As you may have noticed, I've cut back on posting. That photoshoot on Friday will be my last for a good while I think. I'm not slamming the door, just losing interest.

I've lost interest in photography before and have quit for two years twice and four years another time. No, my cameras and lenses aren't for sale.

Another reason I'm stopping is the "creep factor" that I'm beginning to feel. Anytime an older man photographs younger women, even in a less sexual context, that becomes an issue. Even if I were not actually creepy (and I am a little), there would still be the appearance of creepiness. (The flip side of this is the wrongness of being bored in a situation where anyone less jaded should feel somewhat excited.)

So just as it's good for people to peel their faces away from the television or the PC once in awhile, it's good for me to back off and see what life is like without my cameras and film and chemistry and such.

Speaking of which, I do have seven or eight rolls of film to develop and have just mixed up some XTol to replace that crappy Ilfosol S and will be getting to those rolls soon. When they're scanned I'll show a few. Those are Toyie and Isobel Wren.

This one is Angela, of course.

I wanna vacation! It's not like I'm overworked or anything, but the ennui is setting in bigtime. I'd probably just waste vacation anyway sitting around. Never had much of an imagination that way. You'd think vacation would be a big deal - it's like free money. But to use that money one has to spend more money. Maybe that doesn't sound like a contradiction or a catch 22 to you, but it does to me. I've got all the free time I want without vacation, but it's in daily bites, rather than a lump. To do a lump I have to go somewhere. Otherwise the small bites are fine.

Going somewhere doesn't much appeal to me. I'm going to Virginia next week and in a couple more, to Tel Aviv. But I'm a shitty tourist. There is such a thing as a "couple of tourists" but there are few individual tourists. Why look at stuff if there's no one to talk about it with? I suppose I could go look and tell you about it, but given my silver tongue you'd have no reason to go anywhere yourself.

A friend is traveling to Bali and Thailand with an eye to retiring there. He says the girls all like older men. I think the some of the girls like money. I hear it rains a lot in that part of the world. Certainly did in the Philippines. I guess I wouldn't bother going because I couldn't see myself living there anyway.

Sigh.

Toyie, in a photo where we tried to get the feeling of another photo I did with a girl named Cory a long time back. It is partly successful.

That was not an inspired pick for the place to hold an interview. The barber wanted to cut hair and a tattoo artist was needling a guy and while the noise wasn't overwhelming, the producer said that when he cut and pasted bits of the interview, it would make the sound discontinuous. So we'll do more interview during the shoot of Isobel on Friday in LA.

They did tape me riding in and parking. And riding away. And again. Repeat. Wish I didn't ride like a fragile old man. A wheelie or stoppie woulda been nice. Oh well.

Traveling to Norfolk, Virginia next week. One day and the two adjacent nights only. Then on the 31st I'll fly to Tel Aviv. Amman, Jordan isn't firm yet. I do look forward to doing a bit of travel again. That's pretty much dried up since I flew 150,000 miles back in 2006. That'll get me some frequent flier miles so I can bring models here to visit.

This is Candy Poses photographed at the same place I'll be shooting Isobel on Friday. A link to Candy's blog is on the right.

The SexTV interview will take place tomorrow at Two Roses Tattoo/Cafe/Barbershop here in the barrio. Drop by around 3:30 if you want to watch it. Buy an espresso; get a tattoo. Or a haircut. This place is part of the freshening up of the neighborhood.

I apparently promised to take breakfast to the Ex this morning. She screwed up her knee and is immobile. I'm trying to imagine a breakfast that doesn't include eggs, toast, some pork product. I may revert to the Middle Eastern standard of fruit, bread and cheese. It's not as filling as Americans are used to, but provided I can find the right thinly sliced, hard white cheese, it should be perfect.

Picked up the new steampunk anthology book Steampunk a couple days ago and am just now finishing it up. A couple of the stories I've read before, and one in particular I couldn't finish - a little too gross - but it's a pretty good introduction to the genre, particularly the introduction and interspersed notes. This is a good place to start if you're steampunk curious, but not necessarily a good book if you're already immersed. Too much the snack and not enough the meal.

I've noted a strong following of Moleskine notebooks among literati on the web. It seems to be a meme. So, needing a couple of books for reloading and range logs, I ordered four. (The dumbshit outfit I ordered from, BargainCell, sent three and hasn't made good on the fourth.) One of the three has ridden in my back pocket since receipt and been used for notes for this blog, lists of stuff, a quick sketch of a house plan I couldn't simply print out, etc. The downside is that I have to carry a pencil. The upside is that the notebooks are substantial. I have the pocket-sized reporter books with grid paper. They are beautiful. Hand-made, high quality materials. They can easily become not only an affectation, but a habit.

Sacha, relaxing in a hot tub in the middle of a very cold winter. At least she was in the water - I'd climbed out of the pool and into that winter to take this.

I think, therefor I am. You are what you eat. Clothes make the man. You are what you own. The descent into hyper-capitalism has created some absurdities. Six hundred dollar checks from the government (that would be us) to get the economy moving again. Sixty percent of the economy is consumer purchases. Not airplanes or highways or nuclear power plants or other infrastructure, but gasoline and clothing and Tupperware® and coffee and jewelry and lawn elves. And the government, unlike the government that put us to work to escape the Great Depression, is handing out checks so we can buy some stuff, no work required.

Better, I think, that the 5.5% unemployed should get that money for the effort of planting shelter belts (trees, for you city people), repairing ignored roads, cleaning up beaches or anything that has value to the people that are actually footing the bill. Someone had to earn that money that's being handed out. Either directly, or by loss of value of money saved through dilution of the supply. But no - free money for all, to spend on stuff!

Wouldn't you think the government that's so concerned about Americans' lack of savings should encourage some thrift? Wouldn't you think a government that calls itself "conservative" would want some value in return? Nope - spend that "free" money on stuff to get us going again. And in the mean time the government (that's us again) is going to guaran-damn-tee a bunch of shaky mortgages so crooked banks and financial institutions don't go broke. Wouldn't be good if Darwin had his way with business after all. I mean, that would be like...uh...Capitalism.

I thought conservatives liked Capitalism. Guess not. Buncha idiots.

Got off track again. Sorry. Hyper-consumerism. Life is now officially about the stuff one owns. Not about who one is, what one does or can do, one's ethics, philosophy, knowledge, wisdom. It's about the lawnmower and the sweater.

An article I read recently mourned the loss of neighborhoods where the butcher lived next door to the banker and auto mechanic. So-called neighborhoods are now carefully graduated indicators of wealth. Or as I like to call it, "amount of stuff/ability to buy stuff." The good part is that some of the old neighborhood identifiers weren't all that wonderful. Race, for example. Stuff is probably a less harmful way to segregate, if segregation is necessary.

Keep checking the mailbox. When you get that check, do your patriotic duty and spend it foolishly! Your Gummint is counting on you!

Toyie, in a frame from the latest roll of film. You can tell that she likes me.

Hey Toyie! Your next two rolls are hanging up drying. Look for some more pictures tomorrow!

On the road to being a Canadian Sex God: The producer for SexTV contacted me today and confirmed that we'll be taping an interview down here in San Diego on the 5th and then doing the photo shoot in Los Angeles late afternoon the 9th. Isobel Wren will be the model. I'm sorta nervous - haven't had an audience of more than one before, much less a remote audience of millions. Whatever. We'll get good pictures and that's the most important part anyway. Been wanting to work with Isobel for quite awhile now.

Rifles: I've been putting some test loads together for a little rifle I expect to shoot for the first time near Santa Barbara on the 10th. I put them together with extreme care, hand measuring the charges in a balance scale sensitive enough to differentiate one gunpowder kernel one way or the other. Primers are squeezed in with the same force, bullets are seated to less than 0.001" difference, and so on. I'm learning some things along the way. Like a powder trickler is better than tapping a kernel at a time from a plastic dipper by hand. And chamfering the case mouth makes bullets seat more consistently. But as I'm putting this care into making the ammunition, I'm becoming less interested in the rest of the accouterments that go with shooting on a target range. I want the rifle to hit what I point it at, but am not real interested in rifle stands and spotting scopes and sandbags. I'm more interested in, once I'm sure of the accuracy of the rifle itself, shooting offhand, sitting and prone. I might decide to remove the scope in favor of iron sights again. I'd rather have the holes appearing in the targets be a function of how well I can shoot, rather than how well the rifle can. Still, first I've got to know what the rifle can do.

Motorcycles: Nothing to report except my daily commute is really cheap compared to the folks driving the SUVs. Nyah nyah.

This is Angela. I've gone too long without showing a picture of her. There are other pictures of her really naked and being toyed with by Cynnamon and stuff like that, but you'll have to go back to find those. This one caught my fancy today.