MARCELLUS NEALY

When I was a boy my mom once told me that it was important for me to learn how to do the cooking and the laundry because when I grew up, I needed to be self-sufficient. I think I must have been 9 or 10 years old at the time. The logic made sense. She then proceeded to teach me the basics of cooking. I shadowed her in the kitchen as she made the food. She sometimes let me sauté vegetables or fry meats. I don't know why I was to one she targeted. She has four children and each

At the supermarket the greatest sins for anyone working the register were shortchanging a customer, breaking their eggs, or smushing their bread. Of the three, the one that really got customers angry was smooshing their bread. If a customer was shortchanged, they would go back to let the register. The cashier would apologize and give the customer their money back. If you pack a bag wrong and the bread gets smooshed there was no coming back unscathed. Packing bags took the k

Pardon the food porn. I bought a grill today from my good friend and neighbor, Andy. I used it to make apple cobbler. That is all. Carry-on.

I really want to take more nude photos. Every time I tell people that, I always get a funny look as if I'm some apervert. We are all perverts in one sense or another. It's our horny nature that allows us to populate the species. Think about the most conservative grandmother. She wasn't always like that. At some time in her life, she decided to get her funky groove on. That's how she became a mom. Still, wanting to take nude photos has nothing to do with sexuality. Of course,

This is another picture I took a while ago. I suppose I should get out and take new photos. I promise I will soon. I love this picture. The girl is standing there with her umbrella in the snow looking directly at me. She's aware of me taking her photograph. I can't tell if she's upset about it or happy. She's just frozen there in the moment. That old train car behind her is gone now. I feels like it wasn't that long ago when I used to take a drum or my saxophone to this spo

Music can take the pain away. I took this photograph in London. As you can see, it was a rainy day. The area of London I was in was Camden. I wasn't feeling well. I was quite depressed and also feeling physically sick. I didn't realize it at the time, but I had a condition called Graves' disease. It had wreaked havoc on my body and mind for several years before I got diagnosed and treated. On this day, I was beginning to feel the symptoms: high anxiety, a feeling of emptiness

I don't have a story today. Well, I should rephrase that. I always have a story, but I don't have so much time to write it up today. So, I'll just leave you with this photograph of a man walking his dog along the beach. To me, this image represents the peace and tranquility of life. I have no idea what hardships this person is going through at home, but in this moment where it's just him, the setting sun, the sea, the sand, and his dog, there's peace. I think it's important

Music is all around us. It is a common thread that connects us. There is no tribe of humans on the planet that does not have some kind of music in their culture. Some theoretical physicists believe that the universe is made of vibrations. Maybe music is the language of the universe. I've always seen the ability to make music as a gift. Something that had been quite elusive to me, if I am to be honest. I never possessed the dexterity it took to manipulate wood and metal into s

Dave's Supermarket in Cleveland, OH, was owned by a man named Dave Saltzman. At that time, I think there were 3 or 4 branches. Today the Internet tells me there are 13 locations in northeast Ohio and more than 1,500 full-time and part-time employees. That's 1500 stories waiting to be told. As happenstance would have it, the Harvard branch, where I worked in high school, had a manager named Dave. His last name was Stueve. Although the spelling looks like it should be pronou

Last Halloween, I went to an outdoor community event. It was a celebration of arts and living off the land. I posted about this briefly a few months back. Musicians, dancers, animators , and visual artists gathered at a nearby farm. It was a really great event. One of the farmers brought a very strange vegetable which I had never seen before. I don't remember the name of the vegetable. He had several crates of it and was selling it at a stand. People flocked to the stand and