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Modern Love

Seen Around Town

A few images that have been sitting on a 16 GB SD card in my Canon G10 for the last month--I've been so busy working on Embury Cocktails I haven't had a chance to download anything for a while.

Taken during that halcyon period between election day and The Inauguration. I still find myself giggling a little when I hear or see the word 'change' after watching South Park's irresistible satire of Obama mania (clip here, full episode here).

I've been watching this giant ramp as it's been built in the East River Park in preparation for a giant snowboarding/sledding/X games demo/Red Bull marketing opportunity this Saturday, February 7th. Shot this from the J train while crossing the Williamsburg Bridge.

Last Shot

This was towards the end of the 'return to key west' shoot, and we were all sunburned and weary from too much work and even more play. We'd spent the day in the back country--anytime you get on a boat you get so nice and tired after. We drank through it, naturally, and after dinner at 915 we headed upstairs to their cool little lounge called point five. Of course I was shooting pictures the whole time, obeying my urge to somehow bridge the staged scenario with a spontaneous snapshot sensibility. "Never not being watched," observed Ryan, wryly but also good-naturedly. After we were "done" we retreated to the back porch where my assistant Che promptly fell asleep, and Ryan sort of reclined against him. I pulled out my G9 and snapped it. I finally broke through the preconceived image and found something 100% real.

Moving Photographs

About 400 photos in about 4 minutes. For all 'return to key west' posts click here.

Man Walks Into A Bar, The Sequel

Roommate Kyle (above, after shaving his head this weekend) and his 15 minutes of fame that came after his accidental overnight stay in Trophy Bar was chronicled in the New York Times has a second act. Well, Act 2.5 is all the blog coverage was Act 2. Maybe blog coverage was 1.5, come to think of it. Anyhow, New York Magazine honors Kyle, sort of, in the annual Reasons To Love New York issue. (Do ignore the inexplicably sour review of Trophy Bar that the story links to--one wonders just how bad the writer's day was.)

Oddly, along with the morning batch of e-mails that included news of this was the invite for my next DJ gig with Samo. The last time we DJed together at Trophy Bar was the very night Kyle got locked in there. We return to the scene of the crime Sunday, December 21st.
 
 

Vote Levi

My go-to model Levi Poulter is up for Mate of the Year at DNA Magazine. More reasons from 'return to key west' why he should get your vote below. (NSFW)

Lord Ottenbottom Welcomes The Carte Blanche

Just posted a little something about Thankgsiving in Key West over at my cocktail blog Embury. We took over the toolshed for the second year in a row and turned out some pretty awesome cocktails, I must say.

Full post here.

The Shower Shots

One of my favorite set of photos from return to key west are the ones we did in a friend's outdoor shower--one of the great benefits of life in the sub tropics. I think we hit it when the light was just right, too. More shots here (NSFW).

More below.

Tremor of Forgery

In the final panels of 'return to key west' Ryan's reading the Patricia Highsmith novel 'The Tremor of Forgery'. Why? In addition to a having a vivid orange and black cover that worked well with the yellow and orange striped sheet Ryan's laying on and with the intense hot sunlight of these shots, I'm also just a bit obsessed with the book. The author of 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' and the script for 'Strangers on a Train' tells a morally ambiguous, open ended (even for her) tale in this one. A writer goes to Tunisia to finish a screenplay for a studio and his world-and his world view-gradually, almost imperceptibly begins to fall apart, leaving him-and the reader-in some new unfamiliar place. It's a strange, engrossing book that bears a certain resemblance to 'The Sheltering Sky'. The North African desert seems to be a place where Westerners lose their way. Since discovering a copy at Powell's Books a couple years ago (it's out of print, but they have some in stock) I've purchased several copies and handed them all over to people-Ryan took this one on the flight home. I've been convinced there's a great movie there--so much so that when I saw Gus Van Sant at The Abbey in Los Angeles a few months back I threw back a couple recklessness-inducing cocktails and went over to him and assaulted him with a mini-pitch as to why he should direct it. I was totally convinced from the first time I read it that he would be the perfect director, and any of his regular guys could be the screenwriter--Damon, Casey Affleck.  Actually, now that I think about it, James Franco would be great.

That's the kind of stalker I am--I approach directors with movie ideas they must do. A creative, script-clutching, d-girl kinda stalker.

All 'return to key west' posts here.

return to key west: boys on bikes

People seem to really respond to the shots of the guys on bikes in 'return to key west', making a point to mention those images to me. When I told a friend this he wrote, "I suspect the bike post appeals as something 'real' and 'fun' as opposed to the perfect-abs-boy-staged-photoshopped-picture that dominates gay media today". I quite agree with both that being the reason and the sentiment, and I hope we went for a way more natural feeling with this. Way, way more. I also think there's something universally appealing about riding a bike: the freedom and elation and the relaxation of just gliding around, under your own steam. More bikes below.