01-I-1971.
I didn't have any trouble with the parents. They were worried that we had a couple of older guys with us, but after hearing that they were just one or two years older it was not a problem. At least no alcohol poisoning, as we heard happened to Bosa, who had to be taken to hospital for some caffeine shots and pumping out the gut contents (the story was about the year before). But then it may have been just a rumor. Never heard anything more of it. In fact, I never saw her drunk. But the story stuck in my mind.
I've recorded the new hit of George Harrison, "My sweet lord" - the title didn't make sense at all, why would one call his feudal master sweet, or was this guy just chiding one of the modern day lords - knew that they have them in England - and that this was all ironic in a way that I didn't quite get, probably innuendos just like the girls enjoyed (and I understood nothing, because they have teamed up with seniors from the gimnazija, which I thought was quite unfair).
I thought the song was the beginning of some new future that Beatles would have, and a few months later when the album appeared here, I just had to buy it. I was severely irked with the designless sleeve of the album - just the photo on the outside, the inside had less art than in an obituary. And it was a double, not triple album. Much later, in 1999, I'd understand that the third vinyl was trash. The realization that Harrison is seriously religious came somewhere in between. The disappointment was proportional to his distance from my world. (Yep, the times when "my world" was a catchphrase for many things.)
I returned the tape recorder to Džok a few days later, and even later asked him how he liked the song I told him about. He didn't quite remember who Harrison was, so he erased it. Cassettes being the big rewritable thing, and rather hard to come by back then. That was the first cassette recorder I saw.
(next to the turntable, Rencika, then Bosa, Dragana and one of the twins)
In the evening we staged a rerun of doček, at some S.S. guy, who lived in somewhat better house on the corner where the near corner was torn down as the 25. maj was built. The „better“ means that the woodwork had some style, the glasses on doors, where any, were fogged (by fluor, I'd say), and the bathroom window was round (which was fashionable before the war, the style was called secession, and I read it up a few times and still can't remember why). It was a nice party, I just brought all the records that were brought to me, the rest of the bottles and whatever, and the regula. Last night we made no shots at all, the light was below minimum, but this time we had one reflector light of 500 watts (or was it 250?), just like we had at school, but the negative still turned out thin. Was the čorba a tad cooler, who'd know. Never was a problem in the school lab, as the whole building was horsed up on heating, everything was at 22 degrees or more, I kept it under the kitchen sink, which was a cold corner. Well, today (shots reshot in november of 2015) it looks better, I tightened up the curve.
So we had the aforementioned, Dragana, Bosa, Rencika, Eči, That Bighead S from VIII2, Tasek, Patak and, of course, me. I don't remember much of the party itself, were it not for the shots I'd have forgotten who was there. While Rencika had a skirt down to mid-calf, the other two had really brief minis.
We did the prints a few evenings after, once I had the negative done. Gradivoj and Patak also came to help, so we occupied the kitchen and kept churning the prints until late. We did the trial series, I guess three of each, for ourselves, and would reconvene in a few days to do them for the rest, with the stipulation that, as Gradivoj said, „we need to find some fool to dry the prints“. Dad heard that and took that as an insult, because it was usually he who dried them (which the guys couldn't know, but it didn't matter). They annoyed me like that very often, kept listening in and finding reasons to get insulted or „what was it that that friend of yours said“, arranging the setting so that I'd be somehow responsible for anything that anyone said, be it morally or politically, and in two moves I'd be cornered into defending or defusing, to avoid being grounded or being made responsible or at least get a „don't want to ever again see you in the company of...“. And we were just the age when we were training to talk rough, to jagger it a bit with the language, speak a bit sharper, be frajers. And, eh, there's a wake eye on me, as if in the school.
We did it as agreed, with me drying the photos when they left. I had some paper of a larger format, perhaps Gradivoj brought it, sized maybe 18x24cm, just about the largest that UPA could do anyway, guess Patak wanted to give his portrait to a girlfriend as a gift (which girl now, Rencika was with S.S. at the time and they actually looked quite well together).
The two weeks before the winter vacation I spent first looking for V. Though, I was lazy, I could have found her at school, but didn't go there. I'd sleep in the afternoon, not half an hour but two or three, and by that time their classes are over, repeat the next day. Actually I was there once, with Gradivoj, in the photo lab, and once during the big break I was outside in the corridor, waiting to see if she'd appear, but she didn't. Tejka told me to not go searching for a girl right away, let it all cool first, settle down a bit. I mentioned V. and she said "not one that you already know". "Do I know her? We've all changed so much.".
Also, "you hit the right time to ask Duca, exactly when no frajer could give her what she needed: peace at home". Combined with the "had no heart to refuse", well, it had to happen that way. Different rules apply for others... oh well. And I had enough of others cutting deals and plotting while leaving me out, uninformed.
Some time this month there was an emisija with Korni grupa, they played the new long thing, „Way to east“. I shot a whole series, and developed it neatly. Didn't come out bad at all, considering the image that the television set was capable of conveying. The vertical resolution was the nominal 625 lines, but the horizontal was flimsy, and the shades were lousy, there was no whites... it was looking on the screen exactly as it looked on this shot.
And the „Way to east“ had interesting history later... this version they played this evening was somehow unofficial, Bata never pushed it anywhere, it simply vanished. (the rest of the story in the article on Korni grupa)
Mentions: 25. maj, Bosiljka Šain (Bosa), čorba, doček, Dragana Vitas (Dragana), Dušica Tošin (Duca), Eči, Emerencija Nerdelji (Rencika), emisija, frajer, gimnazija, Gradivoj Čović, Korni grupa, Patak, regula, Sima Veljin (Džok), Slavica Tejin (Tejka), VIII2, in serbian
16-XI-2008 - 14-I-2026