Take notes. Watching Americans in Morocco, (a magazine shoot), I realized I wanted to shoot the Ugly American instead. A camera is a dangerous thing. Tourists everywhere. I have been to all of these places on your photographic map. I was photographing Americans watching Americans. It is always a disturbing relationship between the cruise boat (with its flip flops, fat bellies, selfie fetish, licking ice cream, waddling down the street). I live in Appalachia. Hurricane Helena ripped up everything. Trees down. Houses crushed. Streets raging rivers. Homelessness means a lot of us. Our homes destroyed.
Asheville was a raging torrent of water. Last night, a tent. Walmart parking lot. At one point, we were desperate for choppers. A plane overhead landing at the airport. Invasion. The wind still whipping electric lines. Hurricane Damage Tourism. Flip Flops, shorts, big butts, waddling down the street, same selfie fetish. Now, we hate them. Do not come here. There will be trouble. People think you are in the way. Especially in the way of our one ambulance. I opened the kitchen faucets and black sludge plopped out. Take your hotel shower in that. The New York Times will shove lies down your throat about happy, happy tourism. Civility for us does not exist. A traffic jam of tourists. Big cars. Big butts. Ice cream. The grocery store is a ruins. They even want our food. A chocolate on their pillows. At night, we sit around a fire and we've been telling tales about our sad and ruinous kings. All our sorries. And assault. The tourists got electric before we did. People shake their fists. The tourists are armed and so are we.