Water Beating on Pale Flesh (PICS)

I was really pleased at the way Forrest Black and I were photographically able to capture the precise splashes of water on skin with this series. Shooting this gave the bunch of us an awesome excuse reason to stay in the sort of hotel which has marble showers too. Whole series in Blue Blood VIP.

Market: All Access Pass Call for Submissions

I'm reading for a sequel to my anthology Backstage Passes: An Anthology of Rock and Roll Erotica from the Pages of Blue Blood. Backstage Passes features fiction from Poppy Z. Brite, Nancy A. Collins, Yon Von Faust, Amelia G, Sèphera Girón, Andrew Greenberg, Thomas S. Roche, William Spencer-Hale, John Shirley, Shariann Lewitt, Will Judy, Althea Morin, Cecilia Tan, and more. I'm hoping to get a similar mix of kickass emerging talent and established writers for the sequel.

Extended submission guidelines for writing for Blue Blood projects in general are available on the Blue Blood Books site. There is a submission form and submit email listed on the web site.

For this book in specific, music must play a central role in the story. Events could take place at a punk club or an outdoor festival, characters may be musicians, music may just really speak to a particular character, but it needs to be important. Science fiction, horror, fantasy, and similar elements are welcome. All Access Pass is a paying market. When submitting electronically, please make the subject of your email ALL ACCESS PASS SUBMISSION.

Final deadline for submissions to All Access Pass is January 5, 2011.

Are ray gun vibrators steampunk? (PICS)

Are ray gun vibrators steampunk?

by Amelia G : September 12th, 2010

Are ray gun vibrators steampunk? This is the sort of question I lie awake at night contemplating.

Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction/fantasy/speculative fiction, which builds on the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Now H. G. Wells and Jules Verne were both geniuses and can be forgiven for imagining future technology as based on 19th century inventions and future values as growing out of a Victorian sensibility. They both came of age in the 1800’s, so they’d have a reason for this.

Personally I love the steampunk aesthetic. It’s, ya know, really really pretty. When I see all that broken or antique clockwork and gears, though, I admit I think Salvador Dali or William Faulkner. I think of the poetry of broken or past time, the ephemeral nature of humanity’s existence. I don’t think that I wish I were born in a time when American women could not vote and men were supposed to sexually overload at the sight of a table leg without a skirt on it.



Blue Blood readers will be familiar with the lovely Nicotine, who portrays Lady Clankington, as part of the tongue-in-cheek history of the little death ray sex toy rayguns line designed by “mad Dr. Visbaun”. Lady Clankington always wears steampunk couture garments from Brute Force Studios. The mad scientist behind . . .

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Steampunk Nicotine Lady Clankington (PICS)

I'm really happy Blue Blood is able to publish this special Erotic Fandom shoot by yours truly and Forrest Black. It stars Nicotine, making her fourth Blue Blood appearance, wearing couture from our long-time friends at Brute Force Studios, and showing off one of the new line of steampunk rayguns from Lady Clankington. Special thanks to The Death Knight for the kickass steampunk location. Whole series available in the Blue Blood VIP and well worth it, if I do say so myself. Watch for an interview with the lovely Nicotine coming up. Forrest Black also shot some video of Nicotine and the raygun's creator demonstrating proper product, uhm, placement. Check out the photos and you'll be able to tell where we took a break from shooting them and did the video part and then came back to the photography portion of the show. I think this is a really fabulous shoot and I'm really happy to get to share it with you all.

Ice Cube on My Block

Ice Cube on My Block

by Amelia G : September 4th, 2010

My block is generally bracketed by Russian (or possibly Armenian) gangsters in big black cars. They keep the neighborhood safe. Hollywood is probably pretty safe anyway. I occasionally hear gunshots at night, but never anything like an AK. Today, however, LAPD bookends my street instead.

Rapper Ice Cube has been set up to shoot a music video on my block since 7am this morning. There is at least one guy in a colorful three piece suit who must be suffering in the heat. There are a couple of big fine women in big fine eyelashes and small skin-tight dresses in purple and animal print. Although fewer than you’d maybe expect for a rap video set. But mostly there are a lot of people in muted T-shirts standing around. Today is scorching hot and the afternoon sun was really harsh overhead, so they may be doing a lot of waiting for the light to be right. Mostly the caterers appear to have what to do. One manager type guy is loudly telling two of the police officers hired for the shoot day about how Ice Cube gets death threats. The death threat talker is loud. Maybe to impress the big fine women. But he is suddenly silent when my crew walks past. Maybe he doesn’t know how loud he is or maybe he thinks I’m gothic and, like a bat, use sonar to hear and thus can only make out sounds in my physical proximity.

They did one shot which had an interesting set-up. They have a really beautiful big fine red convertible for the day. They had like four guys in the car, driving slowly up my street. A pair of guys jogged along beside the car on each side, each team of two holding a different reflector. I only noticed two cameras and they seemed to be getting this from the back, but I suspect it will make sense in the final video.

My balcony is pretty much a front row seat to the scene. I considered taking a few shots of the set-up. But then I thought about how many photographers have taken pictures of Forrest Black’s and my set-up, when we were shooting on location. I thought about how Forrest has literally been shown portfolios where someone is showing off having shot over Forrest’s arm. Not that I would, a zillion years, ever consider a snapshot portfolio work, but, upon reflection, I decided not to take any snapshots of the Ice Cube video shoot.



There is something surreal about this sort of thing and something terribly commonplace . . .

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Machete (PICS)

Machete

by Amelia G : September 3rd, 2010



There is a sort of school of modern directors who often collaborate and make movies within movies. In the Grindhouse outing by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, Robert Rodriguez had a sort of faux trailer, within the movie, for a movie called Machete. Fans kept coming up to him and asking if this was a real movie he was working on. Caught up in the feedback loop of fan appreciation, Robert Rodriguez assured them that he was totally working on it.

Apparently, as is often the case with creative projects, he sort of was and sort of wasn’t. The writer/director/editor had cast Danny Trejo a number of times and feels he “he pops and has one of the most amazing faces in cinema history.” Danny Trejo has been in approximately a bazillion movies, but often in a more minor gangster/vampire/bad guy’s henchman sort of role.

Robert Rodridguez says he watched John Woo movies early on and they made him (a) want to be Asian and (b) wish there was something comparable in modern cinema with a Latin flavor. I don’t personally totally get that, as those movies make me fantasize about being badass, but not any particular ethnic flavor of badass. But that’s me.</p>

When shooting Desperado in a small Mexican town, Robert Rodriguez noted that the locals assumed Danny Trejo was the star of the movie, even though his part was actually a small role as a knife-throwing assassin . . .

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If a two-tailed dog promised you free beer and eternal life . . .

If a two-tailed dog promised you free beer and eternal life . . .

by Amelia G : September 3rd, 2010



The Two-Tailed Dog Party in Hungary is making some mighty attractive election promises:

Eternal life!
Free beer!
Tax cuts!
Money without work!
There’s a 93 percent chance we won’t steal.
You will be happy!
We will promise anything.

In terms of country infrastructure, the Two-Tailed Dog Party favors flooding the roads with beer on holidays, building a spaceport, erecting snow mountains for skiers on flat plains, roller coasters arching over major cities, and existential express buses to nowhere which don’t make any stops. Also more techno music in parliament and free Burn energy drinks.

No word on whether Burn is an official sponsor of the political guerrilla street art the TTDP is doing, but they should certainly consider it. I don’t think we get Burn in the US. Any European readers want to share what it is like?

It might not be fun to be living Hungarian politics. Gergely Kovacs, chairman of the Two-Tailed Dog Party, says, “We just elect these people to represent the gangsters and the rich. This kind of democracy is ridiculous.” I’m just really impressed by such an entertaining and viral way of getting a political message . . .

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The Last Exorcism in Social Media

The Last Exorcism in Social Media

by Amelia G : September 2nd, 2010

I really like Eli Roth as a personality. He has a certain wit and charm and unstoppable DIY willingness to just go for it and stick to it, which I really enjoy. I find him most interesting as a writer and have been following him on Twitter just to read his random thoughts in 140 character installments. As an actor, his parts in Inglorious Basterds were definitely some of the most enjoyable.

One of the things I like about Eli Roth is that he seems to be genuinely a DIY guy. He financed student films by working as a phone sex operator and got private investors to make his first film Cabin Fever. One of the thing Lionsgate probably likes best about him is that he makes movies, which cost less than two million dollars to produce and gross a gajillion dollars in box office. He makes movies people want to see. The Last Exorcism, produced by Eli Roth, opened — as you probably noted from the countdown clock and banners here — on August 27 last week, and it has already grossed over twenty million smackeroos.

But I digress. The fascinating tidbit of the week from Eli Roth’s Twitter is that Ashley Bell, who plays the possibly possessed Nell Sweetzer in The Last Exorcism, did all her creepy contortions without benefit of CGI. The images in the posters and the clips I’ve seen are really striking and I like Eli Roth’s take on the whole thing, which is essentially that CGI has its place, but sometimes less is more. And he is willing to express actual happiness with his accomplishments on the internet, even in the face of people being what I believe (from my vast education on the subject) the DSM IV characterizes as “jerks”.



I haven’t seen The Last Exorcism, so I’m going to quote Mike McPadden from my Facebook, “THE LAST EXORCISM is my favorite movie of 2010 (so far). PG-13 regardless, I loved it,” Mike McPadden enthused, adding, “The more I ponder THE LAST EXORCISM, the better it becomes. And I loved it immediately. Amidst the affable, thoroughly enjoyable schlock of EXPENDABLES, PIRANHA 3D and (I’m guessing) MACHETE, LAST EXORCISM is a genuine surprise of depth and power—with a socko final wallop right out of a 70s-era 4:30 Movie!”

Speaking of Pirhana 3D, Eli Roth has an acting part in that movie as a wet T-shirt host. Apparently, Joe Francis, of Girls Gone Wild infamy, is really peeved about Pirhana 3D. He says of the character obviously based on him and played by Jerry O’Connell, “I believe Mr. O’Connell may lose more than his penis (i.e., lots of money) if he and the Weinstein Co. choose to release this film and continue to falsely associate me with its questionable content,” Francis . . . I appreciate a good parody as much as the next guy, but to associate me with drugs and the filming of underage girls crosses a definite line.” Jerry O’Connell is probably best known for playing a super-powered teen on My Secret Identity and a time-space continuum traveling dude on Sliders. Joe Francis is probably best known for his legal woes regarding his alleged use of drugs and the alleged filming of underage girls. Also his alleged tax evasion and alleged sexual assaults. I’m digressing again, but I’m just saying Joe Francis should try reading some of his own interviews and not just Jerry O’Connell’s, to find out what he is associated with.

Mike McPadden and I are both veterans of the Desktop Publishing Revolution and zinesterdom. He did a zine called Happyland, under the name Selwyn Harris. He now writes for Mr. Skin and also posts occasionally missives on his McBeardo site. I have to recommend his August birthday entry, entitled Madonna Boots, about how he lost his virginity. I won’t give away the punchline summary, but the tale has . . .

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Kanye West, WSJ, TMZ, BlogMaverick, TheFireArm Blog, BlogDay2010

BlogDay2010 – 5 Diverse Possibly Alien Blogs

by Amelia G : August 31st, 2010

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So today is supposed to be Blog Day 2010. BlogDay founder Nir Ofir has been doing this since 2005. The idea is for bloggers to post links to five disparate blogs which are culturally alien reads. Each BlogDay post August 31, 2010 is supposed to be tagged as BlogDay2010. Bizarrely, this year, Technorati shows not one single post tagged BlogDay2010. But I’m still going to post a few blogs I think are interesting reads and not what I would usually post.

Kanye West has a disturbingly high quality blog. It is mostly a picture blog, but there is a seemingly unending stream of pics of visually interesting things, ranging from concept cars to collectible caskets. Purportedly Kanye West blogs himself. If he does, he is committed to it and he gets the photoblog format, and is good about including links for further info. If he hired someone else to do it, he hired someone extremely qualified.



The Wall Street Journal has a Life and Culture blog, which strikes me as rather surreal. The top story on there today is “In Japan, Men Vacation With Virtual Girlfriends”.

Also somewhat in the business realm is Mark Cuban’s blog BlogMaverick. The name is not a political reference; he owns a basketball team called the Dallas Mavericks. He made his money in the dot com boom by selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo for stock and then diversifying before the stock market tanked. Some of his more recent activities include guesting on Entourage and starting BailoutSleuth to cover where our taxpayer money is being funneled to and how it is being (ab)used.

You’ve probably heard of TMZ. They are mostly a blight on society, but they are a hard-working and prolific blight. So, if you hear some random water cooler conversation about Paris Hilton mistaking her friend’s cocaine for chewing gum, you always know you can pop over to the TMZ blog to get the details. You can quickly discover that the gallery of Jesse James and Kat Von D getting in and out of vehicles, riding a motorcycle, holding hands, and swapping spit is one of the most popular. Today, TMZ also helpfully posted a copy Guns n’ Roses guitar player Slash’s divorce papers. Apparently, his address was able to be left “confidential” on the Los Angeles court documents. The Los Angeles form also has checkboxes for reason for dissolution of marriage which include incest and bigamy. Go figure.



Speaking of guns, The Firearm Blog is . . .

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Backstage Passes Gets Good Press from Gram Ponante and AltPorn.Net

Backstage Passes Gets Good Press from Gram Ponante and AltPorn.Net

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



My Backstage Passes anthology has been receiving some nice press this week, so I thought I’d share. I’m so used to the speed of internet press at this point, that I am chomping at the bit with the turnaround time for print and for a project which requires more in-depth reading for journalists to cover it.</p>

Kitty Two, writing for AltPorn.net, described much of the Backstage Passes book as “extremely enjoyably depraved and romantic”.

Gram Ponante, America’s Most Beloved Porn Journalist, recommends reading Backstage Passes and Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs for a complete picture of life in the 1990’s:

“Backstage Passes,” an anthology of erotica written by and about the types of people you might see alternately sobbing or fighting in the front row of either a Danzig or Dead Can Dance concert, is . . .

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Black Oil Cell Mask (PICS)

Szandora posted to Blue Blood VIP in a set by your truly and Forrest Black called Black Oil Cell Mask. This is the actual mask Jennifer Lopez wore in the movie The Cell. I was going to tell an anecdote about how Forrest and I came to photograph it on Szandora and on Dahlia Dark. But then it seemed boring and trivial to me, so here is a nice photograph we shot anyway.

Tristan Taormino Opens Up – Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships

Tristan Taormino Opens Up – Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



I’ve been thinking about fellow Wesleyan alum Tristan Taormino lately because she was the original catalyst for my Backstage Passes anthology. Tristan is very prolific, but one of her most recent projects is the book Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships. If you are in an open relationship or considering some form of one, I recommend picking this book up.</p>

I know so many people who really struggle with the lack of a road map for polyamory or swinging. I’ll spare you all my snarky bon mots re: the differences between those who are polyamorous and those who swing and just say that Opening Up is helpful. I’m not the world’s #1 fan of open relationships, partly because I have so many friends who will come up with a special boundary rule (such as he can have sex with other people but not orgasm inside them) and then . . .

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Halcyon Gets Ready for the Playa (PICS)

Halcyon Gets Ready for the Playa

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



Watching Halcyon get ready to go to Burning Man is always enough to make me wish they held it at a four star hotel, instead of the insanely hot desert. I’m addicted to hot baths and cool air. Honestly, I pretty much wilt, if my environment gets too hot for too long, although a dry heat is easier. We all have our crosses to bear.</p>

Anyway, despite being on the box for Splat hair dye, I’m pretty sure he still uses Jerome Russell Punky Color (same as me). The blonde sides are just a transitional look, before he goes the full Cupcake Pink distance to go with his Playa outfits.

Halcyon has a philosophical inspirational DVD, called Love More, Fear Less, which he will be giving out (gifting) at the Burn, so . . .

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Facing the Artist: Portraits by John Jonas Gruen

Facing the Artist: Portraits by John Jonas Gruen

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



Flavorwire ran a gallery today of portraits John Jonas Gruen shot of his artist peers over the past five decades. Apparently, East Coast artists of his generation spent a lot of time at the beach. Somehow there can be a West Coast notion that the beach is for the superficial and well-adjusted, but that is not bicoastal. Probably because you are more likely to be pensive on a chilly shoreline and more likely to show off a bikini body when the water is warm. The Whitney Museum in New York is currently show retrospective exhibition of portraits . . .

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True Blood Stars Nude on Rolling Stone Cover (PICS)

True Blood Stars Nude on Rolling Stone Cover

by Amelia G : August 25th, 2010



Rolling Stone is known for its decades of quality photography and occasional envelope-pushing magazine covers. The brilliant Matthew Rolston shot Alexander Skarsgård, Anna Paquin, and Stephen Moyer in a variety of menage-a-trois scenarios. I would say some of the inside photos look surprisingly stiff for someone of Matthew Rolston’s caliber, but, in all fairness, Skarsgård has been surprisingly stiff the current season of True Blood. Alexander Skarsgård is one of my favorite actors, and I usually find him immensely charismatic and believable, no matter what the role is. I think maybe he is just really really really not into doing dudes. On that topic, if True Blood is going to have lots of man-on-man action, I wish Nelsan Ellis, who plays goth fry cook/drug dealer Lafayette on the show, looked like he was enjoying the gay sex scenes. But the Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer sex on that show is still pretty much the best coupling ever shown on television. In the True Blood interviews inside the magazine, show creator Alan Ball is pretty balls out in what he has to say. And that Matthew Rolston . . .

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Busty Corset Vamp Dahlia Dark (PICS)

This is beautiful busty vamp Dahlia Dark's 12th appearance in the Blue Blood VIP.

Other images Forrest Black and I shot of Dahlia Dark ran in Marquis magazine in print, but Blue Blood VIP members get to see complete shoots.

I'd write more about this shoot, but I'm in the middle of cooking a chicken right now. Priorities, priorities.

The Expendables, Inglourious Basterds, and Honey from the Tombs of Pharaohs

The Expendables, Inglourious Basterds, and Honey from the Tombs of Pharaohs
by Amelia G : August 20th, 2010

My refrigerator smells like a hangover.

Thanks so much for all the great birthday wishes yesterday, everyone! I had a really enjoyable birthday and the well-wishes definitely contributed.

I kicked off the day watching Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. I’m a big Tarantino fan, and I think Brad Pitt and Eli Roth are really cool, but, if you’ve ever watched somebody else fill out forms in triplicate or tie their shoes really slowly, then you’ve basically already seen this movie. Creative cinematography, amusing character concepts, good directing, and good acting could not save the dullness of Inglorious Basterds. The flick seemed like it had a host of nifty little Easter egg sort of factoids for film students, but I didn’t find that aspect gripped. Still, I’d been meaning to watch it, so getting to was still a good thing.

Then I learned how to make slow-roasted barbecue ribs. The reason my refrigerator still smells like a hangover is that, after I did the dry rub portion of the process, Jack Daniels figured prominently in the recipe I put together. It was more challenging than I expected to put together a ribs recipe because barbecue is more regionally variable in the United Stats than I had had any idea. According to Amazing Ribs, one of the most useful sites of the many I referenced, there are twelve distinct styles of barbecue saucing and spicing.



I decided I wanted to use honey as part of my recipe. Some years ago, I used to take honey in my morning iced latte, and I bought some really delicious raw gourmet honey. I eventually cut it out, because I was trying to lower my calorie and sugar intake, but I still had most of a container sitting in the fridge. The honey still smelled as delicious as the day I bought it and it looked the same. So I asked the internet how long does honey keep before it goes bad.

Barroom trivia question: What is the only food which never ever goes bad? Answer: You guessed correctly, if you assumed from context (or already knew) that the answer is honey. People have been able to enjoy eating (and successfully digesting) honey from 5,000-year-old pyramids.

It is a really good thing I’m not obscenely rich. I always make resolutions around my birthday and around New Years. If I had no responsibilities, I would totally dedicate the next year of my life to getting to taste the honey deemed worthy for the afterlife of dead kings. The ancient Egyptians apparently believed that the dead needed good snacks and honey was felt to be such a perfect food offering that many mummies were entombed with a honey jar next to their final resting places. Well, final until Egyptologist archeologists and pyramids grave robbers came along to taste their snacks and take their treasures. Supposedly, honey made in the 1800’s can still be purchased today and tastes quite different from modern honey, but I haven’t successfully found any available online yet. (All links to such sources are very welcome.)

So, after learning all about barbecue and honey, and making ribs, then it was time for cake. I had triple berry cake and princess cake (and walnut wheat bread) from Sweet Lady Jane, which is, for my money, the best cake in Southern California. (Although a book club I’m in did get cupcakes from somewhere else earlier this month, in honor of my birthday, and they were pretty delicious too.)

I topped off the evening watching Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables in . . .

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Beautiful Bald Luci Soaking Tub (PICS)

There is just such a positive sexy free energy shooting in the Pacific NW, especially with a free spirit like Luci. Like me and Forrest Black, she was just passing through town, and we coordinated via email. I want to have this soaking tub in the office. Like now.

Whole series in the Blue Blood VIP.

Dear Time Warner Cable ISP, This is why you suck

Dear Time Warner Cable ISP,

This is why you suck. So my On Demand service still does not work since the most recent "upgrade" to the Time Warner On Demand interface. So I got into chat yet again. Of course, this was after it would have been nice to use On Demand. I don't have a lot of times I can take a break in this economy and the whole point of On Demand is for it to be there for the asking when I actually do have that time. If Dish Network offered good high speed internet, I would probably already have canceled your service.

I do like that you have added chat support. I am well aware that the problems are nothing the customer support people have done. I actually think a lot of TW customer support people are remarkably good at their jobs, given how many people loathe your terrible service. It is still difficult to listen to an angry voice and not feel bad, even if the person is not yelling at you, so I think it is much more humane to have chat available. Plus I dislike talking on the phone, so kudos on that. But the kudos end there.

When today's pleasant-but-unable-to-magically-fix-TW support person told me there would be a brief survey on the chat after we were done, I told him:

Half the time, the survey works. The other half the time, it times out anyway. Which means either TW's survey is defective or TW's cable internet service is.

Here is what I wrote in my survey about what TW could do better (after checking Very Dissatisfied):

Have your systems work. Consistent television and internet service would be, ya know, what I am supposedly paying for. My internet is intermittent and my On Demand doesn't ever seem to work when I want it. And your reps in chat seem to try, but they just can't fix all your technical problems. It would be nice also if paying on the phone wasn't a ridiculously long and annoying interface with misleading and inaccurate account info on the automated end and extra charges on the human side. I also know there is a 50% chance this survey form is going to time out and nobody will ever read what I've written.

So of course, when I hit submit on the survey, this is the error message I receive:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error '80040e57'

String or binary data would be truncated.

/sdccommon/inc/db/dbcommon.inc, line 254

I'll probably send this to your Twitter because whoever runs that seems more on-the-ball than whoever put together your chat survey. But, yeah, if you are wondering if you should keep chat, you should; not having to have those annoying conversations on the telephone is one of the only things I like about your service at the moment.

In the current economy, people are thinking more carefully about where their entertainment dollar goes, and Time Warner is really failing to delight the customer. If you all need some consulting, let me know. Whoever is setting your priorities now could clearly use some help.

Mathematics (PICS)

Photography by yours truly and Forrest Black + modeling by Crash + couture by Antiseptic Fashion = a really hot and very surreal set for Gothic Sluts. Hope y'all like it.