First of a two-part posting.
In my last post, I gave you some advice on looking for your first modeling gig. And after networking your tail off, you finally found someone who's willing to use you. Congratulations!
So where do you go from here?
If you haven't done so, your first step needs to be assembling a model kit. This needn't be expensive. At a minimum, you want to have:
- a bathrobe (lighter fabrics work best. You really don't want a terrycloth bathrobe)
- cheap flip-flops (those floors get dirty quickly, and there are always stray tacks around. You also may very well have to change in a restroom. The less said about that, the better)
- gym bag or similar over-the-shoulder garment bag
- book or magazine to keep you occupied during downtime (especially if you're working with a class, as there will be frequent breaks where the professors lecture the class or facilitate group critiques)
- a timer. Most professors will offer to keep the time for you. I initially took them up on this offer, but have slowly come around to the point where I'll keep the time. There have been numerous instances of what I call "a long 10 minutes." Basically that 10 minutes morphed into 15 minutes or longer. Poses that are comfortable at the 10 minute mark may start to get quite uncomfortable for longer stretches of time. A trick taught to me by an old hand at this suggested adding an additional 5-10 seconds to the timer. So if it's a 10 minute pose, set the timer for 10:10. This extra time can be used to get yourself into position so that you can give the class the full duration of the pose.
If you want, you can add things like a small plastic bag with bandaids, aspirin, lotion, comb/brush, mirror, etc. You probably won't need all of these things, but they're nice to have just in case.
You probably have a cell phone already. You'll want to keep one handy (I'm not a cell phone talker, so I have to force myself to remember to carry one) in case there's a last-minute cancellation or you get stuck in traffic. Be sure to keep the phone number of the person you're working for handy in case you need to get in touch with them before your session. And also keep a set of directions handy.
Great! So now you've got the necessary tools at your disposal. Now you need to know exactly what it is you're getting yourself into :) Pretty much all of this applies to nude modeling.
First, I would think long and hard about how many people you choose to tell about your new side job. I would personally recommend not telling anyone about this until you've had your first gig and have had time to process the event. I'll be quite honest: I first modeled because I realized I hadn't done anything truly out of my comfort zone in ages. I needed something that would make me know fear, trepidation and know what it meant to truly overcome these feelings. And modeling has been a great way for me to bring some variety in my life and have fun (and get paid!) doing it. To that end, I posted on yelp a review of the artist's studio where I had my first assignment. I was at a bit of a crossroads in my life at the time, and I honestly thought it was such a positive experience that I needed to share it, and in doing so, gained even more confidence. Like I can do anything!
Your own experiences and desires may be more pedestrian. In any event, only you can determine who in your social circle really needs to know about this. Surprisingly, my mother has been much, much more supportive of this than my father (who isn't opposed to it. He just doesn't care to know that I do it, if you follow). I suspect that the more you model, the more comfortable you'll be in telling people. But you may think you have a totally open relationship with your parents only to find out how dare you do such a thing. Telling your friends and parents will hopefully feel easy and natural. But I would give serious, serious thought about telling your coworkers about it. I opted to, and they've been incredibly supportive (and curious) about what I do.
In my grad school classes, we talked a lot about blowback. Unintended results and unplanned resistance to policy implementation. You need to be aware that you might experience considerable blowback from people whom you may think of as being incredibly tight with. America has a real, real hangup with nudity. I just want you to reflect on who you'd like to share your new job with, and who really needs to know about it.
Similarly, you need to prepare yourself for the very remote--but still possible--chance that someone may recognize you as a result of your work. I haven't bumped into anyone I know before or during a session, but I did have another model come up to me before a session because she recognized me from a (get this!) ballpoint pen sketch another professor did in an earlier class. She introduced herself and asked her if I was today's model, because she recognized me from that professor's work. I was honestly flattered! But I do want to caution you that there's always the remote chance someone may recognize you, and you need to be prepared for that.
Hopefully, you've thought about all of this before you started your networking. But I wanted to mention it now, because if you're having second thoughts about this, you need to cancel any bookings well in advance of your class(es)! It's pretty common knowledge that a lot of models simply fail to show up for their bookings, and I think a lot of that is because someone waited until the 11th hour to give serious thought to what it is they were planning on doing, and got cold feet at the last minute. It's totally okay if you start to second guess yourself, but if you realize this isn't the career move for you, you need to cancel with as much advance notice as possible so another model can be secured.
You also want to consider how you'll manage your earnings, especially if you're paid in cash. You may initially tell yourself you're using this money to pay bills or save for a vacation, only to blow it on useless junk since it's not the money you bust your ass for 9-5. Also, some schools may pay you with a check but not withhold taxes, in which case it's incumbent on you to pony up with the IRS (a lot of places that don't withhold will notify the IRS at the end of the year, so don't think you can dodge this). Something to think about.
Okay, lecture over!
There are two basic types of modeling: portrait modeling and figure modeling. I'll talk about portrait modeling first. Figure modeling needs to be discussed in much more depth, so I'm going to save that for my next post because there's so much more that it involves.
Portrait modeling is generally done in a seated position and is performed clothed. You'll sit down for about 20-30 minutes at a time and focus on a particular spot on the wall to keep your head aligned. Don't focus on a student, easel, or any other object that could move in class. Your head will have a tendency to "drift" as your eyes are transfixed on a movable object. Make sure your eyes are comfortable and that any glare from the studio lights won't be a problem.
Now, all you need to do is sit completely still until your timer goes off :) Wash, rinse, repeat.
Before you leave, you'll want to check to see if you'll be needed for the next session, and if so, if you'll be required to wear the same shirt and tie (if applicable) over the series of bookings. If so, you'll want to have whatever you're wearing from the waist up washed or pressed the next day, so you can have it ready for the next session. You might want to put a reminder on your calendar just so you don't forget! You also don't want to get a haircut, color your hair, grow facial hair, etc. between sessions if they want you to keep the same look.
Don't wear your best clothes to a portrait modeling session (well, any modeling session, really) as you don't want to ruin a nice garment because somehow you got paint on it. I'd suggest wearing chinos and a button down shirt that, if push came to shove, you could live with if it got ruined.
When the professor calls for a break, don't immediately break pose. Hold it for another 5-10 seconds so that the class can make that one last addition to their work before you move. It's a small gesture, but I think it's generally appreciated.
During breaks, you can get up and walk around for a bit. Before breaking, try to remember exactly how you were sitting on the chair (straight up, leaning to one side, looking up/down, etc.). As you sit back down, you'll notice how your muscles "remember" how you were sitting as you get back into position. Chances are you won't return to your pose exactly the same way, so feel free to ask for some guidance from the artists who'll help steer you back to your original pose.
Keep in mind that you could easily have a group of 10 artists, and nine of them agree you're back to the same position, while one will insist that you're "off" somehow. I personally wouldn't worry about it. If you're back seated to the liking of the professor (or whoever's in charge) and the rest of the artists, that's what counts. Don't be entirely surprised if that last artist, however, doesn't sigh, mutter, or do something along those lines. It's rare, but happens.
Next post: figure modeling--taking it all off!
Monday, December 14, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Naked networking
Over a meal of pho tonight, my friend M. (who is an artist) suggested I write a blog entry about networking in the art modeling biz, and how to line up assignments. While I normally hate the concept of networking (I find it to be absolutely phony, and the idea makes me want to vomit), her suggestion made perfect sense: if you want to be an art model, you've got to learn to network and to market yourself. No one is going to do it for you.
Especially in today's economy, where art schools are cutting down on the number of classes being held (particularly evening and weekend classes, which those of us with full-time jobs prefer, for obvious reasons). So the opportunities are shrinking quicker than a male model in a drafty room, yet the talent pool remains the same size (or even larger: a faltering economy leads people to do things they normally wouldn't consider in less lean times).
Unfortunately, the profession seems to draw an inordinate number of pervs and flakes (go fig), so it can often be a challenge for a new model to get their first gig. Artists and professors would generally rather work with models they have a professional relationship with. The talent's been vetted: they know they're punctual, reliable, professional. You take a big chance with a new model who might flake out all of a sudden. Why go out on a limb? You might be left hanging. The students get to draw yet another vase on a table. Better to go with someone you know and trust. And I personally maintain that you know when you've "made it" when someone does bail, and you're one of the first people that the professor thinks to call to get a fill-in. It's like a newly-graduated college student trying to get their first job: they need experience, but no one will give them that experience.
Frankly, your first gig may very well be luck of the draw. My first experience was with an artist, S., whose model bailed on her earlier in the day. She and I had spoken a few days prior about possible opportunities (via my friend M., who pointed me in her direction), but she didn't have anything available. Until one fateful day. I showed up, gave it my all, and when all was said and done, I had $60 in my pocket. More importantly, I had experience and a reference.
I also had a good friend in M. who was able to tell me beforehand a little more about what modeling entails. I mean, I did my research on the Internet, but she was able to answer my questions, give me good advice (like boozing up beforehand is a BIG no-no), and generally made the first time as comfortable as possible. As luck would have it, I found out later in the day that she'd be one of the artists in S'.s session, and as much as I was freaked out about it initially, when it came time to disrobe, it was helpful to have at least one friendly face in the room.
If you live in a large city, you've probably got a few local universities and art institutes nearby. Call up a few weeks before the new semester and see if they need any new models. Be honest as to why you want to do this. Let's face it: taking your clothes off in front of complete strangers isn't something most people are comfortable with, which is why you are getting the nod in the first place. They're going to want to know why you're the exception to the rule. I was completely honest with the model coordinator for the art school I primarily work with. I read a Slate article about a middle-aged woman who did some nude modeling for the school. I was intrigued, felt that I wanted to do something a little... different with my life, but was totally committed to the idea and was willing to do whatever it took.
That was enough to get me a formal interview and several bookings (aaaaand, I was able to use my experience modeling for S. as proof that I had experience and was professional). Frankly, I think my luck was, well, luck. I've had plenty of colleges ignore my calls and emails. You've got to be persistent, but also know when you're running the risk of being annoying. You've also got to understand that in many cases, the person who books models probably does several other jobs for their school, and a new model is probably the last thing on their mind. An art institute in DC expressed interest at one point, then didn't return my calls, so I waited a few semesters, called again, and now I've got a mid-semester booking later in the month.
Now, once you've gotten those one or two crucial gigs under your belt, things will eventually start to pick up. For instance, I just happened to find out that my art school moved to a new system where individual professors book their own models. So the school has a tiered list based on model reliability, and I was one of the few models whose name was highlighted in green... first tier. They're not trying to spread the work around. They want to use people they can trust.
And it's really not hard to get such recognition. Show up early. Bring your modeling supplies.* Do what's asked of you. Don't take it personally if you go into one pose and the professor asks you to get into another one. Don't try to pick up students (frankly, I avoid fraternizing with the students anyways unless one of them asks me a question). Be polite and energetic. When students thank you and look you in the eye as they do so, you'll know people got something out of what you did on the podium.
And here's where it pays off. Here's where the networking comes in. A few weeks ago, I had an intro drawing class with about 10 students. Some were there for continuing education credit. Including one woman who came up to me after the second class and asked me if I'd model for some of her classes. Turns out she was an art teacher at a local private school, and was impressed enough with my ability that she offered to run my name past her colleague to see if they'd be able to use me as a model for their classes. She flat-out said she was having incredible difficulty getting models who could actually hold a pose, and really wanted to book me for a few days.
So out of nowhere, I get two days' worth of gigs ($17.50/hour, plus free tea, coffee, bagels and lunch) essentially handed to me! And they were so impressed, they said they'd use me again. Not to mention, the art circuit is fairly close in most places, so there's always the chance someone you've worked with will know someone who needs a model and can drop your name. Art teachers often have side gigs like their own studio work or open sessions they host. They may very well think of you for outside work, so being professional goes a long way.
Now, I'd advise you to be extremely tactful if someone offers to give you more work while you're in the middle of another assignment. Talk quickly during the break, and either agree to discuss potential work after class, or swap phone numbers. You don't want to be canvassing for new jobs while you're currently in the middle of one.
I'd also advise you, while you're networking and cold-calling schools, not to come off as desperate. Frankly, much like a job search, you'll get only a handful of leads, and maybe one or two interviews from there. Don't take it personally. The key is getting into the system.
Next post: what your first gig will be like. Nothing will ever totally prepare you for it, but you'll never forget it!
*Even before your first gig, if you're serious about this, get a modeling kit ready in the event that someone needs you right now! A gym bag with a cheap bathrobe and flip-flops will be fine. I keep a small bag with deodorant, band-aids, hand/foot wipes, a small mirror, comb, and some other assorted goodies just in case. A timer is also necessary. You might also want to keep a neutral-colored thong or g-string in the event you get a gig where they want a modicum of clothing on (which happened to me once, so I keep one handy just in case). If you find yourself getting a lot of emergency/last-minute calls, you might want to keep a second bag with you at work or in your car, so you'll always be ready to accept an assignment.
Especially in today's economy, where art schools are cutting down on the number of classes being held (particularly evening and weekend classes, which those of us with full-time jobs prefer, for obvious reasons). So the opportunities are shrinking quicker than a male model in a drafty room, yet the talent pool remains the same size (or even larger: a faltering economy leads people to do things they normally wouldn't consider in less lean times).
Unfortunately, the profession seems to draw an inordinate number of pervs and flakes (go fig), so it can often be a challenge for a new model to get their first gig. Artists and professors would generally rather work with models they have a professional relationship with. The talent's been vetted: they know they're punctual, reliable, professional. You take a big chance with a new model who might flake out all of a sudden. Why go out on a limb? You might be left hanging. The students get to draw yet another vase on a table. Better to go with someone you know and trust. And I personally maintain that you know when you've "made it" when someone does bail, and you're one of the first people that the professor thinks to call to get a fill-in. It's like a newly-graduated college student trying to get their first job: they need experience, but no one will give them that experience.
Frankly, your first gig may very well be luck of the draw. My first experience was with an artist, S., whose model bailed on her earlier in the day. She and I had spoken a few days prior about possible opportunities (via my friend M., who pointed me in her direction), but she didn't have anything available. Until one fateful day. I showed up, gave it my all, and when all was said and done, I had $60 in my pocket. More importantly, I had experience and a reference.
I also had a good friend in M. who was able to tell me beforehand a little more about what modeling entails. I mean, I did my research on the Internet, but she was able to answer my questions, give me good advice (like boozing up beforehand is a BIG no-no), and generally made the first time as comfortable as possible. As luck would have it, I found out later in the day that she'd be one of the artists in S'.s session, and as much as I was freaked out about it initially, when it came time to disrobe, it was helpful to have at least one friendly face in the room.
If you live in a large city, you've probably got a few local universities and art institutes nearby. Call up a few weeks before the new semester and see if they need any new models. Be honest as to why you want to do this. Let's face it: taking your clothes off in front of complete strangers isn't something most people are comfortable with, which is why you are getting the nod in the first place. They're going to want to know why you're the exception to the rule. I was completely honest with the model coordinator for the art school I primarily work with. I read a Slate article about a middle-aged woman who did some nude modeling for the school. I was intrigued, felt that I wanted to do something a little... different with my life, but was totally committed to the idea and was willing to do whatever it took.
That was enough to get me a formal interview and several bookings (aaaaand, I was able to use my experience modeling for S. as proof that I had experience and was professional). Frankly, I think my luck was, well, luck. I've had plenty of colleges ignore my calls and emails. You've got to be persistent, but also know when you're running the risk of being annoying. You've also got to understand that in many cases, the person who books models probably does several other jobs for their school, and a new model is probably the last thing on their mind. An art institute in DC expressed interest at one point, then didn't return my calls, so I waited a few semesters, called again, and now I've got a mid-semester booking later in the month.
Now, once you've gotten those one or two crucial gigs under your belt, things will eventually start to pick up. For instance, I just happened to find out that my art school moved to a new system where individual professors book their own models. So the school has a tiered list based on model reliability, and I was one of the few models whose name was highlighted in green... first tier. They're not trying to spread the work around. They want to use people they can trust.
And it's really not hard to get such recognition. Show up early. Bring your modeling supplies.* Do what's asked of you. Don't take it personally if you go into one pose and the professor asks you to get into another one. Don't try to pick up students (frankly, I avoid fraternizing with the students anyways unless one of them asks me a question). Be polite and energetic. When students thank you and look you in the eye as they do so, you'll know people got something out of what you did on the podium.
And here's where it pays off. Here's where the networking comes in. A few weeks ago, I had an intro drawing class with about 10 students. Some were there for continuing education credit. Including one woman who came up to me after the second class and asked me if I'd model for some of her classes. Turns out she was an art teacher at a local private school, and was impressed enough with my ability that she offered to run my name past her colleague to see if they'd be able to use me as a model for their classes. She flat-out said she was having incredible difficulty getting models who could actually hold a pose, and really wanted to book me for a few days.
So out of nowhere, I get two days' worth of gigs ($17.50/hour, plus free tea, coffee, bagels and lunch) essentially handed to me! And they were so impressed, they said they'd use me again. Not to mention, the art circuit is fairly close in most places, so there's always the chance someone you've worked with will know someone who needs a model and can drop your name. Art teachers often have side gigs like their own studio work or open sessions they host. They may very well think of you for outside work, so being professional goes a long way.
Now, I'd advise you to be extremely tactful if someone offers to give you more work while you're in the middle of another assignment. Talk quickly during the break, and either agree to discuss potential work after class, or swap phone numbers. You don't want to be canvassing for new jobs while you're currently in the middle of one.
I'd also advise you, while you're networking and cold-calling schools, not to come off as desperate. Frankly, much like a job search, you'll get only a handful of leads, and maybe one or two interviews from there. Don't take it personally. The key is getting into the system.
Next post: what your first gig will be like. Nothing will ever totally prepare you for it, but you'll never forget it!
*Even before your first gig, if you're serious about this, get a modeling kit ready in the event that someone needs you right now! A gym bag with a cheap bathrobe and flip-flops will be fine. I keep a small bag with deodorant, band-aids, hand/foot wipes, a small mirror, comb, and some other assorted goodies just in case. A timer is also necessary. You might also want to keep a neutral-colored thong or g-string in the event you get a gig where they want a modicum of clothing on (which happened to me once, so I keep one handy just in case). If you find yourself getting a lot of emergency/last-minute calls, you might want to keep a second bag with you at work or in your car, so you'll always be ready to accept an assignment.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Naked Ambition!
“If anyone ever said that when we first met, that five or six years down the line, we’d see each other completely naked, I would have thought they were crazy!”
That’s what my friend Abigail (whose blessing was given to write this post) said to me after we both posed in the nude. In front of each other. Yeah, you don’t really see your friends naked much, do you? Never thought I’d see a close, personal friend in the buff, and she clearly felt the same way. Oddly enough, it wasn’t weird or smarmy or anything, and felt (to me at least) completely natural and normal. But still, how do you take a close personal friendship into clothes-off territory?
As most of you know, I’ve been figure modeling for about a year now. What was honestly once a response to a pre-midlife crisis has actually panned out into something I enjoy doing, and am completely comfortable with. And I’ve been pretty enthusiastic about it as a result.
One of the people I shared my enthusiasm was my close friend, Abigail. I’ve known Abigail for about seven years now. We met at a GWU grad school open house, and while neither of us pursued our studies there, we’ve maintained a close friendship since then. While her job keeps her extremely busy, we’re usually able to meet up every month or so for lunch over doner kebab and falafel. Invariably, the subject of modeling came up time and again, particularly when I was getting a good number of gigs.
I was regaling Abigail with some of my latest modeling experiences (namely religious zealots and the effect of ice-cold classrooms on the male physique), and I could tell that she seemed particularly interested that day, like her eyes were telegraphing the fact that she was mulling something serious.. So while I was halfheartedly munching on a particularly cardboard-y Reuben at the Corner Bakery, I told her that if she was interested, I could float her name by some people I knew to see if they had any need for new models.
Abby thought about it for a New York minute and said—hesitantly at first, but rapidly mustering more and more conviction by mid-sentence—that she’d definitely be interested.
As I’m sure you can imagine, the rest of our lunch took on a decidedly conspiratorial tenor :)
We soon parted ways, with me promising Abby that I’d reach out to a few of my contacts and let her know as soon as heard back from them. I knew that female models have a much easier time drumming up work, especially in DC, where over half of the models are male. I don’t consider that fact to be sexist in the least… more people (yours truly included) prefer to draw women, so naturally they’re in greater demand.
Well, at least that was the conventional wisdom, which was dispelled as soon as I contacted the art school I do the bulk of my work at. They were actually cutting classes, which meant they didn’t have much work for the models they did have. Shit! I figured they’d be able to land Abby some work in a heartbeat!
Undaunted, I called up the DC model guild (yes, we have a guild, of sorts!). It was established a few years ago by the curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art. He’s also a model, and because he was disappointed with the way some artists treat models (and in turn, with the unprofessional behavior exhibited by a lot of models), he formed the Guild to give prospective models the chance to learn how to model by watching experienced models, and then “audition” in front of the Guild. In this manner, new models can learn from more experienced models, and can in turn model in a safe environment (or refuse to model, if they realize that this isn’t the line of work for them—better for them to get cold feet now instead of flaking out on an art class because they realized Mother could never love them again if they did this!)
I spoke with the curator, David, and he informed me that the next guild meeting was coming up in a week and that Abby and I were more than welcome to drop in. So while I wasn’t able to get any paid work for Abby, I’d at least be able to get her “into the system,” so to speak. Models affiliated with the guild get an artist’s directory that they can use to pitch themselves to different art schools and artists. And I figured since I hadn’t been working for a while, I could always get some practice in.
So I called Abigail up, brought her up to speed, and emailed her some websites that had a good variety of poses, so she could get some inspiration for her own poses (a website I particularly like to use is Live Model Books, WHICH IS PROBABLY NOT WORKSAFE SO I WOULDN’T CLICK ON IT IF YOU REALLY LIKE YOUR JOB and can be accessed here: http://www.posespace.com/posetool/default.aspx). I also told her I’d leave the room if she decided to model, if that’d make her feel more comfortable. Our calendars were set for the following Sunday.
We met at the museum on a particularly damp Sunday afternoon. I made small talk with David, and as I was finishing up, Abby came up to me with an almost terrified look in her eyes.
“Did you see those photos in the other room?” she said, her eyes narrowing with a sense of trepidation and her voice only a hint above a whisper. “There’s some really… racy photos.”
Oh, snap! I forgot that the museum has hosted erotic art exhibits before. As far as I knew, it was all in good taste, but I headed into the main studio to be sure.
Sure enough, all I saw were a few innocuous photos, including a particularly curvy black woman lying down on a couch. Hmm… quite pedestrian, but I reckoned that if you weren’t expecting to see such photos, they might be a bit of a shock.
Please bear in mind my Famous Last Words for later.
So I told Abby that it was nothing to worry about, and that we wouldn’t be doing any sort of modeling like that. “Think classical Renaissance nudes,” I said.
The meeting started out with David giving a background on the model’s guild, the current state of modeling prospects (damn near dismal, given the economy) and offered some tips and suggestions, mostly for Abby’s sake. Then, it was time for the demo to begin, and after that, any models who wanted to could also model that day. I went back to change. I have my own model bag, and so I didn’t need to borrow any of the “house” robes that are provided for models who don’t have their own. After stowing my gear out of the way, I made my way out of the dressing room so Abby could get changed. She picked out a robe from a box and started to get ready.
As soon as she came out, her face was almost frozen in shock. “Jaaaasonnnn!” she drawled, “this robe has major BO!” with her voice sharply undergoing a decrescendo to the point where “BO” was uttered in raspy horror. Her face: like yours probably looked like when you found out where babies come from. And then watched Puppy Holocaust XXIV. On repeat. Her posture clearly indicated she was trying to channel The Force to lift her robe a few millimeters off of her skin to avoid direct funk particle contact. I had previously assured her the robes were clean, as I wore one once (about a year prior, which I apparently neglected to mention). In any event, Abby took it in good spirits, and it led to a post-modeling discussion on how the word “clean” is most definitely gender-subjective.
David got us kitted out with some drawing supplies since there was only one artist in the room and two other models, so at least we could have something to do. It was actually quite fun, as I found out I can draw (okay, so I found out I don’t draw as badly as I thought I did!). Abby and I had fun trading supplies back and forth and commenting each other’s work (namely, assuring each other that our artwork wasn’t nearly as bad as we were afraid it was).
And then we noticed we were the only people who hadn’t modeled yet. I figured that since I was the one who got Abby mixed into this modern-day Harrad Experiment, I should go first. Hoo boy! I’ve disrobed numerous times in front of strangers, and now I felt my fingers starting to tremble a bit.
“I can go leave the room if you want” Abby said, her voice conveying hints of both concern and reassurance.
“That’s okay,” I said, trying to control the slight tremor I felt working its way through my larynx. “It’s a walk in the park,” I continued, though whether I said it to reassure Abigail or myself, I wasn’t sure. In any event, I buttered her up to do this, and I figured I owed it to her as a friend to see my way through to the end.
“You sure?” she asked.
“Totally!” I said, turning my back to her so she couldn’t see any traces of doubt plastered on my face as I kicked off my flip-flops and headed up onto the platform.
Ask me in 50 years one of my top five memories that are permanently etched into my brain, and it’ll be this one: I took a deep breath, exhaled, and slowly unworked the knot on my robe and placed it off to the side. Naked, both physically and emotionally, as the day I was born.
I proceeded to do a few gesture poses and immediately started to relax and focus on counting off time. Seriously, focusing on my poses, and how long to hold them, puts me in a Zen-like state. I’m not naked. I’m not vulnerable. I just am.
Remember how I asked you to mark my Famous Last Words? For one of the longer poses, I decided to grab a stool and do a variant of Rodin’s “The Thinker.” So as I start to rest my chin on my hand, I notice something: the photos Abigail saw. Wow… I didn’t see those photos during my prior walk-around. Oh no. Noooow I see why she got a little freaked out! Wow! What an incredibly attractive, buxom, fleshy, pale-skinned brunette! She really wears that dog collar with pride as she’s getting ready to spank the blond on her firm, supple holy shit I’m feeling something stirring down below and it’s never happened to me on stage before and I’m really starting to freak out about it and oh god oh god it’s not going away and oh man Russell may not know art but he knows what he likes and he’s really liking him some modern art baseball baseball pi r squared work related stress work related stress oh thank god it’s going away do not EVER do that to me again!
I’m guessing I did damage control quickly enough for anyone to really notice because no one said anything or gave me any funny looks. But damn if I didn’t feel awkward about it.
The timer rings and I break pose, put on my robe and go get changed. I smiled and wished Abby good luck as she put her easel and pencils down and got ready for her big debut!
I’ll admit it: I took my sweetass time getting dressed because I didn’t know what I should do. Should I sketch her like I did the other models? Should I get dressed and rocket my way to the lobby where I could quaff a glass of wine and just chill? At any rate, I couldn’t just hide out in the changing area all day!
I quickly got dressed and figured I’d fetch myself a glass of wine before I had to make any decisions. Abby and I never really talked about what I’d do when it was her time to strut her stuff. I made my way to the lobby and caught a glimpse of Abby’s olive-colored skin as she was coming off of a standing pose. I poured myself a glass of red and threw it back quickly wondering what the hell I should do. Tossing the cup into the garbage, I realized that, her being my friend and me being hers, I knew exactly what to do.
I sat down and proceeded to sketch Abby, just like I did the other models. And there was nothing weird or crazy about it at all, even though we’ve known each other for years (or perhaps, as I suspect, because we’ve known each other for years). There was nothing smarmy or sordid about it, and frankly I was so engrossed in the artistic aspect of it (as I was sketching throughout the day, I began to truly appreciate the utility that a model gives to an artist) that I was more focused on issues of perspective and proportion than ZOMG nekkid wimmin!
Eventually the day came to a close and Abby and I headed out into the Georgetown rain and began to process the day’s events.
“If anyone ever said that when we first met, that five or six years down the line, we’d see each other completely naked, I would have thought they were crazy!” Abby exclaimed with a sense of disbelief.
“You were great!” I gushed apologetically. “You’re really good at it!”
“I didn’t wobble or anything, did I? I could’ve sworn I felt my arms shaking after a while!”
“Nah,” I replied. “Every time I get up on the pedestal, even the slightest move I make feels like I’m flailing my arms and legs!”
The splash of our feet in the puddles accumulating in the plaza seemed to echo off of the walls as we slowly made our way to M Street.
“I didn’t draw your penis,” Abby said almost apologetically. “I mean, I looked at it and all, but I thought it’d be a little weird drawing it.”
“That’s okay. I don’t take any offense. And, uh… I looked at your breasts. And, uh… drew ‘em, too.”
We hit M Street and proceeded to walk to the H&M, dodging corn-fed Midwestern fannypack-clad tourists and prepster Georgetown trust fund date rape allstars on the obscenely narrow Georgetown sidewalks. The sky began to turn greyer and greyer with the rapid onset of the evening hour. There was something I was about to broach with Abby, but almost intuitively, she beat me to it:
“It’s weird, but I did look at you when I wasn’t drawing.” Abby offered thoughtfully. “Mostly because when’s the next time you’re going to see someone you know naked?”
“Y’know, I was thinking the exact same thing,” genuinely surprised that she and I were on the same wavelength.
“Yeah, it’s not even sexual or anything, like if I was some kind of voyeur peeking in on you, and thought ‘OMG Jason’s totally naked’ or something like that,” she continued.
I concurred, and I had a bit of an epiphany: I realized that there was nothing wrong with appreciating someone’s body simply for what it is, no matter who it is. The human form is an incredible thing, a true work of art, and there’s nothing wrong about appreciating it as such.
Well, I’ve rambled on for far longer than I intended :) Abby, do you have anything to add?
That’s what my friend Abigail (whose blessing was given to write this post) said to me after we both posed in the nude. In front of each other. Yeah, you don’t really see your friends naked much, do you? Never thought I’d see a close, personal friend in the buff, and she clearly felt the same way. Oddly enough, it wasn’t weird or smarmy or anything, and felt (to me at least) completely natural and normal. But still, how do you take a close personal friendship into clothes-off territory?
As most of you know, I’ve been figure modeling for about a year now. What was honestly once a response to a pre-midlife crisis has actually panned out into something I enjoy doing, and am completely comfortable with. And I’ve been pretty enthusiastic about it as a result.
One of the people I shared my enthusiasm was my close friend, Abigail. I’ve known Abigail for about seven years now. We met at a GWU grad school open house, and while neither of us pursued our studies there, we’ve maintained a close friendship since then. While her job keeps her extremely busy, we’re usually able to meet up every month or so for lunch over doner kebab and falafel. Invariably, the subject of modeling came up time and again, particularly when I was getting a good number of gigs.
I was regaling Abigail with some of my latest modeling experiences (namely religious zealots and the effect of ice-cold classrooms on the male physique), and I could tell that she seemed particularly interested that day, like her eyes were telegraphing the fact that she was mulling something serious.. So while I was halfheartedly munching on a particularly cardboard-y Reuben at the Corner Bakery, I told her that if she was interested, I could float her name by some people I knew to see if they had any need for new models.
Abby thought about it for a New York minute and said—hesitantly at first, but rapidly mustering more and more conviction by mid-sentence—that she’d definitely be interested.
As I’m sure you can imagine, the rest of our lunch took on a decidedly conspiratorial tenor :)
We soon parted ways, with me promising Abby that I’d reach out to a few of my contacts and let her know as soon as heard back from them. I knew that female models have a much easier time drumming up work, especially in DC, where over half of the models are male. I don’t consider that fact to be sexist in the least… more people (yours truly included) prefer to draw women, so naturally they’re in greater demand.
Well, at least that was the conventional wisdom, which was dispelled as soon as I contacted the art school I do the bulk of my work at. They were actually cutting classes, which meant they didn’t have much work for the models they did have. Shit! I figured they’d be able to land Abby some work in a heartbeat!
Undaunted, I called up the DC model guild (yes, we have a guild, of sorts!). It was established a few years ago by the curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art. He’s also a model, and because he was disappointed with the way some artists treat models (and in turn, with the unprofessional behavior exhibited by a lot of models), he formed the Guild to give prospective models the chance to learn how to model by watching experienced models, and then “audition” in front of the Guild. In this manner, new models can learn from more experienced models, and can in turn model in a safe environment (or refuse to model, if they realize that this isn’t the line of work for them—better for them to get cold feet now instead of flaking out on an art class because they realized Mother could never love them again if they did this!)
I spoke with the curator, David, and he informed me that the next guild meeting was coming up in a week and that Abby and I were more than welcome to drop in. So while I wasn’t able to get any paid work for Abby, I’d at least be able to get her “into the system,” so to speak. Models affiliated with the guild get an artist’s directory that they can use to pitch themselves to different art schools and artists. And I figured since I hadn’t been working for a while, I could always get some practice in.
So I called Abigail up, brought her up to speed, and emailed her some websites that had a good variety of poses, so she could get some inspiration for her own poses (a website I particularly like to use is Live Model Books, WHICH IS PROBABLY NOT WORKSAFE SO I WOULDN’T CLICK ON IT IF YOU REALLY LIKE YOUR JOB and can be accessed here: http://www.posespace.com/posetool/default.aspx). I also told her I’d leave the room if she decided to model, if that’d make her feel more comfortable. Our calendars were set for the following Sunday.
We met at the museum on a particularly damp Sunday afternoon. I made small talk with David, and as I was finishing up, Abby came up to me with an almost terrified look in her eyes.
“Did you see those photos in the other room?” she said, her eyes narrowing with a sense of trepidation and her voice only a hint above a whisper. “There’s some really… racy photos.”
Oh, snap! I forgot that the museum has hosted erotic art exhibits before. As far as I knew, it was all in good taste, but I headed into the main studio to be sure.
Sure enough, all I saw were a few innocuous photos, including a particularly curvy black woman lying down on a couch. Hmm… quite pedestrian, but I reckoned that if you weren’t expecting to see such photos, they might be a bit of a shock.
Please bear in mind my Famous Last Words for later.
So I told Abby that it was nothing to worry about, and that we wouldn’t be doing any sort of modeling like that. “Think classical Renaissance nudes,” I said.
The meeting started out with David giving a background on the model’s guild, the current state of modeling prospects (damn near dismal, given the economy) and offered some tips and suggestions, mostly for Abby’s sake. Then, it was time for the demo to begin, and after that, any models who wanted to could also model that day. I went back to change. I have my own model bag, and so I didn’t need to borrow any of the “house” robes that are provided for models who don’t have their own. After stowing my gear out of the way, I made my way out of the dressing room so Abby could get changed. She picked out a robe from a box and started to get ready.
As soon as she came out, her face was almost frozen in shock. “Jaaaasonnnn!” she drawled, “this robe has major BO!” with her voice sharply undergoing a decrescendo to the point where “BO” was uttered in raspy horror. Her face: like yours probably looked like when you found out where babies come from. And then watched Puppy Holocaust XXIV. On repeat. Her posture clearly indicated she was trying to channel The Force to lift her robe a few millimeters off of her skin to avoid direct funk particle contact. I had previously assured her the robes were clean, as I wore one once (about a year prior, which I apparently neglected to mention). In any event, Abby took it in good spirits, and it led to a post-modeling discussion on how the word “clean” is most definitely gender-subjective.
David got us kitted out with some drawing supplies since there was only one artist in the room and two other models, so at least we could have something to do. It was actually quite fun, as I found out I can draw (okay, so I found out I don’t draw as badly as I thought I did!). Abby and I had fun trading supplies back and forth and commenting each other’s work (namely, assuring each other that our artwork wasn’t nearly as bad as we were afraid it was).
And then we noticed we were the only people who hadn’t modeled yet. I figured that since I was the one who got Abby mixed into this modern-day Harrad Experiment, I should go first. Hoo boy! I’ve disrobed numerous times in front of strangers, and now I felt my fingers starting to tremble a bit.
“I can go leave the room if you want” Abby said, her voice conveying hints of both concern and reassurance.
“That’s okay,” I said, trying to control the slight tremor I felt working its way through my larynx. “It’s a walk in the park,” I continued, though whether I said it to reassure Abigail or myself, I wasn’t sure. In any event, I buttered her up to do this, and I figured I owed it to her as a friend to see my way through to the end.
“You sure?” she asked.
“Totally!” I said, turning my back to her so she couldn’t see any traces of doubt plastered on my face as I kicked off my flip-flops and headed up onto the platform.
Ask me in 50 years one of my top five memories that are permanently etched into my brain, and it’ll be this one: I took a deep breath, exhaled, and slowly unworked the knot on my robe and placed it off to the side. Naked, both physically and emotionally, as the day I was born.
I proceeded to do a few gesture poses and immediately started to relax and focus on counting off time. Seriously, focusing on my poses, and how long to hold them, puts me in a Zen-like state. I’m not naked. I’m not vulnerable. I just am.
Remember how I asked you to mark my Famous Last Words? For one of the longer poses, I decided to grab a stool and do a variant of Rodin’s “The Thinker.” So as I start to rest my chin on my hand, I notice something: the photos Abigail saw. Wow… I didn’t see those photos during my prior walk-around. Oh no. Noooow I see why she got a little freaked out! Wow! What an incredibly attractive, buxom, fleshy, pale-skinned brunette! She really wears that dog collar with pride as she’s getting ready to spank the blond on her firm, supple holy shit I’m feeling something stirring down below and it’s never happened to me on stage before and I’m really starting to freak out about it and oh god oh god it’s not going away and oh man Russell may not know art but he knows what he likes and he’s really liking him some modern art baseball baseball pi r squared work related stress work related stress oh thank god it’s going away do not EVER do that to me again!
I’m guessing I did damage control quickly enough for anyone to really notice because no one said anything or gave me any funny looks. But damn if I didn’t feel awkward about it.
The timer rings and I break pose, put on my robe and go get changed. I smiled and wished Abby good luck as she put her easel and pencils down and got ready for her big debut!
I’ll admit it: I took my sweetass time getting dressed because I didn’t know what I should do. Should I sketch her like I did the other models? Should I get dressed and rocket my way to the lobby where I could quaff a glass of wine and just chill? At any rate, I couldn’t just hide out in the changing area all day!
I quickly got dressed and figured I’d fetch myself a glass of wine before I had to make any decisions. Abby and I never really talked about what I’d do when it was her time to strut her stuff. I made my way to the lobby and caught a glimpse of Abby’s olive-colored skin as she was coming off of a standing pose. I poured myself a glass of red and threw it back quickly wondering what the hell I should do. Tossing the cup into the garbage, I realized that, her being my friend and me being hers, I knew exactly what to do.
I sat down and proceeded to sketch Abby, just like I did the other models. And there was nothing weird or crazy about it at all, even though we’ve known each other for years (or perhaps, as I suspect, because we’ve known each other for years). There was nothing smarmy or sordid about it, and frankly I was so engrossed in the artistic aspect of it (as I was sketching throughout the day, I began to truly appreciate the utility that a model gives to an artist) that I was more focused on issues of perspective and proportion than ZOMG nekkid wimmin!
Eventually the day came to a close and Abby and I headed out into the Georgetown rain and began to process the day’s events.
“If anyone ever said that when we first met, that five or six years down the line, we’d see each other completely naked, I would have thought they were crazy!” Abby exclaimed with a sense of disbelief.
“You were great!” I gushed apologetically. “You’re really good at it!”
“I didn’t wobble or anything, did I? I could’ve sworn I felt my arms shaking after a while!”
“Nah,” I replied. “Every time I get up on the pedestal, even the slightest move I make feels like I’m flailing my arms and legs!”
The splash of our feet in the puddles accumulating in the plaza seemed to echo off of the walls as we slowly made our way to M Street.
“I didn’t draw your penis,” Abby said almost apologetically. “I mean, I looked at it and all, but I thought it’d be a little weird drawing it.”
“That’s okay. I don’t take any offense. And, uh… I looked at your breasts. And, uh… drew ‘em, too.”
We hit M Street and proceeded to walk to the H&M, dodging corn-fed Midwestern fannypack-clad tourists and prepster Georgetown trust fund date rape allstars on the obscenely narrow Georgetown sidewalks. The sky began to turn greyer and greyer with the rapid onset of the evening hour. There was something I was about to broach with Abby, but almost intuitively, she beat me to it:
“It’s weird, but I did look at you when I wasn’t drawing.” Abby offered thoughtfully. “Mostly because when’s the next time you’re going to see someone you know naked?”
“Y’know, I was thinking the exact same thing,” genuinely surprised that she and I were on the same wavelength.
“Yeah, it’s not even sexual or anything, like if I was some kind of voyeur peeking in on you, and thought ‘OMG Jason’s totally naked’ or something like that,” she continued.
I concurred, and I had a bit of an epiphany: I realized that there was nothing wrong with appreciating someone’s body simply for what it is, no matter who it is. The human form is an incredible thing, a true work of art, and there’s nothing wrong about appreciating it as such.
Well, I’ve rambled on for far longer than I intended :) Abby, do you have anything to add?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Underaged to Perfection!
Over a delicious meal of pho with a friend of mine on a rainy Wednesday not too long ago, I was regaled with utterly amazing stories about her dad, and how he was on a crusade to liberate his community from the scourge of Canadian geese.
Utterly entranced by her storytelling, we headed back to Arlington and discussed the types of stories we’d like to write about. Completely out of nowhere, I got a blast from the past; a memory I hadn’t visited for ages, but an experience nonetheless that served to shape me, for better or for worse:
What it was like to get shitfaced, 1994 style. Wow, 1994... a heady year of lousy music and shitty fashion. A year I was lucky to make it into junior college due to my horrible high school academic record.
Now, before I, as the French say, "go somewhere with this," I’d like to get something off my chest first. It’s my personal belief that alcohol consumption in America is a lot like nudity in America. You and I can’t handle it. You see, you and I aren’t to be trusted. Now, who in America knows what's right and wrong for us without the benefit of having actually knowing us?
Jesus freaks and soccer moms.
I came to this conclusion like so: I distinctly remember Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” a few years ago. Specifically, I recalled the exact thoughts that were running through my mind when I saw her breast, laid bare for the world to see: “holy shit! Tits! I wanna gun down a Sunday school and come home so I can cheat on my taxes!” Ugh! We’ve let personal freedom and freedom of choice get held hostage by a bunch of damn holier-than-thou types.
At any rate, for all the negative things I could say about my parents, they never once treated alcohol like forbidden fruit. I remember when my dad was going to technical school when I was a kid, and he had a part-time job at a liquor store to bring in a few extra bucks. One day, I saw a commercial for Busch (“Head for the mountains… head for Busch beer!) and asked my dad what it tasted like. He said he’d try and wrangle a stray can and let me have a sip.
Now, for all the bad shit I could say about my father, he was really chill about certain things, and wasn’t afraid to treat me like an adult provided I didn’t abuse this privilege. So I took my first sip around the age of five, and immediately made the connection beer=nasty! I’d be permitted to take the occasional sip or 4 ounce glass of beer once in a blue moon, but I never really developed the taste for it. In high school a friend and I got the bright idea to mix wine and soda (blech!) and in my senior year, I’d buy the occasional can of MGD off of an acquaintance of mine. But I never went crazy with it. I’d say over the course of my high school career, I drank the equivalent of about half a bottle of wine, and maybe a six pack.
That all changed one fateful day. I was a student senator at my junior college, and the activities board hosted its annual retreat for the student leaders of each major campus organization (student senate, foreign language clubs, Phi Beta Kappa, the school newspaper, etc.). It was a two day retreat held in December 1994 somewhere up in the Catskills in New York State, specifically at a Jewish resort whose two claims to fame were (and I have no way of confirming this) that it was the inspiration for Dirty Dancing, and supposedly had the country’s first indoor heated swimming pool.
We did the normal bullshit icebreakers and teambuilding exercises on the bus ride up. Several times during the journey, they cautioned us that there would be hell to pay if we were caught visiting the resort’s bar if we were underage. I honestly thought nothing of it. I wasn’t there to drink… right?
Well, being the anal retentive type that I was back then, I changed into a suit after checking in. I really have no idea why, aside from the fact that I thought I ought to look professional (which is funny, because I absolutely hate having to wear suits nowadays. Funny how 10 years in the working world will change your views like that). So after the various workshops, etc. we were left to our own devices after dinner. I remember walking down to the lounge area and joking with one of my friends that I ought to try heading up to the bar and asking for a drink. Hey, I was the only one in probably a 50-mile radius wearing a suit, right? So you just know I’ve gotta be legit! After a bit of encouragement by my friend, I made my move.
I recall being nervous. Very nervous. Trying to bluff your way through your first underage purchase is like putting your hands down your girlfriend’s shirt for the first time: you’re trying to play it all calm and cool, but meanwhile all you want to do is make a beeline for your drink/her tits. While I knew fuckall about what I should get, I intuitively knew not to order beer or some trendy cocktail. Something that’d get the bartender’s antennae up. No way... I gotta olden it up a bit.
“Beefeater. On the rocks. And make it a double!” I had no damn idea what I just really ordered. I knew most late teens didn’t drink gin, and asking for a double on the rocks sounded a bit more middle-aged, like something out of a black-and-white movie. And I made sure to say "make it a double" as an afterthought while I proceeded to light up a cigarette. I figured there'd be something so casual yet mature about this. Like that extra thought into putting some acting talent into my drink order would help out. Well, it did. I got my drink and promptly got the hell out into the hallway and away from the bar, eager to not only whet my whistle on the demon drink, but to also giddily brag to my friends that I, GQ smooth, the epitome of grace under fire, just got served.
Turns out leaving was a good thing. Someone I knew who was at the bar at the time told me the bartender did a double-take as I was leaving. “Man, I should’ve carded him. But he was wearing a suit!” was how my friend described the bartender’s reaction.
I decided not to push my luck, and in any event, some of the college admins (including a few deans) were still up and hanging around. I gracefully quaffed my drink and retired for the night. It was a good thing I got nice and rested. Because the next day was absolutely insane.
Turns out the last evening we were at the resort, the deans and professors were strangely absent after we were done for the day. So a few of us work up the nerve to try to get served, and this cool-as-shit older bartender (a WWII vet) was serving everybody, including one of my friends who honestly looked to be in his early teens! Naturally, since about 80 percent of the students on this trip were underaged, we were tipping like crazy. While I won’t go into complete details about the night’s debauchery, I will say that I managed not to throw up that night or the next day.
In retrospect, I have to believe that this all went on with the knowledge and blessing of the college administration. I’m sure they figured hey, we’re out in the middle of nowhere with about four feet of snow on the ground. We don’t have cars and we can’t wander off even if we wanted to. Why not let ‘em cut loose for once? Trust me, the resort wasn’t that large, and it would have been damn easy to bust us (especially since I’m pretty sure I saw the president’s wife watching the proceedings at one point. They knew we were getting our jollies off in a secure environment, and the resulting hangovers that pretty much all of us were sporting turned out to be an appropriate penance. And I must say the bus ride home was damn quiet!
I tried the whole suit business a few more times at bars by my house in the months afterwards, as well as when I went to my four-year school the following year. Eventually I tired of it, and decided that my luck would run out at some point. Better to quit while you're ahead, right?
So, what did I learn from all of this?
1. Don’t order beer (ESPECIALLY Bud or Miller) if you’re trying to get served and you’re south of 21. Dead giveaway! Don’t order any trendy mixed drink crap like Sex on the Beach or a margarita. This also ties in nicely with step 2, which is...
2. Don’t go to anyplace that serves the gimmicky drinks in step one. Go to some shitty blue collar dive (and not a hipster “blue collar” dive. You want the real deal). Order stuff like boilermakers, Old Fashioneds and Manhattans. Don't try to make small talk, but don't make it look like you don't belong, either. Sip your drink in peace.
3. For god’s sake, don’t dress like a broheim or sorority bim! I’ve seen at least one person get busted with fake IDs that might have gotten away with it, but they were dressed in stupid shit like a polo and shorts and a backwards baseball cap. In December. Amateurs.
They say you never forget your first. Ahh! To be young and completely in love… with your first glass of Beefeater. On the rocks. And a double!
Utterly entranced by her storytelling, we headed back to Arlington and discussed the types of stories we’d like to write about. Completely out of nowhere, I got a blast from the past; a memory I hadn’t visited for ages, but an experience nonetheless that served to shape me, for better or for worse:
What it was like to get shitfaced, 1994 style. Wow, 1994... a heady year of lousy music and shitty fashion. A year I was lucky to make it into junior college due to my horrible high school academic record.
Now, before I, as the French say, "go somewhere with this," I’d like to get something off my chest first. It’s my personal belief that alcohol consumption in America is a lot like nudity in America. You and I can’t handle it. You see, you and I aren’t to be trusted. Now, who in America knows what's right and wrong for us without the benefit of having actually knowing us?
Jesus freaks and soccer moms.
I came to this conclusion like so: I distinctly remember Janet Jackson’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” a few years ago. Specifically, I recalled the exact thoughts that were running through my mind when I saw her breast, laid bare for the world to see: “holy shit! Tits! I wanna gun down a Sunday school and come home so I can cheat on my taxes!” Ugh! We’ve let personal freedom and freedom of choice get held hostage by a bunch of damn holier-than-thou types.
At any rate, for all the negative things I could say about my parents, they never once treated alcohol like forbidden fruit. I remember when my dad was going to technical school when I was a kid, and he had a part-time job at a liquor store to bring in a few extra bucks. One day, I saw a commercial for Busch (“Head for the mountains… head for Busch beer!) and asked my dad what it tasted like. He said he’d try and wrangle a stray can and let me have a sip.
Now, for all the bad shit I could say about my father, he was really chill about certain things, and wasn’t afraid to treat me like an adult provided I didn’t abuse this privilege. So I took my first sip around the age of five, and immediately made the connection beer=nasty! I’d be permitted to take the occasional sip or 4 ounce glass of beer once in a blue moon, but I never really developed the taste for it. In high school a friend and I got the bright idea to mix wine and soda (blech!) and in my senior year, I’d buy the occasional can of MGD off of an acquaintance of mine. But I never went crazy with it. I’d say over the course of my high school career, I drank the equivalent of about half a bottle of wine, and maybe a six pack.
That all changed one fateful day. I was a student senator at my junior college, and the activities board hosted its annual retreat for the student leaders of each major campus organization (student senate, foreign language clubs, Phi Beta Kappa, the school newspaper, etc.). It was a two day retreat held in December 1994 somewhere up in the Catskills in New York State, specifically at a Jewish resort whose two claims to fame were (and I have no way of confirming this) that it was the inspiration for Dirty Dancing, and supposedly had the country’s first indoor heated swimming pool.
We did the normal bullshit icebreakers and teambuilding exercises on the bus ride up. Several times during the journey, they cautioned us that there would be hell to pay if we were caught visiting the resort’s bar if we were underage. I honestly thought nothing of it. I wasn’t there to drink… right?
Well, being the anal retentive type that I was back then, I changed into a suit after checking in. I really have no idea why, aside from the fact that I thought I ought to look professional (which is funny, because I absolutely hate having to wear suits nowadays. Funny how 10 years in the working world will change your views like that). So after the various workshops, etc. we were left to our own devices after dinner. I remember walking down to the lounge area and joking with one of my friends that I ought to try heading up to the bar and asking for a drink. Hey, I was the only one in probably a 50-mile radius wearing a suit, right? So you just know I’ve gotta be legit! After a bit of encouragement by my friend, I made my move.
I recall being nervous. Very nervous. Trying to bluff your way through your first underage purchase is like putting your hands down your girlfriend’s shirt for the first time: you’re trying to play it all calm and cool, but meanwhile all you want to do is make a beeline for your drink/her tits. While I knew fuckall about what I should get, I intuitively knew not to order beer or some trendy cocktail. Something that’d get the bartender’s antennae up. No way... I gotta olden it up a bit.
“Beefeater. On the rocks. And make it a double!” I had no damn idea what I just really ordered. I knew most late teens didn’t drink gin, and asking for a double on the rocks sounded a bit more middle-aged, like something out of a black-and-white movie. And I made sure to say "make it a double" as an afterthought while I proceeded to light up a cigarette. I figured there'd be something so casual yet mature about this. Like that extra thought into putting some acting talent into my drink order would help out. Well, it did. I got my drink and promptly got the hell out into the hallway and away from the bar, eager to not only whet my whistle on the demon drink, but to also giddily brag to my friends that I, GQ smooth, the epitome of grace under fire, just got served.
Turns out leaving was a good thing. Someone I knew who was at the bar at the time told me the bartender did a double-take as I was leaving. “Man, I should’ve carded him. But he was wearing a suit!” was how my friend described the bartender’s reaction.
I decided not to push my luck, and in any event, some of the college admins (including a few deans) were still up and hanging around. I gracefully quaffed my drink and retired for the night. It was a good thing I got nice and rested. Because the next day was absolutely insane.
Turns out the last evening we were at the resort, the deans and professors were strangely absent after we were done for the day. So a few of us work up the nerve to try to get served, and this cool-as-shit older bartender (a WWII vet) was serving everybody, including one of my friends who honestly looked to be in his early teens! Naturally, since about 80 percent of the students on this trip were underaged, we were tipping like crazy. While I won’t go into complete details about the night’s debauchery, I will say that I managed not to throw up that night or the next day.
In retrospect, I have to believe that this all went on with the knowledge and blessing of the college administration. I’m sure they figured hey, we’re out in the middle of nowhere with about four feet of snow on the ground. We don’t have cars and we can’t wander off even if we wanted to. Why not let ‘em cut loose for once? Trust me, the resort wasn’t that large, and it would have been damn easy to bust us (especially since I’m pretty sure I saw the president’s wife watching the proceedings at one point. They knew we were getting our jollies off in a secure environment, and the resulting hangovers that pretty much all of us were sporting turned out to be an appropriate penance. And I must say the bus ride home was damn quiet!
I tried the whole suit business a few more times at bars by my house in the months afterwards, as well as when I went to my four-year school the following year. Eventually I tired of it, and decided that my luck would run out at some point. Better to quit while you're ahead, right?
So, what did I learn from all of this?
1. Don’t order beer (ESPECIALLY Bud or Miller) if you’re trying to get served and you’re south of 21. Dead giveaway! Don’t order any trendy mixed drink crap like Sex on the Beach or a margarita. This also ties in nicely with step 2, which is...
2. Don’t go to anyplace that serves the gimmicky drinks in step one. Go to some shitty blue collar dive (and not a hipster “blue collar” dive. You want the real deal). Order stuff like boilermakers, Old Fashioneds and Manhattans. Don't try to make small talk, but don't make it look like you don't belong, either. Sip your drink in peace.
3. For god’s sake, don’t dress like a broheim or sorority bim! I’ve seen at least one person get busted with fake IDs that might have gotten away with it, but they were dressed in stupid shit like a polo and shorts and a backwards baseball cap. In December. Amateurs.
They say you never forget your first. Ahh! To be young and completely in love… with your first glass of Beefeater. On the rocks. And a double!
Sunday, May 3, 2009
I Feel Like Chicken Tonight!
Yeah, that's how the old Shake N' Bake jingle went. And when I'm truly hungry and time's a factor, well baby... I feel like chicken tonight.
I got back from a long day of modeling (upcoming post about that one) and when I got back to my apartment, I needed something quick and easy to make. My default meal in these situations always revolves around chicken.
In this case, fried chicken. Aside from steak, I think fried chicken is my favorite meal. When I was a kid, fried chicken was served very, very rarely. Never as a home cooked meal, and rarely as a fast food option, as neither one of my parents cared for KFC or Popeyes.
So ever since I got out on my own, I indulge myself in fried chicken whenever I get the urge. I've come up with a few tried and true recipes over the years, but I decided to do something a little different tonight.
But first, I made sure to start with the basics. Not any part of the chicken will do. Breasts are okay as far as a boneless, skinless, healthy option goes. But fried chicken defies any sort of notion of "healthy," so that's out the window. Wings are great on their own, but they're more of a snack as opposed to a meal. Drumsticks are pretty good, but there's only one part of the bird that can possibly serve as the vehicle for fried goodness...
Thighs. I get 'em in packs of four. Rip 'em open and trim off the excess fat and skin. Believe you me, when I was just starting to experiment with cooking, I thought cutting off all that skinly, fatty goodness was a sin. But trust me on this one: your bird will taste much, much better if you take the time to trim the excess flab off.
Now, I've battered up my bird with a variety of mixes over the years: flour, seasoned flour, breadcrumbs, corn flakes, panko, etc. Today, I decided to try something a little bit different.
Tortilla crumbs. Frankly, I never knew they made ground up tortilla crumbs. But I was at the local Harris Teeter today and saw this:
I was intrigued. So on a whim, I picked up a container. I was getting a bit tired of the usual flour-and-spice mix I'd almost always dredge the bird in. Time for something with a little crunch!
Okay, so now I've battered the thighs in egg and rolled them in the tortilla crumbs. Time to fire up Old Faithful.
In this case, Old Faithful is the CoolDaddy deep fryer I got at Macy's a few years back. Yeah, she looks a little beat, but she can still fry with the best of them!
Seventeen minutes later... TA-DAAAAAAH!
I sprinkled a little McCormick Chicken seasoning prior to putting the thighs in the fryer. And when I took them out, I doused them in Tony Chachere's Cajun Salt.
There's nothing like piping hot fried chicken, straight from the fryer, on a nasty, grey, drizzly day!
I got back from a long day of modeling (upcoming post about that one) and when I got back to my apartment, I needed something quick and easy to make. My default meal in these situations always revolves around chicken.
In this case, fried chicken. Aside from steak, I think fried chicken is my favorite meal. When I was a kid, fried chicken was served very, very rarely. Never as a home cooked meal, and rarely as a fast food option, as neither one of my parents cared for KFC or Popeyes.
So ever since I got out on my own, I indulge myself in fried chicken whenever I get the urge. I've come up with a few tried and true recipes over the years, but I decided to do something a little different tonight.
But first, I made sure to start with the basics. Not any part of the chicken will do. Breasts are okay as far as a boneless, skinless, healthy option goes. But fried chicken defies any sort of notion of "healthy," so that's out the window. Wings are great on their own, but they're more of a snack as opposed to a meal. Drumsticks are pretty good, but there's only one part of the bird that can possibly serve as the vehicle for fried goodness...
Thighs. I get 'em in packs of four. Rip 'em open and trim off the excess fat and skin. Believe you me, when I was just starting to experiment with cooking, I thought cutting off all that skinly, fatty goodness was a sin. But trust me on this one: your bird will taste much, much better if you take the time to trim the excess flab off.
Now, I've battered up my bird with a variety of mixes over the years: flour, seasoned flour, breadcrumbs, corn flakes, panko, etc. Today, I decided to try something a little bit different.
Tortilla crumbs. Frankly, I never knew they made ground up tortilla crumbs. But I was at the local Harris Teeter today and saw this:
I was intrigued. So on a whim, I picked up a container. I was getting a bit tired of the usual flour-and-spice mix I'd almost always dredge the bird in. Time for something with a little crunch!
Okay, so now I've battered the thighs in egg and rolled them in the tortilla crumbs. Time to fire up Old Faithful.
In this case, Old Faithful is the CoolDaddy deep fryer I got at Macy's a few years back. Yeah, she looks a little beat, but she can still fry with the best of them!Seventeen minutes later... TA-DAAAAAAH!
I sprinkled a little McCormick Chicken seasoning prior to putting the thighs in the fryer. And when I took them out, I doused them in Tony Chachere's Cajun Salt.
There's nothing like piping hot fried chicken, straight from the fryer, on a nasty, grey, drizzly day!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Mondoburgers
I made a couple of what I like to call mondoburgers for lunch. It's not a Jasonburger, because a Jasonburger (named after me because it's that damned good!) requires ground up sausage to go in the mix. However, a mondoburger is pretty damned good on it's own. It's an exercise in gluttony, but if you can come up with a better foodgasm, I'd love to hear it.
The first thing you'll need are a couple of beef patties (duh!). Normally I go for fresh ground beef, but Giant had some prepackaged, preformed patties with bacon and cheese mixed in.
Now normally, I'd advise you to cook your burgers to medium rare, with straight-up medium being the highest temperature you'd want to settle for. Unfortunately, I've found pre-made patties to come out well-done regardless. However, while well-done is a sin for steak, for a burger, it's usually forgivable. Mostly since as long as you've got a decent fat content (I recommend 80/20. Yeah, I know it's a coronary under shrinkwrap), your should still get a somewhat juicy burger even if it's cooked thoroughly.
Next, you need bacon. Now, I'll be the first to admit the love affair with bacon has gone waaaaay too far (baconnaise, bacon salt, etc.). Enough already! It's the culinary equivalent of "irony" or horrible internete memes like "all your X belong to us." Over-fucking-done. But nothing compliments the taste of a burger than a couple slices of crisp bacon. I got a thicker cut applewood-smoked bacon, which was billed as being cruelty-free and free of hormones, preservatives, etc.
Pretty damn tasty looking, huh? Well, if you think it looks good raw, lick your lips in pleasure as I present to you the frying of the bacon:
Okay, so now that the bacon's done cooking, all we need to do is put the bacon on the burgers for a minute and take 'em out, right?
Wrong! Fill in the blank: some people like bacon and _________ for breakfast. Yup, now we're gonna fry up some eggs :) Two, to be precise. Mmm... eggs!
Some people like to have their eggs a yolky mess when they serve 'em on a burger. Frankly, I've found it to be a little too messy. I recommend over medium, so you still get some yolk mixing in with your burger, but it's not a dripping mess.
Okay, so now the burgers are ready to go, and I've added mayo, lettuce, pepperjack cheese and hot sauce, all on top of a potato roll. Behold, the finished product:
Yeah, I'm getting a heart attack just looking at it. Trust me, this is something I make myself once in a blue moon. Enjoy!
The first thing you'll need are a couple of beef patties (duh!). Normally I go for fresh ground beef, but Giant had some prepackaged, preformed patties with bacon and cheese mixed in.
Now normally, I'd advise you to cook your burgers to medium rare, with straight-up medium being the highest temperature you'd want to settle for. Unfortunately, I've found pre-made patties to come out well-done regardless. However, while well-done is a sin for steak, for a burger, it's usually forgivable. Mostly since as long as you've got a decent fat content (I recommend 80/20. Yeah, I know it's a coronary under shrinkwrap), your should still get a somewhat juicy burger even if it's cooked thoroughly.Next, you need bacon. Now, I'll be the first to admit the love affair with bacon has gone waaaaay too far (baconnaise, bacon salt, etc.). Enough already! It's the culinary equivalent of "irony" or horrible internete memes like "all your X belong to us." Over-fucking-done. But nothing compliments the taste of a burger than a couple slices of crisp bacon. I got a thicker cut applewood-smoked bacon, which was billed as being cruelty-free and free of hormones, preservatives, etc.
Pretty damn tasty looking, huh? Well, if you think it looks good raw, lick your lips in pleasure as I present to you the frying of the bacon:
Okay, so now that the bacon's done cooking, all we need to do is put the bacon on the burgers for a minute and take 'em out, right?
Wrong! Fill in the blank: some people like bacon and _________ for breakfast. Yup, now we're gonna fry up some eggs :) Two, to be precise. Mmm... eggs!
Some people like to have their eggs a yolky mess when they serve 'em on a burger. Frankly, I've found it to be a little too messy. I recommend over medium, so you still get some yolk mixing in with your burger, but it's not a dripping mess.
Okay, so now the burgers are ready to go, and I've added mayo, lettuce, pepperjack cheese and hot sauce, all on top of a potato roll. Behold, the finished product:
Yeah, I'm getting a heart attack just looking at it. Trust me, this is something I make myself once in a blue moon. Enjoy!Friday, May 1, 2009
25 Things You May Not Know About Me
Okay, so I completely ripped this off of my Facebook profile. But I modified it slightly. In any event, I thought this was cathartic enough that I wanted to post it onto my blog. So there!
1. The older I get, the more liberal I get. It's funny, because it's usually the opposite with most people.
2. I have a problem with authority figures. A real problem. This almost never bodes well for me. I’ve never been inclined to click my heels and offer a hearty “jawohl, Mein Fuehrer” just because someone wears a suit and tie and is telling me what to do. Similarly, I don’t automatically respect someone just because of their position or status. My respect is earned through your actions and deeds, not because of how aged you are or how long you've been doing whatever the hell it is that you do.
3. For years, I had issues learning how to process anger constructively. It was the one emotion that I was never allowed to express as a child. Love, sadness, fear, happiness, joy… that was all perfectly fine. Even when I cried, my parents were totally cool with it. But anger was the one emotion I was never allowed to show, and it took me ages to learn how to channel such emotion constructively and not let it consume me. I’ve also come to realize that in the grand scheme of things, there are precious few instances where getting angry really does anything… life’s too short to get crazy pissed over stupid shit!
4. I’m an only child and wouldn’t change that experience for anything. I always drew my energy from internal sources (reading, drawing, make-believe games). While there are a few negatives that I think came from it (I’m a bit guarded in lending out my possessions, for one thing), on the whole, it was an immensely positive experience.
5. Consequently, I’m the type of person that would rather have a handful of deep friendships rather than many superficial “friendships.”
6. Hot dogs used to be one of my favorite foods for years. Now? I can’t stand the sight of one. Blech! I used to steer clear of white wine and hearty ales up until recently, at which point they replaced my usual imbibing choices of red wine and domestic pisswater (though my man Michelob and I are mad tight. Word is bond).
7. My most revealing moment in recent memory? Taking my clothes off in front of a roomful of strangers. One day I realized that I hadn’t done anything outside my comfort zone in ages. So I model nude on occasion for art classes.
8. I’m a homebody. There’s no denying it any more. Given the choice to go to an intimate gathering at a friend’s house or go bar-hopping, I’ll choose the former every single time.
9. I cross myself and say a small prayer whenever a hearse passes me. I figure whoever’s in the back needs all the help they can get!
10. I am spiritual but not religious, at least in the sense that I participate in any organized religion. I have never felt comfortable in church for reasons I cannot explain (but readily feel). The quickest way to alienate me is to bring up your religious beliefs. I didn't ask, and I don't care.
11. If I see you spit on the sidewalk, my first thought is that I feel bad that your mother did a piss-poor job raising you, and wonder if coming from a long line of peasants is something you're particularly proud of.
12. People who can’t be arsed to hold the door open for the person behind them? Please refer to no. 11.
13. I am probably the only person I know that will actually listen to the director’s commentary in a porno movie, particularly one from the late 70s/early 80s.
14. I majored in political science and used to be really up on current events and public policy. Now? I cannot stand them and will visibly tense up when people bring such matters up. Please do not discuss your politics with me, especially if I’ve only known you for a few minutes. There's a reason why politics and religion are considered verboten amongst decent people.
15. I still lament the fact that Pepsi Kona (that coffee-flavored Pepsi) was discontinued. It was the best soda ever and that is a FACT!
16. For reasons I cannot fully articulate, I could not stand being barefoot as a child, and cannot stand wearing shoes and socks as an adult.
17. Yet I also own close to 30 pairs of shoes and God knows how many pairs of colorful socks. I cannot fully articulate this either.
18. Eyes freak me out, and I cannot bear looking at someone putting in their contacts without getting sick to my stomach.
19. I am a fragrance junkie and probably have 30 bottles of cologne.
20. Up until a few years ago, getting dressed was easy: random shirt+slacks/jeans=good to go. Now it takes me forever getting dressed, as I’ve become a clotheshorse and have to constantly cycle through my shirts and pants.
21. I collect fonts. Seriously. Particularly extravagent script fonts. Write me a letter or email in Amienne, Dear Joe, or Corinthia and I will definitely not forget it!
22. Whistling is one of my major pet peeves.
23. I cannot text for the life of me. I hate cellphones to begin with, and compounding that, I just cannot bring myself to type out “o hai, can u srsly come 2 my parti l8r? Bai!” I absolutely HAVE to type it out in full!
24. I still have a lot of my old Dungeons and Dragons books, even though the last time I played was during Desert Storm.
25. My iPod has anime soundtracks, songs in Simlish (that nonsensical “language” from The Sims), and videogame soundtracks, in addition to actual, you know… music. If someone ever steals my iPod, I fully expect them to track me down later and give me a wedgie.
1. The older I get, the more liberal I get. It's funny, because it's usually the opposite with most people.
2. I have a problem with authority figures. A real problem. This almost never bodes well for me. I’ve never been inclined to click my heels and offer a hearty “jawohl, Mein Fuehrer” just because someone wears a suit and tie and is telling me what to do. Similarly, I don’t automatically respect someone just because of their position or status. My respect is earned through your actions and deeds, not because of how aged you are or how long you've been doing whatever the hell it is that you do.
3. For years, I had issues learning how to process anger constructively. It was the one emotion that I was never allowed to express as a child. Love, sadness, fear, happiness, joy… that was all perfectly fine. Even when I cried, my parents were totally cool with it. But anger was the one emotion I was never allowed to show, and it took me ages to learn how to channel such emotion constructively and not let it consume me. I’ve also come to realize that in the grand scheme of things, there are precious few instances where getting angry really does anything… life’s too short to get crazy pissed over stupid shit!
4. I’m an only child and wouldn’t change that experience for anything. I always drew my energy from internal sources (reading, drawing, make-believe games). While there are a few negatives that I think came from it (I’m a bit guarded in lending out my possessions, for one thing), on the whole, it was an immensely positive experience.
5. Consequently, I’m the type of person that would rather have a handful of deep friendships rather than many superficial “friendships.”
6. Hot dogs used to be one of my favorite foods for years. Now? I can’t stand the sight of one. Blech! I used to steer clear of white wine and hearty ales up until recently, at which point they replaced my usual imbibing choices of red wine and domestic pisswater (though my man Michelob and I are mad tight. Word is bond).
7. My most revealing moment in recent memory? Taking my clothes off in front of a roomful of strangers. One day I realized that I hadn’t done anything outside my comfort zone in ages. So I model nude on occasion for art classes.
8. I’m a homebody. There’s no denying it any more. Given the choice to go to an intimate gathering at a friend’s house or go bar-hopping, I’ll choose the former every single time.
9. I cross myself and say a small prayer whenever a hearse passes me. I figure whoever’s in the back needs all the help they can get!
10. I am spiritual but not religious, at least in the sense that I participate in any organized religion. I have never felt comfortable in church for reasons I cannot explain (but readily feel). The quickest way to alienate me is to bring up your religious beliefs. I didn't ask, and I don't care.
11. If I see you spit on the sidewalk, my first thought is that I feel bad that your mother did a piss-poor job raising you, and wonder if coming from a long line of peasants is something you're particularly proud of.
12. People who can’t be arsed to hold the door open for the person behind them? Please refer to no. 11.
13. I am probably the only person I know that will actually listen to the director’s commentary in a porno movie, particularly one from the late 70s/early 80s.
14. I majored in political science and used to be really up on current events and public policy. Now? I cannot stand them and will visibly tense up when people bring such matters up. Please do not discuss your politics with me, especially if I’ve only known you for a few minutes. There's a reason why politics and religion are considered verboten amongst decent people.
15. I still lament the fact that Pepsi Kona (that coffee-flavored Pepsi) was discontinued. It was the best soda ever and that is a FACT!
16. For reasons I cannot fully articulate, I could not stand being barefoot as a child, and cannot stand wearing shoes and socks as an adult.
17. Yet I also own close to 30 pairs of shoes and God knows how many pairs of colorful socks. I cannot fully articulate this either.
18. Eyes freak me out, and I cannot bear looking at someone putting in their contacts without getting sick to my stomach.
19. I am a fragrance junkie and probably have 30 bottles of cologne.
20. Up until a few years ago, getting dressed was easy: random shirt+slacks/jeans=good to go. Now it takes me forever getting dressed, as I’ve become a clotheshorse and have to constantly cycle through my shirts and pants.
21. I collect fonts. Seriously. Particularly extravagent script fonts. Write me a letter or email in Amienne, Dear Joe, or Corinthia and I will definitely not forget it!
22. Whistling is one of my major pet peeves.
23. I cannot text for the life of me. I hate cellphones to begin with, and compounding that, I just cannot bring myself to type out “o hai, can u srsly come 2 my parti l8r? Bai!” I absolutely HAVE to type it out in full!
24. I still have a lot of my old Dungeons and Dragons books, even though the last time I played was during Desert Storm.
25. My iPod has anime soundtracks, songs in Simlish (that nonsensical “language” from The Sims), and videogame soundtracks, in addition to actual, you know… music. If someone ever steals my iPod, I fully expect them to track me down later and give me a wedgie.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Bus ride from Hell!
Okay, "Hell" might be pushing it. But it was no Seven Heavens, no Arcadia... hell, it wasn't even Limbo. Maybe Acheron? Yeah, Acheron...
So I'm going down the escalators of the Ballston station and before I can even get to the gates, there's a sea of people mulling around. If you've ever taken Metro, that's Not a Good Sign. Then the announcement came.
Trains backed up. Both directions. Broken choo choo at Clarendon. A constipated man's bowels will move before the Orange Line will.
So I'm walking back up the escalator thinking I'll put in a half day or something, and then I remembered the 38B. This bus route pretty much mimics the path of the Orange Line downtown, only it's aboveground.
Sure nuff, by the time I get topside, the 38B's packed to capacity. Thankfully, another one comes 15 minutes later, and I'm one of the first in line.
So the bus is packed tighter than a brick shithouse, but we're on our way. That is, until we get to the first scheduled stop. What happened next is so surreal (well, as far as surreal shit happens to me) that I wouldn't believe it if even one of my closest friends told me.
We're at the stop, which just happens to be right before a stoplight. People outside are banging on the bus to get in, and the driver's naturally trying to tell them there's no room. Well, this wasn't good enough for one woman. She decided to stand in front of the bus.
Yes. You read that right. She stood. in. front. of. the. bus. Playing chicken with about 5 tons of steel (that's a guess. I've no damned idea how much a bus weighs). The bus driver was growing more and more exasperated. "Lady, where am I gonna put you?!? The bus is full!"
The fact that someone would get all Tienanmen Square over her commute is just astounding. To the point where she'd risk life and limb just to get to work (either getting run over, or getting ripped limb from limb by a busload of GS-12s). There's only one job I can think of right now that would make me that desperate to come to work, and truth be told, I'm really not that keen on finding out if they have sex in Heaven.
Meanwhile, there's another woman tapping on the windows trying to get on. How tapping on the side windows is gonna help, I don't know. The bus windows sure as hell don't roll down, and she wasn't svelte enough to pull a Luke and Bo in any event. For some weird reason she was trying to plead her case to the passengers, as if busting out riffs from her 10th grade persuasive speaking class is gonna make people's bodies, I dunno, have less mass or something so she can squeeze in (through the window).
Eventually, someone on the bus got fed up and got off so Ms. Molly Makeapoint could get on. Thanks dude! You definitely took one for the team, and I hope you win the lottery soon :)
The actual bus ride itself was fairly painless after that (except for some stupid person who had to yammer on her cell phone about OMG how totally messed up is this the entire ride to her multiple vacuous friends). And since we were already running late, we shaved off some time coming through Georgetown only because it was past 9:30 at that point.
Years ago, Greyhound had a commercial jingle that ended with "Don't Miss the Bus!" I think this woman took that message just a little too far :)
So I'm going down the escalators of the Ballston station and before I can even get to the gates, there's a sea of people mulling around. If you've ever taken Metro, that's Not a Good Sign. Then the announcement came.
Trains backed up. Both directions. Broken choo choo at Clarendon. A constipated man's bowels will move before the Orange Line will.
So I'm walking back up the escalator thinking I'll put in a half day or something, and then I remembered the 38B. This bus route pretty much mimics the path of the Orange Line downtown, only it's aboveground.
Sure nuff, by the time I get topside, the 38B's packed to capacity. Thankfully, another one comes 15 minutes later, and I'm one of the first in line.
So the bus is packed tighter than a brick shithouse, but we're on our way. That is, until we get to the first scheduled stop. What happened next is so surreal (well, as far as surreal shit happens to me) that I wouldn't believe it if even one of my closest friends told me.
We're at the stop, which just happens to be right before a stoplight. People outside are banging on the bus to get in, and the driver's naturally trying to tell them there's no room. Well, this wasn't good enough for one woman. She decided to stand in front of the bus.
Yes. You read that right. She stood. in. front. of. the. bus. Playing chicken with about 5 tons of steel (that's a guess. I've no damned idea how much a bus weighs). The bus driver was growing more and more exasperated. "Lady, where am I gonna put you?!? The bus is full!"
The fact that someone would get all Tienanmen Square over her commute is just astounding. To the point where she'd risk life and limb just to get to work (either getting run over, or getting ripped limb from limb by a busload of GS-12s). There's only one job I can think of right now that would make me that desperate to come to work, and truth be told, I'm really not that keen on finding out if they have sex in Heaven.
Meanwhile, there's another woman tapping on the windows trying to get on. How tapping on the side windows is gonna help, I don't know. The bus windows sure as hell don't roll down, and she wasn't svelte enough to pull a Luke and Bo in any event. For some weird reason she was trying to plead her case to the passengers, as if busting out riffs from her 10th grade persuasive speaking class is gonna make people's bodies, I dunno, have less mass or something so she can squeeze in (through the window).
Eventually, someone on the bus got fed up and got off so Ms. Molly Makeapoint could get on. Thanks dude! You definitely took one for the team, and I hope you win the lottery soon :)
The actual bus ride itself was fairly painless after that (except for some stupid person who had to yammer on her cell phone about OMG how totally messed up is this the entire ride to her multiple vacuous friends). And since we were already running late, we shaved off some time coming through Georgetown only because it was past 9:30 at that point.
Years ago, Greyhound had a commercial jingle that ended with "Don't Miss the Bus!" I think this woman took that message just a little too far :)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
This year's model
Over the past two months, I've had several friends ask me about the modeling I do for an art school. Turns out people are intrigued by the idea of standing still and getting paid for it :) Plus there's the fact that doing all this in the buff, and in front of an audience, has just the slightest taboo to it.
At first, I had composed a massive email that I shot out to people wanting to know more. Then I figured I could easily post it here and expand on it a little.
First of all, it’s harder than it looks! You’ll find muscles you never knew you had, and you’ll discover the joy of having various parts of your body go to sleep on you. It’s definitely work. I happen to like art, but I also suck royally at it, so the fact that I can do something to actually contribute to the field really excites me. It’s intangibles like this (along with getting paid for it!) that drive me. If you’re just looking for a quick paycheck alone, there are probably easier things you could do, and you’ll probably get bored quickly.
I think if you’re a guy, it’s more of an uphill battle to get that first gig. Given the limited experience I've had, I'd say that there are more male than female models, so naturally women are going to be in more demand. And let’s face it: women are more fun to draw! And while it’s never happened to me, I’ve heard that homophobia isn’t exactly unheard of, especially if you’re modeling for a large, university Intro to Art class. Someone once told me that they got up on the podium on several occasions and he could see one or two males in the classroom pack up their materials and walk out. He basically said that if someone’s homophobic, that’s their cross to bear, and it shouldn’t affect you in any way. It’s their problem, and they have to deal with it. Don’t let it get to you. Frankly, they’ve clearly got a whole host of issues.
Pretty much all of the models I’ve seen by me are white, so you’re at an advantage, I think, if you come from a diverse background. If I had to make a random generalization about the models in my city, I'd say they're a mid-20s to late-30s officeworker, in decent shape, but starting to get some of the rounded edges that come with a desk job.
There’s two kinds of modeling I’ve done: portrait modeling and figure modeling. I’ll talk about portrait modeling first. At least where I work, they pay the same.
Portrait modeling: you’ll generally be seated and will keep the same pose the entire session (usually about 3 hours in length, and you’ll go about 30 minutes, take a quick break, and then resume for another 30 minutes until the session is over). Once the prof has you in a pose he or she likes, you’ll find a spot on the wall and focus on it. Doing so helps you hold your pose. Make sure that you’re not focusing on something like an easel, someone’s head, etc. Not only is it distracting to the artist, these things move, and if they do, so will your head. The trickiest thing about this is coming back into pose after the break, since you need to get into the exact same pose. It becomes easier with practice, and of course people in the room can help guide you back into position. If you’re booked for several sessions, make sure to find out before you leave if they’ll be doing a new pose or will continue to work on that same pose. If it’s the latter, you need to remember what you wore that day, because you’ll need to wear that exact same outfit for the rest of the sessions you’re booked for.
The hardest part of portrait modeling (at least from my perspective) is that it’s real easy to drift off after the first hour or two, especially if the lights are bright. Aside from some short breaks, there really isn’t anything to break up the monotony. Fortunately, they’re only drawing you from the chest up, so at least you can adjust your legs. Since they’re not doing your hands, sometimes I’ll take the knuckles from one hand and drag them against the flat of my other hand. Hurts a little, but it also helps to keep me awake!
Now I'm getting to the part I'm sure you've all been waiting for: figure modeling, which is done in the nude.
Usually I'm on a small, elevated stage that's flush against the wall. But one time, I was in a small room and was on a podium that measured about 2X2 feet. And it was in the center of the room, so everyone definitely got a damn good look at me. You've just gotta be able to shrug it off and realize it's art, not smut. The students in class have probably seen enough naked people by their senior year than most people see their whole lives. It's totally professional. And no, you don't need to have a 38DD rack or be hung like a horse or have rock hard abs or anything. Students need a wide variety of body types to draw in order to gain experience.
Once you check in with the artist or professor, you’ll be shown to an empty room or bathroom for you to get changed in. Then it's a matter of awkwardly hanging out in a bathrobe until the class is all ready to go. It's kind of weird the first time this happens, since everyone knows it's coming off in a few minutes, and you've gotta just nonchalantly hang out and maybe bury your nose in a book until kickoff.
Usually, the professor will have the class warm up with some gesture poses. These are poses that are 1-2 minutes in length, and you’ll generally do about 10-15 of them. You’ll count both the length and number of poses off in your head. I like doing these the best because you can get really creative, and because you’re only holding poses for a short period of time, you can really have some fun. From there, you’ll often do two 5-minute poses and a 10-minute pose. For these, you’ll need a timer (your cellphone may have one built in). These are often reclining poses. The person you’re modeling for may have some suggestions for poses, especially if there are certain concepts or techniques he or she is teaching. After that, you’ll either do one long pose for the rest of the class, or a few 20 minute poses and then some more gestures to close with. You’ll usually work for 20-30 minutes at a pop and then take a 10-minute break.
You’ll want to adjust your poses so you’re not facing the same direction all the time. When I go into a new pose (especially with the gesture poses), I make sure to adjust my body so that I’m not standing in front of the same people all the time, and so others aren’t stuck drawing the back of my head.
Basic tips:
If you do decide to go the figure model route, you’re going to want to assemble a model kit. First thing you’ll need is a cheap bathrobe. Get the flimsy kind that feels like it’s made out of pajama materials. Don’t spend a lot of money on it, as it’s going to get paint or charcoal on it at some point. You'll also be using this to drape whatever chair or stool you sit in. Get a cheap pair of flip flops, as most studio floors are dirty and attract an inordinate amount of thumbtacks. You’ll want a medium sized gym bag to hold all your stuff, and I keep a little kit with some bandaids, hand/foot wipes, Kleenex, etc. Get a cheap timer. And toss in a paperback you’ve never gotten around to reading, since you’ll have frequent breaks.
Don’t wear your best clothes to a modeling session… in most cases, they’re coming off anyways. Don’t wear anything you’d be pissed if you got paint on.
Be prompt. I usually get there 15-20 minutes early so I can talk to the professor and find out what he/she is trying to accomplish with their class that day. I did a class one Saturday morning and the prof stated that the week before, the model was an hour late. Running late seems to be a habit for a lot of models, so if you get a reputation as “that guy/girl who’s always early,” you’ll probably get recommendations to other artists and professors.
Be upbeat. This is something that you’ll hopefully enjoy doing, so keeping a positive, upbeat attitude will translate to better poses. Plus, if you get their early and the professor sees someone who’s got a good attitude and is taking this seriously, you’ll get a reputation as someone who’s mellow and easy to work with.
Plus, students can usually tell when someone’s enjoying themselves, and I think it helps them to bring out the best in their work. There have been times where I just finished cinching up my robe or just left class for the day and people came up to me and thanked me for modeling that day. That's a real rush, and it's a good way to find out you enjoyed yourself enough to the point that other people picked up on it :)
Don’t criticize anyone’s work. This is a major no-no. Also, if you’re really vain, this isn’t the job for you. Even if you’re buff and studly, I guarantee you someone will exaggerate your features or flat out draw them “wrong.” I like to think of it as a way to keep me humble.
Don’t do this to stroke your own ego. You’re there as a tool and an inspiration to the artist. If the professor has a suggestion for a pose, do it (unless it’s causing you to be extremely uncomfortable or in pain, in which case speak up).
Carry your cellphone with you (most people do this anyways, but I’ve never been much of a cellphone talker and have to constantly remind myself to keep it on me). Models are always going to get sick or have family emergencies, and you can often get a booking out of the blue if they can get a hold of you in time.
Don't quit your day job. I had about 12 bookings last semester, and absolutely zero this semester (one's coming up in the next few days, and the other sometime in May which will be done with another model). Even at $20 per hour (which seems to be the max in the area), you'll most likely find this an enjoyable way to augment your income or pay back your student loans as opposed to a fulltime job.
At first, I had composed a massive email that I shot out to people wanting to know more. Then I figured I could easily post it here and expand on it a little.
First of all, it’s harder than it looks! You’ll find muscles you never knew you had, and you’ll discover the joy of having various parts of your body go to sleep on you. It’s definitely work. I happen to like art, but I also suck royally at it, so the fact that I can do something to actually contribute to the field really excites me. It’s intangibles like this (along with getting paid for it!) that drive me. If you’re just looking for a quick paycheck alone, there are probably easier things you could do, and you’ll probably get bored quickly.
I think if you’re a guy, it’s more of an uphill battle to get that first gig. Given the limited experience I've had, I'd say that there are more male than female models, so naturally women are going to be in more demand. And let’s face it: women are more fun to draw! And while it’s never happened to me, I’ve heard that homophobia isn’t exactly unheard of, especially if you’re modeling for a large, university Intro to Art class. Someone once told me that they got up on the podium on several occasions and he could see one or two males in the classroom pack up their materials and walk out. He basically said that if someone’s homophobic, that’s their cross to bear, and it shouldn’t affect you in any way. It’s their problem, and they have to deal with it. Don’t let it get to you. Frankly, they’ve clearly got a whole host of issues.
Pretty much all of the models I’ve seen by me are white, so you’re at an advantage, I think, if you come from a diverse background. If I had to make a random generalization about the models in my city, I'd say they're a mid-20s to late-30s officeworker, in decent shape, but starting to get some of the rounded edges that come with a desk job.
There’s two kinds of modeling I’ve done: portrait modeling and figure modeling. I’ll talk about portrait modeling first. At least where I work, they pay the same.
Portrait modeling: you’ll generally be seated and will keep the same pose the entire session (usually about 3 hours in length, and you’ll go about 30 minutes, take a quick break, and then resume for another 30 minutes until the session is over). Once the prof has you in a pose he or she likes, you’ll find a spot on the wall and focus on it. Doing so helps you hold your pose. Make sure that you’re not focusing on something like an easel, someone’s head, etc. Not only is it distracting to the artist, these things move, and if they do, so will your head. The trickiest thing about this is coming back into pose after the break, since you need to get into the exact same pose. It becomes easier with practice, and of course people in the room can help guide you back into position. If you’re booked for several sessions, make sure to find out before you leave if they’ll be doing a new pose or will continue to work on that same pose. If it’s the latter, you need to remember what you wore that day, because you’ll need to wear that exact same outfit for the rest of the sessions you’re booked for.
The hardest part of portrait modeling (at least from my perspective) is that it’s real easy to drift off after the first hour or two, especially if the lights are bright. Aside from some short breaks, there really isn’t anything to break up the monotony. Fortunately, they’re only drawing you from the chest up, so at least you can adjust your legs. Since they’re not doing your hands, sometimes I’ll take the knuckles from one hand and drag them against the flat of my other hand. Hurts a little, but it also helps to keep me awake!
Now I'm getting to the part I'm sure you've all been waiting for: figure modeling, which is done in the nude.
Usually I'm on a small, elevated stage that's flush against the wall. But one time, I was in a small room and was on a podium that measured about 2X2 feet. And it was in the center of the room, so everyone definitely got a damn good look at me. You've just gotta be able to shrug it off and realize it's art, not smut. The students in class have probably seen enough naked people by their senior year than most people see their whole lives. It's totally professional. And no, you don't need to have a 38DD rack or be hung like a horse or have rock hard abs or anything. Students need a wide variety of body types to draw in order to gain experience.
Once you check in with the artist or professor, you’ll be shown to an empty room or bathroom for you to get changed in. Then it's a matter of awkwardly hanging out in a bathrobe until the class is all ready to go. It's kind of weird the first time this happens, since everyone knows it's coming off in a few minutes, and you've gotta just nonchalantly hang out and maybe bury your nose in a book until kickoff.
Usually, the professor will have the class warm up with some gesture poses. These are poses that are 1-2 minutes in length, and you’ll generally do about 10-15 of them. You’ll count both the length and number of poses off in your head. I like doing these the best because you can get really creative, and because you’re only holding poses for a short period of time, you can really have some fun. From there, you’ll often do two 5-minute poses and a 10-minute pose. For these, you’ll need a timer (your cellphone may have one built in). These are often reclining poses. The person you’re modeling for may have some suggestions for poses, especially if there are certain concepts or techniques he or she is teaching. After that, you’ll either do one long pose for the rest of the class, or a few 20 minute poses and then some more gestures to close with. You’ll usually work for 20-30 minutes at a pop and then take a 10-minute break.
You’ll want to adjust your poses so you’re not facing the same direction all the time. When I go into a new pose (especially with the gesture poses), I make sure to adjust my body so that I’m not standing in front of the same people all the time, and so others aren’t stuck drawing the back of my head.
Basic tips:
If you do decide to go the figure model route, you’re going to want to assemble a model kit. First thing you’ll need is a cheap bathrobe. Get the flimsy kind that feels like it’s made out of pajama materials. Don’t spend a lot of money on it, as it’s going to get paint or charcoal on it at some point. You'll also be using this to drape whatever chair or stool you sit in. Get a cheap pair of flip flops, as most studio floors are dirty and attract an inordinate amount of thumbtacks. You’ll want a medium sized gym bag to hold all your stuff, and I keep a little kit with some bandaids, hand/foot wipes, Kleenex, etc. Get a cheap timer. And toss in a paperback you’ve never gotten around to reading, since you’ll have frequent breaks.
Don’t wear your best clothes to a modeling session… in most cases, they’re coming off anyways. Don’t wear anything you’d be pissed if you got paint on.
Be prompt. I usually get there 15-20 minutes early so I can talk to the professor and find out what he/she is trying to accomplish with their class that day. I did a class one Saturday morning and the prof stated that the week before, the model was an hour late. Running late seems to be a habit for a lot of models, so if you get a reputation as “that guy/girl who’s always early,” you’ll probably get recommendations to other artists and professors.
Be upbeat. This is something that you’ll hopefully enjoy doing, so keeping a positive, upbeat attitude will translate to better poses. Plus, if you get their early and the professor sees someone who’s got a good attitude and is taking this seriously, you’ll get a reputation as someone who’s mellow and easy to work with.
Plus, students can usually tell when someone’s enjoying themselves, and I think it helps them to bring out the best in their work. There have been times where I just finished cinching up my robe or just left class for the day and people came up to me and thanked me for modeling that day. That's a real rush, and it's a good way to find out you enjoyed yourself enough to the point that other people picked up on it :)
Don’t criticize anyone’s work. This is a major no-no. Also, if you’re really vain, this isn’t the job for you. Even if you’re buff and studly, I guarantee you someone will exaggerate your features or flat out draw them “wrong.” I like to think of it as a way to keep me humble.
Don’t do this to stroke your own ego. You’re there as a tool and an inspiration to the artist. If the professor has a suggestion for a pose, do it (unless it’s causing you to be extremely uncomfortable or in pain, in which case speak up).
Carry your cellphone with you (most people do this anyways, but I’ve never been much of a cellphone talker and have to constantly remind myself to keep it on me). Models are always going to get sick or have family emergencies, and you can often get a booking out of the blue if they can get a hold of you in time.
Don't quit your day job. I had about 12 bookings last semester, and absolutely zero this semester (one's coming up in the next few days, and the other sometime in May which will be done with another model). Even at $20 per hour (which seems to be the max in the area), you'll most likely find this an enjoyable way to augment your income or pay back your student loans as opposed to a fulltime job.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday
Well, I finally did it. Something I've been meaning to do for a few months now, but could never fully bring myself to do.
I quit yelp. Never thought I'd type that out.
Well, I'm not quitting per se. But I'm definitely taking a break. For a while. At least until the end of summer. At that point I'll reassess the issue and try to figure out if it'll be a labor of love, or just labor.
Now a lot of you are probably surprised at this. Me too. I remember when I first joined yelp. It was in the balmy June of 2007. I had broken up with a real ballbuster of a woman. To say I was a little "off" would be an understatement. I figured I had to do something besides staying locked up in my apartment trying not to think of her. So I started scoping out restaurants and bars to go to.
Now while google will give you plenty of options, it won't give you any way to make a reliable decision as to whether a certain restaurant is good or not. At least not on its own. So I figured I'd scope out the Washington Post's (now defunct) CityGuide.
Or, as I started to call it when it proved to be less than adequate, the ShittyGuide. Most of the reviews were quite old, and it seemed a lot of them were written either by the owner, or people who had an axe to grind with a given establishment. I wasn't getting the real scoop.
AOL's restaurant listings were a little better, but again, too many of the reviews were dated, and I found a few intriguing restaurants that turned out later to be closed. So clearly no one's minding the shop.
As I started googling restaurants more and more, I kept on getting steered to a site called "yelp." What was interesting about yelp was that the reviews were a lot more credible on first glance than those of other review sites. It was strongly encouraged to have a picture to go along with your profile, and the whole site just had a certain trustworthiness and sense of community that other sites were lacking.
So I started relying on yelp more and more to make informed decisions. And one day it hit me: if yelp's helping me out so much, I ought to contribute reviews of my own so that I can help people make similarly informed decisions. That whole "leave the woods cleaner when you leave than when you got there" mentality. So I dipped my toe into the water and wrote my first reviews. One of which was for a "diner" called Pete's Diner. My ex had raved about this place, and after going here for breakfast with her once, I was... underwhelmed. Nothing special. At all. Honestly the coffee tasted like Maxwell House and the eggs tasted exactly the way I made them. I mean, to me the point of dining out (unless you're feeling lazy) is to get food that's better than you'd make it at home, assuming you actually know how to cook what you're going out to eat for. That's been my guiding philosophy for dining out.
Yet there were yelpers who thought this place was the be all, end all of greasy spoon fare. Time to put my own two cents in! So I did. And then I thought about all the other places I went to recently and started to yelp those too! It became addictive. Moreso when Miriam, the DC Community Manager, sent me my first compliment welcoming me to DC yelp.
And then it finally dawned on me... yelp's as much a social networking site as it is a review site. I started to make (virtual) friends on the site (often to become actual friends, or at least acquaintances). I still remember when Richard posted a thread along the lines of "I'm bored and want to see a movie. Who's with me?" and several of us joined him on a spur of the moment lark to see Once (an incredible Irish film). Soon I started going to trivia nights and gradually expanded my social circle. And started going out to new restaurants just for the sake of yelping them. Hell, I had a bad date, knew it wasn't going anywhere after the initial brunch, and raced home merrily so I could write the damn review while it was still fresh in my head! Yeah, who gives a shit about the date man... I can't wait to get home and write about the scrambled eggs!
Eventually I got my first Review of the Day. For those of you that don't know, each day yelp selects a review (how it's actually selected is a matter of conjecture) and highlights it on the home page of its respective yelp community. So now I'm swimming in compiments and praise (I liked that!) and had even more motivation to craft reviews. Man... how could I have ever been yelping! The rush of gaining new friends quickly, the accolades and praise for writing reviews that were fun to write, the joy of showing off yelp (and shamelessly self-promoting my reviews!)... it was like I was on Cloud 9.
And then it all turned to shit. Right about this time last year. No virtual community is immune from the presence of trolls, and yelp sure got one in the form of S. If you can think of the most narcissistic, rude, self-diagnosed Asperger's headcase that you've ever known, chances are you're thinking of S. No one liked this prick. Moody, self-obsessed, belittled others while trolling for compliments, couldn't get laid in a whorehouse (pretty much by his own admission), this guy should've had his pictures placed on advertisements for RU486. And the pisser was, he never reviewed anything! And everybody (rightfully) hated his guts! So here you have a person who everybody hates (for no other reason than he's a total putz) and doesn't even use the site for what it's intended for.
So of course he got into pissing matches with everybody on the yelp Talk threads. And naturally when that happens, that just attracts people of a similar mindset. Kinda like the broken windows theory: you leave an abandoned car outside someone's house, and it sets off a signal that people don't care about the area. You get vandalism, petty crime, etc. as a result. Yelp would routinely suspend him from the site, but for reasons indeterminable, never gave him his walking papers. Big mistake.
Things kind of spiraled out of control on yelp for the past 8 months or so, and I don't think it was a coincidence that yelpers, heretofore active on the site, started disappearing en masse. So now the solid core of yelp was being dissolved, and in its absence, even more trolls started visiting the site, only with less people to keep such matters in check. I always thought I'd be one of the last defenders up on the parapets, raising the banner and marshaling the remaining forces in the keep to make a last stand in the courtyard. Well... that didn't come to pass.
You see, in the past few months, yelp became a far, far more toxic environment than it had been even a few months prior. For reasons that I have yet to figure out, DC yelp seemed to have become a shingle for people who didn't want to review restaurants so much as they wanted to shit up the talk threads with truly inane commentary. And of course when anybody took issue with it, it was met with a barrage of "hurr... teh intarnetz iz not serious bizness." You'd see the same five or six people start (or hijack) a thread that honestly resembled an IM session.
The straw that broke the camel's back, however... the event that truly disappointed those few old school yelpers who remained, was yelp's decision to let business owners comment on individual reviews. Now, yelp was going to enable individual business owners to comment on individual reviews of their establishment. Reasons why this was not warmly welcomed by the yelp community include:
Compounding this is the fact that yelp's been called out for ethical issues in the past (such as sucking up to sponsors by removing critical reviews, and bullying business owners to pay for sponsorships (and when they don't, good reviews mysteriously get removed and negative ones fill the void). It's been enough of an issue that many of us speculate this new business owner comment feature is yelp's way of playing damage control. To be fair, I can't prove any of these negative allegations (like the aforementioned extortion), and I've always defended yelp on this score in the past. No more.
When I saw yelp's email alert about this new feature, I actually got angry. And I thought about all the other things wrong with yelp:
But no (sigh). I quickly talked myself out of that notion. When I wrote my last review, it seemed like it took forever to write. And I didn't have any fun writing it. It almost seemed like an utter burden. And then I remembered something.
There was an early 80s porn star by the name of Veronica Hart. She starred in some critically-acclaimed movies (as far as smut goes) and walked away from it all in the mid-80s. Her reasoning? It wasn't fun anymore, and she made a promise to herself that she'd stop performing the minute it felt like her job was a job.
And... that's where I find myself now. Will I ever write another review for the site. Perhaps, but not for now. It also remains to be seen if the site will take a turn for the worse in the coming months (I have my suspicions on the matter, but I think the site's headed for a sea change, either for good or for bad, in the next few months).
So why did I call this post It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday? Because the one thing that kept me from abandoning the site completely (I had actually toyed with closing out my account, in which case the reviews would be deleted) were the warm fuzzies I got when I first joined the site. There have been all sorts of things that I would have never done or experienced prior to joining yelp:
I just gotta reconcile myself to the fact that you can never really go back to the way things once were...
I quit yelp. Never thought I'd type that out.
Well, I'm not quitting per se. But I'm definitely taking a break. For a while. At least until the end of summer. At that point I'll reassess the issue and try to figure out if it'll be a labor of love, or just labor.
Now a lot of you are probably surprised at this. Me too. I remember when I first joined yelp. It was in the balmy June of 2007. I had broken up with a real ballbuster of a woman. To say I was a little "off" would be an understatement. I figured I had to do something besides staying locked up in my apartment trying not to think of her. So I started scoping out restaurants and bars to go to.
Now while google will give you plenty of options, it won't give you any way to make a reliable decision as to whether a certain restaurant is good or not. At least not on its own. So I figured I'd scope out the Washington Post's (now defunct) CityGuide.
Or, as I started to call it when it proved to be less than adequate, the ShittyGuide. Most of the reviews were quite old, and it seemed a lot of them were written either by the owner, or people who had an axe to grind with a given establishment. I wasn't getting the real scoop.
AOL's restaurant listings were a little better, but again, too many of the reviews were dated, and I found a few intriguing restaurants that turned out later to be closed. So clearly no one's minding the shop.
As I started googling restaurants more and more, I kept on getting steered to a site called "yelp." What was interesting about yelp was that the reviews were a lot more credible on first glance than those of other review sites. It was strongly encouraged to have a picture to go along with your profile, and the whole site just had a certain trustworthiness and sense of community that other sites were lacking.
So I started relying on yelp more and more to make informed decisions. And one day it hit me: if yelp's helping me out so much, I ought to contribute reviews of my own so that I can help people make similarly informed decisions. That whole "leave the woods cleaner when you leave than when you got there" mentality. So I dipped my toe into the water and wrote my first reviews. One of which was for a "diner" called Pete's Diner. My ex had raved about this place, and after going here for breakfast with her once, I was... underwhelmed. Nothing special. At all. Honestly the coffee tasted like Maxwell House and the eggs tasted exactly the way I made them. I mean, to me the point of dining out (unless you're feeling lazy) is to get food that's better than you'd make it at home, assuming you actually know how to cook what you're going out to eat for. That's been my guiding philosophy for dining out.
Yet there were yelpers who thought this place was the be all, end all of greasy spoon fare. Time to put my own two cents in! So I did. And then I thought about all the other places I went to recently and started to yelp those too! It became addictive. Moreso when Miriam, the DC Community Manager, sent me my first compliment welcoming me to DC yelp.
And then it finally dawned on me... yelp's as much a social networking site as it is a review site. I started to make (virtual) friends on the site (often to become actual friends, or at least acquaintances). I still remember when Richard posted a thread along the lines of "I'm bored and want to see a movie. Who's with me?" and several of us joined him on a spur of the moment lark to see Once (an incredible Irish film). Soon I started going to trivia nights and gradually expanded my social circle. And started going out to new restaurants just for the sake of yelping them. Hell, I had a bad date, knew it wasn't going anywhere after the initial brunch, and raced home merrily so I could write the damn review while it was still fresh in my head! Yeah, who gives a shit about the date man... I can't wait to get home and write about the scrambled eggs!
Eventually I got my first Review of the Day. For those of you that don't know, each day yelp selects a review (how it's actually selected is a matter of conjecture) and highlights it on the home page of its respective yelp community. So now I'm swimming in compiments and praise (I liked that!) and had even more motivation to craft reviews. Man... how could I have ever been yelping! The rush of gaining new friends quickly, the accolades and praise for writing reviews that were fun to write, the joy of showing off yelp (and shamelessly self-promoting my reviews!)... it was like I was on Cloud 9.
And then it all turned to shit. Right about this time last year. No virtual community is immune from the presence of trolls, and yelp sure got one in the form of S. If you can think of the most narcissistic, rude, self-diagnosed Asperger's headcase that you've ever known, chances are you're thinking of S. No one liked this prick. Moody, self-obsessed, belittled others while trolling for compliments, couldn't get laid in a whorehouse (pretty much by his own admission), this guy should've had his pictures placed on advertisements for RU486. And the pisser was, he never reviewed anything! And everybody (rightfully) hated his guts! So here you have a person who everybody hates (for no other reason than he's a total putz) and doesn't even use the site for what it's intended for.
So of course he got into pissing matches with everybody on the yelp Talk threads. And naturally when that happens, that just attracts people of a similar mindset. Kinda like the broken windows theory: you leave an abandoned car outside someone's house, and it sets off a signal that people don't care about the area. You get vandalism, petty crime, etc. as a result. Yelp would routinely suspend him from the site, but for reasons indeterminable, never gave him his walking papers. Big mistake.
Things kind of spiraled out of control on yelp for the past 8 months or so, and I don't think it was a coincidence that yelpers, heretofore active on the site, started disappearing en masse. So now the solid core of yelp was being dissolved, and in its absence, even more trolls started visiting the site, only with less people to keep such matters in check. I always thought I'd be one of the last defenders up on the parapets, raising the banner and marshaling the remaining forces in the keep to make a last stand in the courtyard. Well... that didn't come to pass.
You see, in the past few months, yelp became a far, far more toxic environment than it had been even a few months prior. For reasons that I have yet to figure out, DC yelp seemed to have become a shingle for people who didn't want to review restaurants so much as they wanted to shit up the talk threads with truly inane commentary. And of course when anybody took issue with it, it was met with a barrage of "hurr... teh intarnetz iz not serious bizness." You'd see the same five or six people start (or hijack) a thread that honestly resembled an IM session.
The straw that broke the camel's back, however... the event that truly disappointed those few old school yelpers who remained, was yelp's decision to let business owners comment on individual reviews. Now, yelp was going to enable individual business owners to comment on individual reviews of their establishment. Reasons why this was not warmly welcomed by the yelp community include:
- the potential to shit up reviews. Imagine an endless back-and-forth pissing match in the reviews section between a yelper and a business owner. "You suck. No, you suck! No, YOU suck! No, YOU"... you see what I'm getting at here? If I pull up yelp because I want to read reviews for a new steakhouse and see a catfight, guess what? I'm going to go to another website.
- the potential to have reviews that are less than 100 percent honest. If you're afraid of getting negative feedback by the owner of a restaurant that you had a bad experience at, are you now going to come out with both guns blazing? Or are you even going to bother writing a review at all?
- the potential to water down reviews because people are afraid to be as creative as they once were. Hmm... maybe you liked a particular restaurant, and you want to write a funny review. It'll be positive, maybe even 5 stars, but you want to jazz it up a little. Maybe one or two F-bombs or some adult humor. What if now you're censoring yourself because you're afraid someone'll take it the wrong way?
- the fact that it's too "corporate." One of the big selling points of yelp was that they didn't try to suck up to the business community. You were free to be honest and not worry about being censored due to sponsors or a given business not liking what you had to say (key word being "honest"). This just reeks of being co-opted by the business community.
Compounding this is the fact that yelp's been called out for ethical issues in the past (such as sucking up to sponsors by removing critical reviews, and bullying business owners to pay for sponsorships (and when they don't, good reviews mysteriously get removed and negative ones fill the void). It's been enough of an issue that many of us speculate this new business owner comment feature is yelp's way of playing damage control. To be fair, I can't prove any of these negative allegations (like the aforementioned extortion), and I've always defended yelp on this score in the past. No more.
When I saw yelp's email alert about this new feature, I actually got angry. And I thought about all the other things wrong with yelp:
- It seems yelp's a beacon for every person who can't be assed to use the search function on yelp and instead post useless threads like "Halp! I want a steak for dinner. Where should I go?" Seriously, a lot of them were about this inane.
- Moderation on the talk threads was near non-existent. Too many trolls allowed to run rampant. And if someone did get flagged or suspended, too many people turned it into a witch hunt to find out why anyone would find a comment like "get the fuck out of here asshole, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about" offensive. FREEDOM OF SPEACH AMIRITE RAAAARH!!!1!
- Too many serious, long-time yelpers (okay, long-time being a matter of perspective) being turned off by the direction of the talk threads, which devolved into the same five or six people (some of whom I believe are truly a little "slow") bantering back and forth.
But no (sigh). I quickly talked myself out of that notion. When I wrote my last review, it seemed like it took forever to write. And I didn't have any fun writing it. It almost seemed like an utter burden. And then I remembered something.
There was an early 80s porn star by the name of Veronica Hart. She starred in some critically-acclaimed movies (as far as smut goes) and walked away from it all in the mid-80s. Her reasoning? It wasn't fun anymore, and she made a promise to herself that she'd stop performing the minute it felt like her job was a job.
And... that's where I find myself now. Will I ever write another review for the site. Perhaps, but not for now. It also remains to be seen if the site will take a turn for the worse in the coming months (I have my suspicions on the matter, but I think the site's headed for a sea change, either for good or for bad, in the next few months).
So why did I call this post It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday? Because the one thing that kept me from abandoning the site completely (I had actually toyed with closing out my account, in which case the reviews would be deleted) were the warm fuzzies I got when I first joined the site. There have been all sorts of things that I would have never done or experienced prior to joining yelp:
- Hung out in Georgetown (thanks Kathleen, Stef, Kevin, Michelle, and of course Jeff, for whom we were trying to find at least one comfortable pair of jeans!)
- Played trivia with a group of complete strangers (thanks Craig!)
- Rode a city bus (I had a serious distrust of buses for years)
- Modeled in the buff in front of a roomful of strangers (thanks Mikkela!)
- Gotten a Brazilian wax (thanks Jade!)
- Found the one decent barber shop in DC (thanks Venu!)
- Eaten at two Peruvian chicken joints. Back to back (thanks Su and the Carnivore Crew!)
- Gone out for a group manicure and pedicure (thanks Karman!)
- Eaten sushi. And discovering I liked it (thanks Armenoush!)
- Gotten excited about going to Target. Yes... Target (thanks DC!)
- Braved the inexorable crowd at Matchbox for some of the best food in the city (thanks Kathleen!)
- Liked it so much that I came a goddamned week early to a UYE and will never live it down (thanks Kevin!)
- Hiked about a mile to the Metro with a heavy box, working up a sweat on a cold day, but giddy that I finally found a place that carried all my Belgian beer favorites (thanks Jim!)
- Discovered that if I want Mexican food in the District, I know exactly who to go to for recommendations (thanks Mary Kay and Laura!)
- Found out that I really had the inner strength to walk away from something that gave me all these experiences, knowing that it's the people I met along the way that are truly important (thanks Stef!)
I just gotta reconcile myself to the fact that you can never really go back to the way things once were...
Friday, February 6, 2009
Glynn Jones Salon can go bite my butt!
So, as a lot of you know, I write reviews on yelp. And as some of you may know, I absolutely, positively, cannot stand spam reviews. You know, reviews written by the owner of a particular business, in complete violation of yelp's terms of service (which stipulate that reviews come from easily identifiable people who aren't connected with a given establishment). After all, if you want to yelp your own business, how can you legitimately rate it? You want to give it five stars? How can you honestly be expected to rate your business impartially? The answer is, you can't.
Equally noxious are reviews that are written at the request of a business owner. This scenario is a little different. Instead of writing a review of your own establishment, you contact current and former clients and ask them to write a review of your business. The catch is, do you really think such people are going to ask all their clients, both happy and unsatisfied, to write a fair and impartial review? You're damned right they're n0t. It wouldn't make any sense for a business owner to solicit any feedback that was less than 100 percent positive.
It's dirty pool as far as I'm concerned. Yelp shoud be an environment where real people write real reviews. No corporate meddling whatsoever. Yet, every now and then you'll find a business (almost always a beauty salon) on yelp that does shit like this. I can't stand it. Especially because they're not even subtle about it.
Hey, you're the owner of Jim Jones Beauty Salon? And you write one little less-than-honest review? Chances are, no one will even notice. But most places get greedy. They'll write (or sanction) one less-than-forthright review, and they get hooked. They'll want to write more!
Like Glynn Jones Salon. There's been lots of reviews of this place over the past week or two. And that's left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of DC area yelpers. You see, there's plenty of talented yelpers who spend countless hours, without any thought of payment, who pour their heart and soul into incredibly well-written reviews that honestly describe their experiences. And yet places like Glynn Jones can seemingly write (or authorize) numerous ficticious reviews with impunity, thereby negating all of what yelp and yelpers ("real people, real reviews") stand for. To the point, in the past week or so, yelp has seen over 50 reviews written for Glynn Jones, the vast majority of which look highly suspicious to long-time yelpers. You can see what I'm talkin' 'bout here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/glynn-jones-salon-and-spa-alexandria#hrid:bOXodQi0wdjCFlPj4rZlKw
Enough! It's time to level the god damned playing field. It's time for an unreview. You see, a yelp review should be written by an easily identifiable person, who writes an actual, factual review of a particular business. But if a business wants to cheat and circumvent the system, that's where the unreview comes in. You wanna make a mockery of the rules to pad your bottom line? So be it! Some of us will just have to feel compelled enough to write a particularly snarky unreview to counteract that. So here goes!
*Before I begin, I need to give you some background. My nickname on yelp is "Sheriff John Stone." That'll help you make sense of the following unreview. Enjoy!
Whoa there, pardner! I don’t think we’ve met ‘round these parts. But I been keepin’ my eye on you recently, sure as the Red River lets you know you’re in Sooner territory.
They call me the Sheriff ‘round these parts. Been holdin’ office for a few years now. I like to keep things real peaceful, yunnerstand? But fella? I been hearin’ a lot o’ complaints boutcha lately. An’ sure as ol’ Prezdent Washington has hisself a reputation fer bein’ honest, I got a reputation fer keepin’ things real friendly here.
You see, we like to keep things real honest ‘round these parts. ‘Round here, folk keep their word and speak the truth. Ain’t much use fer dishonesty and bearin’ false witness, yunnerstand, pardner? Even when folk get to disagreein’, folk do it with an open face. No hidin’ behind a mask.
Guess I should get to the point. You hafta forgive me on that. Once a man gets to a certain age, well, he just gets to ramblin’, y’know? Y’mind if I have a sip o’ this here bourbon? A man works up a powerful thirst from honest labor, y’know. You want some? Pre-war. Back before all that fuss ‘bout the North an’ the South.
See, I been gettin’ a lot o’ complaints ‘round my office. Folk come up to me in the general store and say “sheriff, there’s a no good varmint ‘round these here parts!” Now, in other territories, like in Utah, they’d gawtdarn bring a man ‘fore a firin’ squad on account o’ these allegations, sure as the Tuscon sun’ll burn a man ‘fore noon.
Now, you see folk ‘round these parts been getting’ to talkin’. Sayin’ your outfit been bearin’ false witness an’ all that. Sayin’ y’all don’t speak the truth. Them’s real harsh allegations there, fella. Reckon if they was sayin’ all that mess ‘bout me, I wouldn’t sleep well at night. I’d be sweatin’ like a Phoenix whore durin’ Sunday Mass.
Y’see, I been doin’ some pokin’ an’a proddin’. And fella, things look mighty suspicious to the law here. More satisfied folk comin’ outta your business than satisfied folk comin’ outta Madam Le Farge’s House o’ Ill Repute. Mighty suspicious, if’n you ask me, ‘specially if you know Madam Le Farge like I do.
So I’mma offer you a challenge. Call you out, if you will. Pardner, I’m givin’ you what them big city folk call a “cease an’ desist order.” I ain’t take no Latin in school or nothin’. The prairie been the Sheriff’s school ever since the James boys been terrorizin’ the West an’ ol’ Bobby Ford put a stop to that nonsense. But see here. This “cease an’ desist” order means you best stop with the monkeyshines and start straightnin’ up and flyin’ right. Fella, I’m gonna ‘splain it to you’s real simple. Simple, as in that farmhand ‘round the ol’ Johnson ranch, the one that ain’t quite right in the head, could unnerstand what this man’s sayin’. You got ‘till Monday. High Noon. To gather your flock and head on out a’ these parts. Don’t matter where you go. But you c’aint stay here.
And son? I reckon you take my advice seriously. ‘Cause when the Sheriff get to thinkin’, the Sheriff get to thinkin’. An’ then he might have to chase you all the way to the Rio Grande. An’ even then, the Sheriff knows some fine folk ‘round Monterrey. Hombres that live large in tha’ saddle an’ siempre keep true to their word. Pardner… you anger a righteous vaquero from Mexico Way, you stir up one Lincoln County-sized hornet’s nest you never wish you gazed eyes upon, comprende?
Now, ‘fore you think the Sheriff is some kinda no good scallywag, I’ll make ya’ an offer, as straight as the Wells Fargo coach to Flagstaff. I ain’t no Judge Roy Bean. A sense o’ mercy gotta’ account for somethin’. Come High Noon this hear Monday an’ you got a hankerin’ for some talk, you just post yourself a new thread inna Talk section. Man’s gotta right to defend hisself, I ain’t gonna deny. More flags ‘round these parts than General McClellan’s Army of the Potomac or ol’ General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. So if you take differences with what I gotta say, you just post yerself a Talk thread. Monday. High Noon. An’ you come clean an’ say what it is you’re ‘bout.
Best to clear the air before things get too hairy. Lotta dead ranch hands an’ sheepherders in the past ‘cause o’ some simple misunderstandin’s. So’s I’m givin’ you an offer to speak your piece. An’ if you’ll be so kind, I’ll be wont to speak mine. Maybe we can come to some sorta accommodation. Like ol’ Geronimo. There was an hombre with honor. Said “a man gotta stand proud an’ live free. Man gotta look at hisself in the mirror come sundown an’ rest easy with what he sees” an’ kept his word, even though he was gamblin’ with two deuces when the house hadda straight flush. Gotta respect a man like that.
Equally noxious are reviews that are written at the request of a business owner. This scenario is a little different. Instead of writing a review of your own establishment, you contact current and former clients and ask them to write a review of your business. The catch is, do you really think such people are going to ask all their clients, both happy and unsatisfied, to write a fair and impartial review? You're damned right they're n0t. It wouldn't make any sense for a business owner to solicit any feedback that was less than 100 percent positive.
It's dirty pool as far as I'm concerned. Yelp shoud be an environment where real people write real reviews. No corporate meddling whatsoever. Yet, every now and then you'll find a business (almost always a beauty salon) on yelp that does shit like this. I can't stand it. Especially because they're not even subtle about it.
Hey, you're the owner of Jim Jones Beauty Salon? And you write one little less-than-honest review? Chances are, no one will even notice. But most places get greedy. They'll write (or sanction) one less-than-forthright review, and they get hooked. They'll want to write more!
Like Glynn Jones Salon. There's been lots of reviews of this place over the past week or two. And that's left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of DC area yelpers. You see, there's plenty of talented yelpers who spend countless hours, without any thought of payment, who pour their heart and soul into incredibly well-written reviews that honestly describe their experiences. And yet places like Glynn Jones can seemingly write (or authorize) numerous ficticious reviews with impunity, thereby negating all of what yelp and yelpers ("real people, real reviews") stand for. To the point, in the past week or so, yelp has seen over 50 reviews written for Glynn Jones, the vast majority of which look highly suspicious to long-time yelpers. You can see what I'm talkin' 'bout here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/glynn-jones-salon-and-spa-alexandria#hrid:bOXodQi0wdjCFlPj4rZlKw
Enough! It's time to level the god damned playing field. It's time for an unreview. You see, a yelp review should be written by an easily identifiable person, who writes an actual, factual review of a particular business. But if a business wants to cheat and circumvent the system, that's where the unreview comes in. You wanna make a mockery of the rules to pad your bottom line? So be it! Some of us will just have to feel compelled enough to write a particularly snarky unreview to counteract that. So here goes!
*Before I begin, I need to give you some background. My nickname on yelp is "Sheriff John Stone." That'll help you make sense of the following unreview. Enjoy!
Whoa there, pardner! I don’t think we’ve met ‘round these parts. But I been keepin’ my eye on you recently, sure as the Red River lets you know you’re in Sooner territory.
They call me the Sheriff ‘round these parts. Been holdin’ office for a few years now. I like to keep things real peaceful, yunnerstand? But fella? I been hearin’ a lot o’ complaints boutcha lately. An’ sure as ol’ Prezdent Washington has hisself a reputation fer bein’ honest, I got a reputation fer keepin’ things real friendly here.
You see, we like to keep things real honest ‘round these parts. ‘Round here, folk keep their word and speak the truth. Ain’t much use fer dishonesty and bearin’ false witness, yunnerstand, pardner? Even when folk get to disagreein’, folk do it with an open face. No hidin’ behind a mask.
Guess I should get to the point. You hafta forgive me on that. Once a man gets to a certain age, well, he just gets to ramblin’, y’know? Y’mind if I have a sip o’ this here bourbon? A man works up a powerful thirst from honest labor, y’know. You want some? Pre-war. Back before all that fuss ‘bout the North an’ the South.
See, I been gettin’ a lot o’ complaints ‘round my office. Folk come up to me in the general store and say “sheriff, there’s a no good varmint ‘round these here parts!” Now, in other territories, like in Utah, they’d gawtdarn bring a man ‘fore a firin’ squad on account o’ these allegations, sure as the Tuscon sun’ll burn a man ‘fore noon.
Now, you see folk ‘round these parts been getting’ to talkin’. Sayin’ your outfit been bearin’ false witness an’ all that. Sayin’ y’all don’t speak the truth. Them’s real harsh allegations there, fella. Reckon if they was sayin’ all that mess ‘bout me, I wouldn’t sleep well at night. I’d be sweatin’ like a Phoenix whore durin’ Sunday Mass.
Y’see, I been doin’ some pokin’ an’a proddin’. And fella, things look mighty suspicious to the law here. More satisfied folk comin’ outta your business than satisfied folk comin’ outta Madam Le Farge’s House o’ Ill Repute. Mighty suspicious, if’n you ask me, ‘specially if you know Madam Le Farge like I do.
So I’mma offer you a challenge. Call you out, if you will. Pardner, I’m givin’ you what them big city folk call a “cease an’ desist order.” I ain’t take no Latin in school or nothin’. The prairie been the Sheriff’s school ever since the James boys been terrorizin’ the West an’ ol’ Bobby Ford put a stop to that nonsense. But see here. This “cease an’ desist” order means you best stop with the monkeyshines and start straightnin’ up and flyin’ right. Fella, I’m gonna ‘splain it to you’s real simple. Simple, as in that farmhand ‘round the ol’ Johnson ranch, the one that ain’t quite right in the head, could unnerstand what this man’s sayin’. You got ‘till Monday. High Noon. To gather your flock and head on out a’ these parts. Don’t matter where you go. But you c’aint stay here.
And son? I reckon you take my advice seriously. ‘Cause when the Sheriff get to thinkin’, the Sheriff get to thinkin’. An’ then he might have to chase you all the way to the Rio Grande. An’ even then, the Sheriff knows some fine folk ‘round Monterrey. Hombres that live large in tha’ saddle an’ siempre keep true to their word. Pardner… you anger a righteous vaquero from Mexico Way, you stir up one Lincoln County-sized hornet’s nest you never wish you gazed eyes upon, comprende?
Now, ‘fore you think the Sheriff is some kinda no good scallywag, I’ll make ya’ an offer, as straight as the Wells Fargo coach to Flagstaff. I ain’t no Judge Roy Bean. A sense o’ mercy gotta’ account for somethin’. Come High Noon this hear Monday an’ you got a hankerin’ for some talk, you just post yourself a new thread inna Talk section. Man’s gotta right to defend hisself, I ain’t gonna deny. More flags ‘round these parts than General McClellan’s Army of the Potomac or ol’ General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. So if you take differences with what I gotta say, you just post yerself a Talk thread. Monday. High Noon. An’ you come clean an’ say what it is you’re ‘bout.
Best to clear the air before things get too hairy. Lotta dead ranch hands an’ sheepherders in the past ‘cause o’ some simple misunderstandin’s. So’s I’m givin’ you an offer to speak your piece. An’ if you’ll be so kind, I’ll be wont to speak mine. Maybe we can come to some sorta accommodation. Like ol’ Geronimo. There was an hombre with honor. Said “a man gotta stand proud an’ live free. Man gotta look at hisself in the mirror come sundown an’ rest easy with what he sees” an’ kept his word, even though he was gamblin’ with two deuces when the house hadda straight flush. Gotta respect a man like that.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Who says advertising can't be art?
I hate most modern ads. But this ad is, as the Romans used to say, fucking gorgeous:
I should ever live to be able to represent something with this much style and sophistication.
My favorite painting (probably), bar none!
I'm currently looking up at this giclee of "A Call to Arms" on my wall. It's by Edmund Blair Leighton, and is probably one of my favorite works of art.
I'm a big fan of Pre-Raphaelite art (click here to learn more: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/pre-raphaelite.html) as most of my friends know. There's just something that I find to be particularly special about this particular school of art. The romanticism. The beauty. The intangible emotions these works of art stir in me. All this is encapsulated, to me, in "A Call to Arms."
Realists, Cubists, Post-Modernists... they don't do it for me. I like to take girlfriends to art galleries, so I've learned to fake my enthusiasm for the Impressionists (I've yet to find a woman that doesn't go absolutely ga-ga over Monet!). But when people say "art," Pre-Raphaelites, along with works from the Late Renaissance, are what pops into my mind first.
Balls of Steel
AKA: All you ever wanted to know about male waxing but were afraid to ask!
I’ve been getting inquires from people about male Brazilian waxing (including, rather surprisingly, a decent amount of women), so I thought I’d write a blog entry about it rather than have painful, awkward conversations with people who were curious about it. You're welcome!
What made you do it?
Like a lot of my more daring decisions, it was borne out of a combination of boredom and the realization that I hadn’t really done anything wild and crazy in a while. Then one day I read a review by Jade R. on yelp where she detailed what it was like for her husband to get a Brazilian. After reading her excellent review (which you can read here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/polished-washington#hrid:UT5k3N71rDBxrZ7F7Dfu0w, I was intrigued enough to give it a go. After all, I reckoned, you only live once, and if I don’t like it, well, I never have to have it done again, now do I?
What’s it like? Honestly.
Warning: the below contains a whimsical description of me getting hair yanked off in the name of vanity. It also contains vivid references to my naughty bits. Continue at your own peril, or at least don’t write me any whiny, pissy emails about tee em aye.
I’m greeted at the front desk by my waxer and led to a small, private room. I proceed to take my clothes off, stow them where wax won’t get on them, and hop up on the table and lie on my back. The waxer then covers my groin with a towel while she gets the wax ready and gets all her equipment together.
It’s go time! Using sticks that look like popsicle strips, she starts to the wax in small amounts starting with the front of my legs and working inward. I’m usually given a very important job to do, which is holding my shaft tight against my stomach so no errant hairs are pulled inadvertently and that the skin is nice and tight for optimal (and less painful) removal. As I do not even want to hazard a guess as to how painful this might be, I assure you I perform this task with great diligence (though when she needs to do more precision work later, she’ll hold it taut while she works around it. There is absolutely nothing sexual or perverted about this).
Okay, now I’m sure one of the burning questions on your mind right now is “how bad is the pain? You know, especially down there?” I’m almost 100 percent positive your next question is “aren’t you worried about getting, ahem, hard, while you’re getting waxed.
In terms of pain, it’s not as bad as you’d think. I’ve pulled Band Aids off my arms that hurt far worse than getting my sweet spots waxed. Surprisingly, getting my balls waxed hurts the least (take a piece of tape, wrap it around itself like you were using it to hang up a sign, and then put it on the back of your hand and quickly rip it off. It’s like that). The only place it really hurts is the fold where the balls meet the penis. I’ve definitely let out a few yelps when that area gets waxed, but that’s the worst. My waxer also uses a spray-on can of numbing agent that helps a little too. You’re also advised to take Motrin an hour prior to getting waxed (the receptionist even suggested having a glass of wine, in all seriousness, when making my first appointment).
In terms of arousal, I honestly cannot imagine anyone getting their rocks off during this procedure, unless you’re a glutton for pain. It’s a completely non-sexual treatment. If you can’t be naked and totally lose your shit because ZOMG WOMENZ, there’s no helping you.
It takes about 15 minutes for her to wax the penis and balls. How much hair, if any, is left on is a matter of personal preference. The first time I got waxed, it all got removed, and it was honestly a bit uncomfortable, since the elastic in the waistband of the underwear would chafe that area. Usually, I ask her to leave the proverbial “landing strip” in place. Once that’s done, she uses a lamp with a magnifying lens on it to check for any stray hairs which are promptly removed with a set of tweezers.
After that, you flip on over to your stomach, where you proceed to have your cheeks and crack made silky smooth. This only takes about 10 minutes and isn’t as painful as having your front waxed. Nothing like having a buttery-soft butt!
When you’re done, you get up off the table and check yourself out in a full mirror to make sure you’re happy with the results. Then it’s time to get dressed and pony up for the bill.
How frequently should you get waxed?
My first wax lasted about a month before I needed to go back. For a while, I was going monthly, then every 6 weeks. Since my disposable income has shrunk considerably now that student loans are due, I go every two months. Generally, the more frequently you get waxed, the more likely the hair grows back slower and thinner.
I’ve heard you have to contort your body into some pretty compromising situations. Is that true?
Depends. Not with my regular waxer. The most that’ll happen is that I’ll crook one of my legs so my sole is touching my other leg, or I’ll need to spread my legs a bit when I’m on my stomach. There was another place I went to where I had to raise my knees to my chest, and then sit up on the table on all fours. I didn’t care for that as much. For one thing, there was a wall-length mirror in the room, and I looked absolutely goofy! Also, if you really think about it, you’re in one of the most vulnerable situations a man (or woman) can be in, having someone have access to the most intimate parts of your body. And on top of it, you’re having to do kama sutra poses?
Does it really make you look, you know… bigger?
It honestly never occurred to me to do a before-and-after comparison, and I generally don’t go parading my gland in front of a mirror, so I honestly couldn’t tell you. Frankly, if you’re feeling inadequate, I don’t think removing an inch of hair is really going to help with anything.
Do women like it?
Based on an extremely scientific study of one woman that I dated when I started getting waxed, the answer is (drum roll please)… I don’t really know. She certainly didn’t take issue with it, but I wasn’t exactly trying to elicit feedback (the heat of the moment is not the time you want to be polling someone!). One thing that I happen to like is that, unlike before, I’m not having issues with hair getting caught up on the condom (ouch!).
Do YOU like it?
Enough to have it done on a regular basis for about a year! It’s honestly addictive (the look and feeling, not the actual part about ripping your hair off!). Pretty much everyone my waxer sees says they can’t imagine going back to being a sasquatch.
I’ve been getting inquires from people about male Brazilian waxing (including, rather surprisingly, a decent amount of women), so I thought I’d write a blog entry about it rather than have painful, awkward conversations with people who were curious about it. You're welcome!
What made you do it?
Like a lot of my more daring decisions, it was borne out of a combination of boredom and the realization that I hadn’t really done anything wild and crazy in a while. Then one day I read a review by Jade R. on yelp where she detailed what it was like for her husband to get a Brazilian. After reading her excellent review (which you can read here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/polished-washington#hrid:UT5k3N71rDBxrZ7F7Dfu0w, I was intrigued enough to give it a go. After all, I reckoned, you only live once, and if I don’t like it, well, I never have to have it done again, now do I?
What’s it like? Honestly.
Warning: the below contains a whimsical description of me getting hair yanked off in the name of vanity. It also contains vivid references to my naughty bits. Continue at your own peril, or at least don’t write me any whiny, pissy emails about tee em aye.
I’m greeted at the front desk by my waxer and led to a small, private room. I proceed to take my clothes off, stow them where wax won’t get on them, and hop up on the table and lie on my back. The waxer then covers my groin with a towel while she gets the wax ready and gets all her equipment together.
It’s go time! Using sticks that look like popsicle strips, she starts to the wax in small amounts starting with the front of my legs and working inward. I’m usually given a very important job to do, which is holding my shaft tight against my stomach so no errant hairs are pulled inadvertently and that the skin is nice and tight for optimal (and less painful) removal. As I do not even want to hazard a guess as to how painful this might be, I assure you I perform this task with great diligence (though when she needs to do more precision work later, she’ll hold it taut while she works around it. There is absolutely nothing sexual or perverted about this).
Okay, now I’m sure one of the burning questions on your mind right now is “how bad is the pain? You know, especially down there?” I’m almost 100 percent positive your next question is “aren’t you worried about getting, ahem, hard, while you’re getting waxed.
In terms of pain, it’s not as bad as you’d think. I’ve pulled Band Aids off my arms that hurt far worse than getting my sweet spots waxed. Surprisingly, getting my balls waxed hurts the least (take a piece of tape, wrap it around itself like you were using it to hang up a sign, and then put it on the back of your hand and quickly rip it off. It’s like that). The only place it really hurts is the fold where the balls meet the penis. I’ve definitely let out a few yelps when that area gets waxed, but that’s the worst. My waxer also uses a spray-on can of numbing agent that helps a little too. You’re also advised to take Motrin an hour prior to getting waxed (the receptionist even suggested having a glass of wine, in all seriousness, when making my first appointment).
In terms of arousal, I honestly cannot imagine anyone getting their rocks off during this procedure, unless you’re a glutton for pain. It’s a completely non-sexual treatment. If you can’t be naked and totally lose your shit because ZOMG WOMENZ, there’s no helping you.
It takes about 15 minutes for her to wax the penis and balls. How much hair, if any, is left on is a matter of personal preference. The first time I got waxed, it all got removed, and it was honestly a bit uncomfortable, since the elastic in the waistband of the underwear would chafe that area. Usually, I ask her to leave the proverbial “landing strip” in place. Once that’s done, she uses a lamp with a magnifying lens on it to check for any stray hairs which are promptly removed with a set of tweezers.
After that, you flip on over to your stomach, where you proceed to have your cheeks and crack made silky smooth. This only takes about 10 minutes and isn’t as painful as having your front waxed. Nothing like having a buttery-soft butt!
When you’re done, you get up off the table and check yourself out in a full mirror to make sure you’re happy with the results. Then it’s time to get dressed and pony up for the bill.
How frequently should you get waxed?
My first wax lasted about a month before I needed to go back. For a while, I was going monthly, then every 6 weeks. Since my disposable income has shrunk considerably now that student loans are due, I go every two months. Generally, the more frequently you get waxed, the more likely the hair grows back slower and thinner.
I’ve heard you have to contort your body into some pretty compromising situations. Is that true?
Depends. Not with my regular waxer. The most that’ll happen is that I’ll crook one of my legs so my sole is touching my other leg, or I’ll need to spread my legs a bit when I’m on my stomach. There was another place I went to where I had to raise my knees to my chest, and then sit up on the table on all fours. I didn’t care for that as much. For one thing, there was a wall-length mirror in the room, and I looked absolutely goofy! Also, if you really think about it, you’re in one of the most vulnerable situations a man (or woman) can be in, having someone have access to the most intimate parts of your body. And on top of it, you’re having to do kama sutra poses?
Does it really make you look, you know… bigger?
It honestly never occurred to me to do a before-and-after comparison, and I generally don’t go parading my gland in front of a mirror, so I honestly couldn’t tell you. Frankly, if you’re feeling inadequate, I don’t think removing an inch of hair is really going to help with anything.
Do women like it?
Based on an extremely scientific study of one woman that I dated when I started getting waxed, the answer is (drum roll please)… I don’t really know. She certainly didn’t take issue with it, but I wasn’t exactly trying to elicit feedback (the heat of the moment is not the time you want to be polling someone!). One thing that I happen to like is that, unlike before, I’m not having issues with hair getting caught up on the condom (ouch!).
Do YOU like it?
Enough to have it done on a regular basis for about a year! It’s honestly addictive (the look and feeling, not the actual part about ripping your hair off!). Pretty much everyone my waxer sees says they can’t imagine going back to being a sasquatch.
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