odds, I decided to chase this feeling, and document it to the bitter end, her life, our love, and an absolutely soul destroying addiction and disease. Now I'm left with a story to tell, and all the heartache that comes along with it. Luckily for her, she's at peace, meanwhile I have to live with this pain for the rest of my life. So that must be what I feed on, to share the pain and suffering of others.

ph. Self-portrait, by Mia Justice Smith

End of part one, To be continued.