Saturday, December 6, 2025

Not Home Often - Track


The blog title may be confusing. I do not go home often to The Track Lounge. When I do it is very nice to see that Richard and his wonderful team have kept it tidy for me. The Track Lounge was the first venue that I photographed live music at, and it was The Robots. Tonight, The Robots.

I cannot stress enough how many of us will swim every day in chaos within our minds. We learned to accept it, we learn to navigate it seeing only what we want to see. We try to avoid that chaos, to replace it, with different chaos, meaningless activities like television, shopping social media, and other escapes. You can control only what you are able to control. But are you just trading one chaos for another?

A few have recognized chaos and have trained themselves, their minds, to recognize chaos and push it to the side for what it is. Time away from what you want to do, time from achievements, time from being happy, finding enjoyment in life.

This evening I sat back in my chair, at the far end of the Lounge along side of the band, and looked out at everyone. Removing the chaos I had in my mind (thoughts) blocking me from seeing what was now there, I saw differently, refreshingly. I saw a bunch of cool people socializing. I saw a wonderful staff providing great service to their patrons. I saw Richard strolling and talking to his patrons, not getting directly involved with the operation at that time and giving his staff the freedom to get things done the way they should be done. I saw holiday decorations, that if you did not look up and around, would not see the beauty they created.

As a photographer sometimes I will see Uniqueness voice an opinion to me, so I will take a photograph. If I am around others who are photographing, they show me their proud visual voice and I always say to myself or aloud, "Why did I not see that? Where were you Uniqueness?" I often find I do not see Uniqueness' voice. I am coming to the realization it is because of the mental noise, the chaos that goes around in my head, that narrows my senses to hear the images speak to me to photograph.

Tonight I am hoping I was able to capture through my lens what Uniqueness' voice was moving me toward. If a find a photo that does not do that, I am not not showing it to you. In the past I was not so diligent. The last couple of months I have been. As I keep re-training my mind, removing the chaos, I hope to become better in my photography.

The Robots . . . as I talked with Pete it hit him, then me, that we could not believe we are still coming here. Meaning we have not been thrown out but rather asked to come back. For The Robots it could be circa  2009. For me I started photographing my first band and at my first venue here, in 2012. It still seems new to me, most likely because I am not home much. I apologize, Richard. Yet thanks to you, Richard, I now have a lot of fish to fry with photography, and writing.

Life progresses, gets passed on. Our stories, our music, the changing of the guard who devote themselves to teaching what once was through replay, and add to such newness, it revitalizes you. It makes you want to block out the chaos and to pay attention of the unique story unfolding right in front of you. The Robots did just that. They played some new songs I had not heard them play before. It caused me to make the solid connection to them and to The Track Lounge once more. This is why Richard keeps bring The Robots back, and in his own way bringing me back home.




























What's on Musically at The Track's near future . . .







The Track Lounge
318 N. Jackson St.
Crown Point, IN 46307
(219) 663-9838
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Friday, December 5, 2025

The Arts 12/5/2025



In any period of time the Arts are there for us. Though sometimes we need to fight for it in our institutions. We need the Arts like we need food. We use the Arts for mental health. The outcome is to allow us to feel life.

Art: "The conscious expression of human skill, imagination, and emotion, creating something beautiful or meaningful." Our region of NW Indiana (The Region), as I have written many times before, is dripping with talent in all forms of art. It can be in the form of a painting, sculpting, writing, theater performance, music, design, to dance. There are more. The arts whether the creator or the observer can "reduce stress, ease anxiety / depression, help self-awareness". For me today, it is helping with my self-awareness.

Traveling this evening to the art show I was in awe once again of my surroundings as I exited the Cline 912 to Whiting. My awareness awakened, as it sometimes does on this same road traveled. There is so much industry and at the same time so much community. The two do not clash. They complement. It brings a realism, a true meaning to co-existing, holistic. I could just feel the vibe, enjoying the visionary input driving through at night. Of course the destination has a lot to do with it. I was not driving into Whiting to work at a job. I was driving to Whiting for new experiences, new findings, new conversations with new people.

I think people become wrapped up in their own made chaos, thinking it is how things are, how things work, that whatever they do will not change things, so why change and break the pattern. Not true! If you do not realize that change is necessary for your development and personal mental health, then you might be missing out on opportunities to do just that. Change is good. Change is necessary. Do not wait for change to find you. You go find the change. In this case, do not sit on your butt at home watching television or the standard bla bla bla you always orchestrate to do. Get up and change. Change is good.

With that I was hoping to see more community at the Calumet College of St. Joseph's Campus Collective Faculty & Staff Art Show reception held this evening. It runs from December 1, 2025 through January 9, 2026. You have time to go see it, however the reception would have given you a different and I believe more enjoyable experience. The campus is welcoming to the public, and would be super happy to direct you to the exhibit, or have someone escort you. I found this exhibit exhilarating because of the different talents. I went specifically to see and support my good friend Dawn. At the same time I met many great Faculty and Staff, and had a long heart warming conversation with a lady that help frame and focus on what is good at this college and in life. Sorry, I am not wired to remember names. They kept helping me find "literature and writing" that I want to do, through the faculty and staff who where there. I missed talking to a few I was directed to because I was long winded with others. I hope I can still work out who was who so I can reconnect. I really want to expand on my literature and writing.

Here are my photographs from the evening.

















No, the subject was not the water bottle or tree. It was the young lady at the bottom right. Many times when shooting candid, you would like to remove items such as water bottles, but the time to do that would change the image when it involves people.


















Exhibit Runs From Dec. 1, 2025 – Jan. 9, 2025

Calumet College of St. Joseph
Private Catholic School
2400 New York Avenue
Whiting, Indiana 46394
(219) 473-7770
gallery@ccsj.edu



________________________________________________________________

You can see a categorized thumbnail of all blogs by going to StreetPhoto.Me.

Further down this blog post are five buttons to click on: E-mail this, Blog this, Share to Twitter, Share to Facebook, and Share to Pinterest. Please take advantage of them and share this blog post with your friends.

The "219 Music" and "219 Artare owned trademarks of Wes Bushby.