Stop Eyeballing the Camera

Wheeeee!

A shivelbush exclamation of joy!  Yes, shivelbush can be used in that fashion.

I have a model.  I have a couple of models.  I am doing a little happy dance.  Thank you.

Negotiations were held, a contract was signed, and best of all plans are being made for work and fun shoots.

Having learned from my last experience working with people who were less than fully clothed I got them to take test shots.   What is a test shot?  No clue what a test shot is to an expert, but to me a test shot is seeing what they look like and how they react to the camera.  Boy am I glad I did test shots.

Both look good in front of the camera.  One of them is lite-skinned and the other has a duskier complexion; thankfully this is nothing new to me, but it was good to see how they look under the lights.  What was more important to me was how they reacted to the camera.  When I did Naked in Life there was one woman who stared down the camera like it owed her money.  Every few minutes for the first few photo-shoots I would say, “Stop eyeballing the camera.”   I don’t want staged photos, I want natural photos, I want to capture you, not what you think people or I want to see.  This can be a hard concept for some people to understand.

Another woman was a natural, she never looked at the camera, but she was aware of where the camera was at all times.   I never had to ask her to stop eyeballing the camera or to look towards the camera.  She just knew where the camera was and was totally unconcerned (at least that is what she portrayed to the camera) with what the camera saw.

I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with these two.  If I had to place my bets one was going to stare down the camera and the other would be more relaxed.  Boy was I wrong.  The one I thought would be relaxed felt the same way I do about cameras, “Don’t look at them because they will steal your soul.”  I had to use a trick to get the person to look naturally at the camera, “Think about something that makes you happy or laugh.”  People’s faces rapidly start flashing through the various facial expressions that they have on the way to what I asked.  Usually starting at thoughtful, then what the fuck, then a smirk, then a smile, and finally a laugh or more natural look.  That moment is when I take the photo.  That photo is usually them in a one shot.  It worked again.  By the time the person realized what they wanted to do I had already taken a photo of them.

The other person was the one I thought was going to be camera starer, but nope they were, aside from a height issue, perfect to work with.  Did what I asked, didn’t stare at the camera, and when I said, “Think about something…” instantly hit the face I was hoping to see. The biggest issue with this person is that they are tall.  I have never worked with a tall person, so what I was expecting to see lighting-wise was totally different.  I can tell I am going to need more lights.  Not a big problem, but if I hadn’t done the test shots I would have been seriously bothered by the amount of work to do mid-shoot and extra work is something I like to avoid once the models are in place.

Hopefully, once schedules get worked out we will start shooting and then there will be photos to go with some of the Bondage for blogs.  I know my descriptions are not the best, at least I think they aren’t, hopefully with photos everyone will understand what I am talking about and be able to enjoy the same amount of fun as we are.

Hand Turkey

Welcome to college, where only the “best,” the “brightest,” and “most motivated” go in an effort to procure the education necessary for a better tomorrow for themselves and the world.

HA HA HA Ha ha ha ha (cough, cough, cough, gagging cough)…(sputter) ha ha ha…

I know, that was pretty funny.

Here is the assignment, you have to pick a bird that is native to Michigan (because that is where the class is held), draw a picture and answer some questions about the bird in question.  This study will be used in your nature journal.

The above illustration, a hand turkey *, was on top of the pile of papers to be turned in when I went to turn mine in.  I seriously thought about donkey punching the fucktard who turned it in.  ”Best, brightest, and most motivated” my ass!

* A hand turkey for those that do not have children and cannot remember their childhood is made by placing your hand on a piece of paper, tracing your hand, and drawing in the beak, legs and eyes.  If you are a motivated child you may color your hand turkey.  The college student was not feeling that motivated.

Shivelbush!

Creamy Chicken Ramen Disaster

Shivelbush!

Shock.  Horror.  Unimaginable.  As if everything that you had thought was true was suddenly proven to be completely, totally, and irreversibly wrong, that was how I was feeling.  Nothing could have prepared me for what I was staring at.  So lost in the trauma that someone had to ask me to step aside so that they could pass.  There was no ramen.  None.

Oh sure there were those “Cup O” shits.  Those are crap!  Crap I say.  What can you do with a Cup O anything?  You can heat the fucking thing up, burn your hands on the overheated Styrofoam, burn you tongue on the overheated water, why water because the flavor powder burned to the Styrofoam at the bottom of the cup giving you that burned plastic taste; you know the authentic flavor of the orient.  Which by the way, what in the fuck is Oriental Flavor?  How many Orientals had to be ground into a fine powder before the flavor was achieved?  No Orientals I tell you, not a single one, which brings me back to my original question, what the fuck is Oriental Flavor?

Do not get me started on those ramen trays, but since I am a self-starter what the fuck!  I have yet to have one of those trays work out like the instructions say.  Melted tray, only the ramen at one end is “done,” the ramen at the other end is either still rock hard or burned to a crisp and not in that good crisp way either.  And the flavors…somewhere in some grave or urn or box or shrine, the individual that created ramen is rolling over, clouding up, or otherwise attempting to come back from the great beyond to enact their vengeance upon the corporations that mass marketed ramen.  I wish that individual luck, and will if asked from the great beyond strap on whatever implement of war necessary to tear down those corporate tools.

What can you do with a package of Maruchan Creamy Chicken?  You have to ask?  Ugh!  Sure there is a package of pre-made ramen noodles and a package of flavor, but at least this package has words that make sense, Creamy and Chicken.  The creamy is achieved with a thickener and following the instructions, but if you ignore the instructions and I do (REBEL!) you get a chicken flavored bullion cube soup.  That’s right I add more water than the instructions.  No matter whether you go creamy or you go rebel, the flavor is of chicken and not in that watermelon candy tastes like watermelon way either. The pre-made ramen noodles are perfect for those times when you don’t want to make your own noodles by hand (which I do daily, except on those days when I am using Maruchan Creamy Chicken).  Don’t want to use the flavor packet, make your own broth.  Now that I do do from time to time, but not all of the time due to the amount of time I spend making my own noodles, but when I decide to use pre-made noodles, making your own broth is a simple affair.

So here we sit as a family ramenless for the first time in over a decade.  I have ham to slice, I have green onion to slice, I have gochujang #5 to dab, and a hankering for ramen and our cupboards are bare.  I hope we can hold on until the next shipment arrives.

Outside My Window: Tow Job

Parking here sucks.  There are more cars than there are spaces, but only on one-half of our court.  The half we are on everyone seems to have two or three cars.  No fucking idea why.  Based on the conditions that are supposed to be used to qualify NOT having a car, especially two or three cars would be best.  Alas, the powers that be are not known for their brilliance.  Thus one half of the court is virtually empty, the other half, the half where we are, parking spots are at a premium.  Thus when someone parks their car where it should not be, read our half, people get bent out of shape, parking ticket dudes are called, prayers for the tow truck deity are invoked and that person tends to get the evil eye.  Why they couldn’t park on the other side we will never know.

What I do know is that once a year everything works out.  This year it was the stack of tickets, and then the boot.  The boot gets us laughing.  Seriously how hard is it to go pay the $100 for the year long pass, especially when 5 tickets (roughly 2.5 days of tickets) is $100 and by the time  you have qualified for the boot you have racked up around $250 in tickets plus the fee for the boot?  The boot is a public acknowledgment that the owner of the vehicle is indeed a fucktard.  Sure a boot is not the same as stocks, but the public shame is the same.  Watching people walk out to their car and stand next to the boot looking around in panic is fun.  The boot, if they don’t take care of the problem; i.e. being a FUCKTARD, leads to today.  The arrival of the tow truck.

Now having watched a lot of Lizard Lick this tow truck driver was not good.  He should have pulled up, jammed the lift under the car and roared off, but nooooo…he waited for the campus police officer to show up and stand there “looking for trouble” while the tow truck driver went about the whole process slow as could be.  Finally, he got the car up onto the lift, backed up, and blocked traffic.  Classic.  Notice in the photo that the police officer is already driving off, the bus is waiting and the tow truck is somewhat headed in the right direction.  Next time call Lizard Lick.

By the way the whole process took close to eight weeks.  Gotta love how fast things move here.

Shivelbush!

Why Don’t You Ask Barb?

Shivelbush,

I am trapped in the Chinese Hell of the Sexless and People Who Make Incorrect Assumptions.  Note, this is actually two different Chinese Hells, but they are close to one another.

“Why don’t you ask Barb?”  This is always the first response anytime that I ask a woman, other than Barb, if she is willing to do a photo shoot.  Before we moved up here this was not the first response, but since we have been here the conversation goes like this:

“I need a woman to take some photos for the (insert topic).  Yes, nudity is required.”

“Why don’t you ask Barb?”

“Ugh!”

Here is why I don’t ask Barb: She has not liked having her picture taken clothed or nude since I met her.  When working on Naked in Life, which was started by a photo I took of her, she was always the last one to do her photo shoots, the hardest to work with, and the last one to come up with any suggestions or ideas for her own shoots.  When the time came for her to pick out photos that she liked or didn’t like she was the last to make any choices and what she didn’t like was easier by far for her to do.  The end result was, that I learned that she didn’t like having her photo taken, she was supportive of my efforts when working with other women, but only if I pushed the subject would she take part beyond being the best assistant I have ever had.

So here I am, I have three Kinky Fuckeries (Bondage for the Novice Amateur, Holiday Theme, and Bondage for the Gifted or Flexible) that I want to publish and I would much rather have photos than my sex doodles.  While I can and most likely will publish them with sex doodles, photos are clearer especially for some of the more complex positions that I would like to share.  There is a sex doodle that right now looks like a spider getting smushed instead of a woman in a position using a few straps and cuffs.  I would rather people get the right idea than wonder, “Where do I get a spider” or “Is that a leg, arm, or what in the hell is that supposed to be?”

I am aware that in general, the thought is that when you ask a woman to take nude photos it is because you are up to something (read trying to fuck her) or at least that is how it has been expressed to me.  No amount of explaining how much work is involved with a photoshoot or showing them copies of Naked in Life, seem to make a difference.  For the record, a photoshoot takes a minimum of an hour, there are lots of lights, photoshoots can be exhausting, and in general the last thing on my mind is sex; getting the best picture is primary.   I understand that none of the women I am talking to now were involved in Naked in Life and most of them do not have a lot of experience with me, but still it is annoying.

My hope is that before the end of the month I find one woman who is willing to put aside her notions that I am trying to fuck her or just see her naked aside, take a chance, and work with me.  The results are always good; for example see any of the black and white nudes that I have posted throughout the blog, they are all pictures I took while working on Naked in Life.  Plus imagine all of the good sex that will be inspired or at least done correctly-position wise.  :)

One Sneeze Forward, Two Coughs Back

Shivelbush!

I wake up long enough to do something “productive” like go to the bathroom and then right back to sleep.

I swear I don’t feel sick.

However, my sinuses are saying something different.

I wish I could find the master switch to turn them off.

The sore throat and now gravely voice I have become in possession of say that I am sick and not in that sexy way that some gravely voices do, but in that “stand back he could be infected” way.

I haven’t lost my appetite.  I am just too tired to cook.  This is not a good combo.

My kids think me being asleep all the time is the time for climbing on me and general lawlessness.  This too is not a good combo.

My joints hurt, but that could be from the kids climbing on me while I am sleeping or the strange positions I keep waking up in.

I canceled meetings, didn’t go to class and when I did go to class I almost fell asleep during lecture.  Not that anyone would have noticed.  Still not good.

Sorry hardly the prose that you were expecting or used too, but I am tired.

I am going to try to get up from here, go to the store, and buy some soup.

Maybe later I will have some energy to be able to write something worthwhile.

Shivelbush!

Change of Season, Change of Me

How can I describe my mood?

Just about everything that someone (anyone) does irritates me.  I am seriously not happy with humanity as a whole and specific individuals in particular.  However, I am not sure how much of my mood can be attributed to the this time of year, (more on that in a moment,) the average person around me, or the slights and irritations that I am perceiving in specific people?  I really can’t tell and that is a problem for humanity, them, and me.

Every year, right about this time, usually a bit closer to my birthday I get in a mood or two.  Usually more contemplative close to my birthday and more irritated leading up to my birthday.  Every year, like clock-work.  I noticed that I was in an irritated mood when I was on Facebook un-liking almost everything, which lead me to post the following:

“As I click unlike I realize how much nicer my life was before I joined Facebook and how much work is involved in broadcasting what anyone who bothered to spend five minutes talking to me could find out. How I long for the days of conversation.”

And I mean that.  Facebook has ruined or I feel is partially responsible for ruining social interactions.  Before Facebook if you wanted to know what I liked you had to ask, you had to hold a conversation or two with me.  Today, well up to yesterday, you could go to my page and look at the “likes” and make an assumption.  An assumption that would be very wrong.  I tended to click like on things that I liked at that moment, but a few moments later no longer liked.  Now my likes are a tiny bit more representative of what I like, but the truth is a deeper.  The only reason I kept those likes is that they provide me with something.  Usually information that I value at this moment, but are my likes all I like are my Facebook likes representative of me, will they be representative of me in a week or month?  Hardly, but you will look at them, make an assumption and not ask.

That is something that has bugged the shit out of me, people don’t ask questions and when I ask questions I get that look or response which goes like this, “but that is on my Facebook page.”  News flash I don’t look at YOUR Facebook page.  Not a single person’s page.  I don’t like the shortcut to knowing you.  Imagine this from my point-of-view, if my Facebook page is not a true representation of me, why should I assume that yours is?  Plus, I like to talk to people and get to know them.

That is part of the equation, I don’t seem to know people who want to get to know the people around them, and don’t seem particularly interested in sharing who they are.  I shrug my shoulders because I am not sure what to do.  I keep meeting these single serving friends; we have our time together and then we never do anything again.  I am not used to this and I don’t like this one bit.  Perhaps this is the college experience, but…I still know people from my first two times around through college.  I still know a person from High School (I unlike most people do not cherish my high school memories or the people, it was not the best time of my life).  I still know people from ten years ago.  Here, I have met a shit ton of people, I have had fun with a bunch of them, but most of the time the pattern goes like this:

  1. Meet in class.
  2. Do stuff during the semester.
  3. End of semester.
  4. Wave when spotted.
  5. End of Interaction.

Could be a me thing.

Still the fact remains that I am in a mood, and I am aware of my mood.  For those specific people who I am not happy with, sucks for them because their actions are magnified at this moment.  Which means my normally tolerant of stupidity, young people, and generally unaware of the effects of your social blundering mood, has been shortened to my old rule of “you get three opportunities with me.”  Given that I know that I am in a mood I have wisely (I think) decided just to avoid them for the time being, and see if I feel the same way when my mood flips towards contemplative or back to a more “humanity sucks, but like water off a duck’s back I don’t give a shit unless their suckatude directly affects me” mood.  Of course the other part of the interaction equation is what they do; do they realize that they have offended, that they should make amends, or at least speak up?

I just un-liked another twenty some things.

I would give you my bet, but I will wait and see.  See I am very aware of my mood.

I Scream At the Sky Because It Doesn’t Care

Shivelbush!

Shivelbush!

SHIVEL

FUCKING

BUSH!!!

I just finished a class where the average percentage on a quiz was 52%  after the professor GAVE the answers away to all four questions of quiz. I am not happy with the level of stupidity of the average student that I keep running into.  I know that I have bitched about this before and I know that I will bitch about this again, but this is the worst university that I have ever attended or been to, student-wise.  Professor-wise I am very happy.  Adviser-wise I am very happy, but student wise…this place could be so much better.

I don’t blame technology.  I don’t blame society…well maybe I should start blaming society, but that I am positive is another blog altogether.  I blame the individual student who is not mature enough in any sense of the word to even attempt to behave like an adult.  When the Professor says, out loud, “I know six-year olds that behave better,” I am forced to agree because I know a four-year old AND a seven-year old that I have taken into college classes and they are able to sit quietly, pay attention, and ask questions that are smarter than any of the “college” students.

If I was the professor I would kick students out of my class.  I would call their parents, to let them know that “little Susie or Johnny” was wasting their fucking money and that they should take that money and go on a trip to Boca.  I would demand justice.  I would most likely be either the most hated or most liked professor on campus, but I tell you this stupidity would be checked that the doors to my room and my office.  I would be one of the gatekeepers for intelligence.  The stupid would be punished under my system.

Okay, I am less angry now.

I am still angry and will continue to be angry as long as the stupidity continues where I can see and hear it.  Perhaps I should become a superhero dedicated to fighting stupidity, but I think that I would get bored, tired and I don’t look good in tights.  I think I will just stay angry and bitch here.

Shivelbush!

Processing in the Land of the Sexless

Shivelbush.

I have finally gotten some time to start to think and process my thoughts.  This week and the weeks prior to this week have been a bit of a rush of do this, do that and try to remember to do this and that together.  This semester has been more work intensive than I expected by a long shot.  I expected that working on the On Volunteering book was going to take up a lot of my time, but I was not prepared for how much of my time the Nature Study class is taking up and how much extra work that the Book Layout class is also taking.  I am not complaining, well I am complaining about the daily printing that I have to do for the Nature Study class, if the professor would only release everything on Sunday for the following week my life and printer would be a little happier.  That aside I am enjoying what is happening this semester, just more work than I was planning on.

Thankfully I was able to make a shit ton of notes for blogs and other things that I wanted to write about done before the semester started.  Unfortunately I haven’t been able to work on them beyond the occasional drib and drab here and there.   So please bare with me as I work through some things and thoughts that have been roaming around the back of my brain for about a week.  I promise there will be at least one picture for your visual stimulation, just in case the words bore the shit out of you.  See I care about my readers.

One of the things that has been on my mind is doing something more with Project Kinky.  I know this is my movement and I should have more of a plan, but…well…I’m not really sure what to do with my idea to try to get kinky more mainstream and in a less Fifty-Shades way and a more realistic way.  I like the T-shirts and they have been popular in that “Oh look at that” or “OH, look at that” way, but no traction there.  I have yet to get stickers made, but when I do trust me they will be stuck all over the damn place if nothing else just because making them is such a pain in the ass.   That is right, I will spitefully stick stickers everywhere in spite of myself and the stickers or something like that.   I don’t know, I like the idea, I like the concept, but in all honest the Kinky Fuckery line of blogs is SOOOOOO much more popular and addressing things that people seem to want to know about.  Maybe I should combine Project Kinky with the Kinky Fuckery stuff?

Speaking of Kinky Fuckery, I have at least four different blogs that I will to write or want to write if I can get some more input on; an entire Bondage for series (Bondage the Next Generation, Bondage for the Talented, Bondage for the Gifted, Bondage for the Knot Impaired), a blog or two about “rough” sex which is turning out to be more of a research challenge than I expected.  Seems I am currently surrounded by people who don’t want to talk about sex.  Hell, in some cases I wonder if they are even having sex (this is a whole other line of thought, a very sad line of thought).  Which makes my usual method of gathering information problematic at best.  I don’t want to spit out information from books, websites and other impersonal data.  I want to be able to share information and stories that people hopefully relate to.   Alas, finding people who are willing to talk about their sex life in an open and honest way has been a bit of a tooth pulling experience since we got up here.   Teeth pulling to the point that now I toss out some minor question or statement with the expectation that nobody will be able to respond or will give me that blank stare or shocked look (seriously I am on a college campus where bringing up sex gets a shocked look more than I would like to talk about).  This saddens me, but at the moment there’s not much I can do about that…unless I start some sort of student organization…hmmm….

Those two subjects are not the only ones bouncing through my head, I have not touched any of the stories that I was writing since I said that I was going to print them off, review, edit and make any course corrections.  I haven’t even thought about them.  That was not my plan at all.   I was hoping to get back into the flow of putting out more than Menagerie, which by the way I am happy with the direction that the story is going (Darin is a great co-author), but I was hoping to start up Stroud, and Hero? by now.  Probably not going to happen for a while longer.  For those who have been waiting for some new erotica, you are going to have to wait a bit longer.  Part of the process of writing erotica for me is to have some form of inspiration, but if I can’t even get a conversation about sex started around here what in the hell am I going to do for erotica inspiration?  If you have an answer for that or even some inspiration I will gladly start writing some more erotica.   Speaking of erotica, I have edited and revised ALL of the stories that are on here, but I don’t know what I should do with them, suggestions?

Sitting at around 900 words and I haven’t even gotten to food.  I have been wanting to share some of the spicier things that I have been cooking and how trying to talk to people about cooking is in many ways like trying to talk to them about sex.  I guess I don’t look like a cook and thus people don’t listen to what I have to say about cooking.  [shrug] Apparently I have a lot more on my mind than I thought.  Perhaps in the interest of your eyes, my fingers and brain I will break this up into a second post later today.  And then there is the 500th Blog Extravaganza in three more posts (pretty much either today or tomorrow unless I slow my roll down).

Finally, a big, huge, heartfelt, and well meant

THANK YOU

to everyone who reads this blog.  I appreciate each and every view, read, comment, spam (yes I have learned to appreciate spam), and search term that leads you the reader here more than I can express.  Please keep reading.

Toy Story: What the Fuck?

I was skipping for joy back to our place when I saw the latest porn catalog in our mail box.  Talk about discrete; ORDER NOW!  Adult content!  Free DVD’s with order.  Eh, I don’t care what our mail person thinks.  Nor do I care about the looks from the people as I skip by holding my catalog promising untold adult pleasures and delights.  They are just jealous.  Then…

I open up the envelope and staring me in the face is the porn version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Uh.  Something’s not right here.  She does kind of look like Buffy, but in a more whoreish less slayerish way.  I think that is supposed to be Spike in the corner, but his vacuous look mirrors the vacuous look on the guy on the other side who I have no idea who he is supposed to be.  Maybe their cover shoot got photo-bombed.  That must be what happened.  Still I am worried.

Page three and a wheel fell of the my wagon of adult joy.  I am staring at what I can only describe as a shiny, see-through, plastic looking pair of men’s tighty-whiteys (only see through) and there is a blue circle where a dick should go.  What?  Let me read. “Look & perform at your best!”  that sounds good.  “Combining sex toys and underwear, this revealing jock (jock?  looks like undies to me) supports and enhances your dick!  The jock features an elastic waistband (good, no falling off) with a snug-fitting ring that limits blood flow to boost the girth of your shaft-just like a cock ring.”  That sound, that was another wheel falling off.  So I put this on and my dick goes through this hole, but instead of peeking his head out like he would normally do (isn’t that cute he is looking around) my dick goes through the hole and gets strangled until he stands at attention all girthy like.  What pants do I wear with that?

Let me look around a bit, the Avengers?  Is that She-Hulk being reamed by Thor?  What is happening with Scarlet Witch?  My EYES!

Flip the page.

No fucking way!

The Fifty-Shadification of Porn has happened.  This is a travesty!  I knew in my heart that seeing the Fifty-Shadification of porn would happen I just hoped that it wouldn’t happen until I was dead.  Is this a sign that my time is up?  Ugh.  For those who don’t know what I am talking about, Fifty-Shades is everywhere; coffee cups, T-shirts, BLOGS (ha), mouse pads (does anyone have those), lingerie, and even Pure Romance.  When Pure Romance picked  up the theme I knew that was them just being money-grubbing douche bags as the BDSM lifestyle is not something that the “women” (I used quotes because the company is actually run by men, fascinating story how that happened by the way) of Pure Romance actually espouse.  Trust me.   When my porn goes Fifty-Shades, one of the gates of hell has opened and another wheel fell off.  Porn inspired Fifty-Shades NOT the other way around.

What is worse is that nothing on the two-page spread has anything to do with the books.  Not the bondage tape (avoid by the way), not the “Thong Hides Your Cock Until the Moment’s Right” which looks like a fake dick electrical tapped to this poor man’s crotch, and most definitely not the “bondage” videos.  I would cry as the bondage section was one of my favorite sections, but I guess if the devil is real it’s better that he/she show his/her face where I can see it and then flip the page.

Whew, nothing else unusual until…Flame Thrower Cockring; “Hot Cock Ring Sets Your Sex Life on Fire!” Cute idea a flame red mini-vibe and a set of detachable flames, but the sharp edges and points on the flames scream to me that someone I am screwing is going to be screaming at me.  [sigh]

The catalog is on the other side of the room.  I threw it there.  The catalog has offended me.  The final wheel of the adult fun bus fell off when I found Fifty-Shades of Gray for sale.

Shivelbush!

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