Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Cowboy Bebop

Ugh, I just fell asleep halfway through watching the Cowboy Bebop movie with Forrest. I've seen the shows and really liked them, but I'd never seen the movie. This being sick thing sucks.

So I wake up in a pool of fever sweat and decide to take a hot bath before firing up the TiVo to watch the rest of the movie. And I make the mistake of checking the internet while the water is running.

There is one fat over-the-hill model who hasn't retired and feels compelled to talk trash about me every March. I don't know why March is special, but I haven't shot her in years and it seems to be an annual event for her to politick against me this time of year. Some of her March attempts were not very successful this year. A number of people have told me that her bitter recriminations against everyone but herself are wearing thin. But that doesn't mean there aren't a couple of pawns who are up in arms over bullshit because she wound them up and they are too blind to see that it is because she doesn't want competition from younger thinner girls.

So I just got an email from a model threatening to physically assault me.

Rewind:

I see pix online of a pretty girl with straight pitch black hair, milky white skin, and lots of facial piercings.
I contact girl and she tells me "It would be an honor to work with you. I always admired your work, and considered it to be Yard stick by which all Gothic Portraiture should be measured."
We agree on our standard rate, standard release, and nudity level, wardrobe and makeup.
She shows up with her guy. Most people have a no husbands/boyfriends rules, but I let him stay.
She shows up having removed ALL of her facial piercings.
She shows up tan.
She shows up broken out.
She shows up in pretty un-Gothic makeup with nothing to touch up with when she was told to bring her stuff and put it on after arrival.
She shows up with a dark brown fright wig pinned and heavily hairsprayed crookedly into her hair.
She shows up with almost no wardrobe and only kind of cheesecakey outfits instead of the clubby ones she was asked to bring.
She shows up about thirty pounds heavier than in the images I booked her from.
She seems uncomfortable nude despite having modeled before and having been offered a nude model pay rate, so I make it a mostly only topless shoot.
I pay her as I agreed. Even though she did not do as she agreed.
I don't bother processing the pictures because they are not worth it. They are not really on theme. They are not that sexy. Her crooked wig makes a lot of them unsalvageable and the rest would need major Photoshop and I don't like to work my pictures like that.
I get one picture of the girl published in a magazine because she is modeling clothing a friend of mine designed and I want to promote his work. Yes, I provided wardrobe for some of this session. The magazine is expensive and pricey to ship, but I send the girl a copy.
She asks me for a CD of images. I really doubt she wants to see what she actually looked like that day and, at any rate, it was a paid shoot with no content trade of any kind as part of it. I politely remind her of this.
I see the girl out at night and chat with her and take some snapshots. Snapshots are posted at a secret free URL. People are welcome to repost snapshots of themselves so long as they leave the URL on them. Snapshots are not the same as professional work. Later she emails me about why didn't we speak that night, when in fact we totally hung out and she apparently drunkenly forgot it.
Nine or so months pass and I still have not posted any of the pro pictures of this girl, but the time of year when the Wicked Bitch of the West likes to fuck with me comes around.
So this model emails me telling me she knows all about me now and she knows pictures of her have posted and I need to give her a pass to get them and she is going to physically assault me. Tells me it is not a threat but a warning.

Meanwhile another girl who just shot with same Wicked Bitch is making a federal case out of something I would have given her for free if she asked nicely, except that she dove right in name-calling.

All of which means I'm spending my time on bullshit when I should be taking care of my health, so I can be healthy enough to set up shoots with and send pictures and swag to people who are cool. There are a bunch of cool girls in SF I want to shoot where I've been meaning to book it for ages. There are like a dozen LA girls I said I would book at BondCon I haven't had time to shoot. It's on my to-do list to do email interviews with like twenty-five people I've shot where I want some text promoting what they do to run with their pictures which I've already shot. I need to do a Vegas shooting trip. I want to show the cool chicks of Phoenix the great stuff we shot of them while there . . . oh wait, dingopariah and my doctor told me to take today off and take care of myself . . .

Well, my phlegm is getting less colorful, but I sure am sick as hell still.