CAMP PHOENIX - Afghanistan

earlier this week, my brother Eric Alexandre landed in Afghanistan. as close as we are to each other, our lives couldn't be more different. i was born in Oregon yet i'm more "European" -- or maybe it's just that i'm gay! Eric was born in Lyon (France) but has always been more American in spirit. I went to art schools & then USC for film production. i started partying like an animal when i was 11 or 12, & paved the way for my siblings to be even wilder. yet Eric was always in bed early, kept a tidy room, barely studied & still had good grades. he didn't even develop a taste for booze till he was in his mid twenties. my mother would force him to toast the new year with champagne, which he hated; i LUUUVED it!!!
Eric went to college at the Naval Academy of Annapolis, settled in Washington D.C. & worked for several agencies before landing a job at the Pentagon. oddly, he's far from being a total square. he has a fantastic sense of humour, is always gentle to others, unless he's losing on a tennis court... he has now been in Kabul for several days, and is awaiting his next assignment closer to the Iranian border. I'm not a religious person nor am i deeply spiritual. i'm more of the superstitious somewhat neurotic kind! till his Afghan journey ends in 270 days, there won't be a day he's not in my thoughts, or dare i say "prayers." as different as we are, we share the same blood and a good eye for taking pictures! here are some he took this week, and one of him reading a paper in Kabul's Camp Phoenix:






there's something so absurd about the mood of these pix that reminds me of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" don't you think? WAR IS SO ABSURD!