Into the land of the Richest man in the World, Unemployed Timber Workers and the Empty Dwelling of the Retired.

 We shot Bill Gates before I left for my tour of Washington . He is actually just a normal human. He is fun to listen to when he is talking about things he is interested in. He looks and sounds a little bored when he is doing the required retirement video testimonial. His office is nice but not too nice, as befits a man who will gladly take the juvenile snickers about helping to design a new toilet for the third world if it helps to get it done. I didn't think I would, but I kind of admire him. He is in this photo with Barbara and Joseph, in the far room in the heat of a thousand suns....

The McDonalds in Aberdeen WA has huge photos of Kurt Cobain. I am sure that someplace in his will is stipulated that he was to adorn the wall of the corporate feeding silo in his hometown after his death. I spent a day shooting McDonalds employees who, partially through the kindness not of the clown, but the local franchise owner are going to college with matching 401K like funds to a continuing education program. It was a good thing, a pilot program that should be expanded. The owner was a nice person but pushes a scary product. Everyone entering their stores were fat or on the road to be. It was eye opening. We then went to Chelhalis, which in comparison to Aberdeen, which has a Butte MT feeling of being down on it's luck to the point of starting to eat itself alive, Chehalis seemed downright yuppie.  Good food and nice downtown. If we had looked I am sure we could have found meth labs and rednecks. We shot interviews in an empty apartment in a retirement home. It was a stark time warp into the 1980's.

My one complaint: on the road with a crew, sharing rooms sucks. Sometimes you just want your own motel room. I mean, I would take a bullet for Sugar Ray but I don't want to share a bed with the guy.