The ying and yang, alpha and omega, black and white….life and death.
Always a balance. When something bad happens something good needs to come along for balance. I’m not a philosopher but I know that many people much smarter than I am have spent many hours contemplating this very idea.
Why am I bringing this up? Because I am caught in a BAD/GOOD situation.
The Bad first because without that I wouldn’t have the good.
The Bad is that a very funny, gentle, kind man, a former marine who served his country, has passed away at the very young age of 30. I had the pleasure of meeting him. He was a celebrity of sorts as he was involved with the Gator Boys show on Animal Planet. On the show he went by the name of J-Mart and I saw him do his alligator wrestling show at Holiday Park . I even wrote a post about seeing the show and shared some of my photos.
I now know his name is John Martinez. From the comments and the emails I’ve receive as a result of my blog I know my impressions of him were right. The loss of such a gentle soul makes me very sad.
Now the good, for me anyway. Because I wrote the post and because I included photos that were at least half way decent, I was contacted by the Broward New Times, Florida for permission to use my pictures. In return they linked to my blog. They even took some of my comments from the blog and used them in their obituary. That is wonderful promotion for my blog and for my pictures. What’s the saying… there’s no such thing as bad publicity? I get really excited that my blog got found and is , in a sense, being promoted by a publication like the Broward New Times, and then I remember that someone has died and I wonder if I should be so happy. 🙁
I also got an email from the Story Producer from Animal Planet. He too asked about using some photos. I don’t know what, if anything will come of that but it’s all so exciting until I remember why my photos are in such demand. And then I get sad again.
The whole set of photos taken at Holiday Park on that trip are on my pro website: www.dustyroadsphotos.zenfolio.com I moved them to the opening slideshow as a tribute to J-Mart.
As much as I love the attention my photos and blog are getting, I would gladly skip the excitement if J-Mart was still with us. For those who knew him as a friend, his family and to his fans, I am very, very sorry for your loss.