More CA Craziness
I am surprised at how well I'm surviving, considering I still feel like an alien in a strange land. During the day I spend a few hours chugging out cover letter & resume after cover letter & resume. I have one lead with a professor who wants to meet with me. Otherwise, it's keep chugging and waiting. However, my mom just landed a wonderful job, so how awesome for her!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday evening our Sacred Pain band had another band practice. We've had three band practices so far - one guy blew us off, and another guy came and then later decided not to continue. The problem is that these people were found off Craig's List, and while they're into BDSM, they're people that are not completely ok with being open about it. It's common for people to do this, to express interest in doing something like BDSM art or performance or modeling, and then to back out at the last minute because of personal qualms. So, thus far it's been only Jack and I, but we've been perfecting our voices, so no time was wasted. We need to find new musicians though. I've already begun writing our opening song. I want it to start with a slow thumping beat and a killer bass line something like a mix between NIN's "Closer"" and Muse's Time is Running Out," kind of a sound like that, and then a sultry, sort of mocking vocals, directed at the girl being punished onstage, and then it'll build. I'm still concocting it in my head.
Thursday Jack, Jen, and I went to downtown SF to the Yerba Buena center for the arts or some such thing, so see a documentary about a bondage porn director, PD, of "Insex," and about his business's eventual demise. The film was good, but it was incredibly disturbing - not what I expected at all. This bdsm porn site, which was one of the first ever, was so successful that money was rolling in, and eventually corrupted everyone. The models were paid thousands of dollars per shoot, and as a result, they would do it for the money and not for the experience, and would push themselves far past their physical limits. PD ended up pretty much forcing the women, under threat of never working with them again, to push themselves physically. One woman was basically anally raped, I mean it was awful to hear these stories. I took away 2 points. 1. Money corrupts, duh, and 2. A certain amount of self-awareness needs to be a requirement for these models. If a woman does not approach this industry with some degree of self-empowerment, then they will easily fall into becoming a victim, it's just what happens. Anyway, so I left disturbed, and disappointed that more negative bdsm material is being shown to the mainstream. Afterward I got to know Jen a little better. She was a cute girl with short hair and glasses, about 21 I think, and very easy to get along with. We went to an insanely loud Mexican restaurant and hung out for a while before Jack drove us all home.
Then....the Saturday Fetish Ball. I was invited to this thing not really knowing what it was about at all. I was to go with Jack and 2 other models. Jack would pay for our tickets, since us models are poor and we were there partly to promote his business. Tickets were $45 apiece, so this was a fairly upscale club event. Well, me, I didn't know what the event was at all and I didn't have anything to wear, because all my fetish gear is currently lying in boxes waiting to be shipped. Fortunately though I did find one outfit I'd brought with me. The only problem was shoes - my mom hasn't shipped my shoe boxes yet. Roxie, the studio-dwelling art chick, had ONE pair of 8.5 plain black pumps, so we decided to pick them up on the way to the ball.
Jack arrived an hour late to pick me up, as is customary out here in Cali, with Eden in the backseat. I really liked Eden. She's a gorgeous-but-down-to-earth articulate woman in her lower thirties, and we hit it off immediately. The first stop was the studio, to pick up accessories and get my shoes. When we reached the studio, which, as I described earlier, was in an awful part of Oakland, we left Eden alone in the car to go inside. To make her feel safer while she waited, Jack said, "You want to hold my gun while we go in?" she said "Definitely," and he pulled out a black gun and just handed it to her. I simply swallowed my shock. I'd seen a gun only once before, even held it - they're really heavy, but I'm certainly not a fan of guns so I kinda just slipped out of the car and followed Jack. We quickly retrieved a bunch toys to use as accessories for the evening - I got a collar and shoes, and to my dismay, they were ever so slightly too large, which meant my heels slipped out of them and forced me to walk in a semi-hobble. I found two random pieces of foam in Jack's car and put them in the toes, but it didn't do much good. Stupid women and their shoes! We then drove to an even worse part of Oakland to pick up Jen, the girl I'd met at the documentary a few days prior. Jen COMPLETELY transformed. She was now in a short, tight, shimmering dress, her hair done up in curls, her skin somehow glowing. In a very short amount of time I was able to peg her as one of those "pseudo-bi" girls, the kind that love to flirt and make out with girls, but are really just doing it for the tease, you never *really* know what they're after, and at the end of the day they go to their boyfriend. I learned just a year ago, starting with Laura, the first "pseudo-bi" girl I ever met, that these girls are not worth going after, because you're not going to get anything out of them. They like to think their sexuality is fashionable, which, it is. I almost think that there are more of these pseudo bi girls than "real" ones.
We got to the club, which was in SoMa, where all the fetish clubs are in SF, at an absurdly early hour - 8:45pm. Jen, who, by this point, to my wry but tolerant amusement, was already stroking my leg and giving me vampy gazes, in her bubbly-femme-fatale voice exclaimed that she like to party until 6am, and I inwardly prayed to Jesus and Allah that we would not stay at this club event into the wee hours of the morning! Anyway, the four of us entered the club, and were suddenly thrust forward towards a photographer man who wanted to meet us "East Bay Girls" as we were suddenly named, since we all live in Oakland/Berkeley. At first I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed our semi-celebrity status, the way people stared. We were very hot. I did feel as if I were a character in a movie, one of those times you are in some situation and you detach from yourself, asking "Who am I?" I was completely out of my element, as I realized that, as this was the Marquis Fetish Ball, Marquis is actually a magazine, and this whole club event is a magazine promotion thing. There was an element of glamour to everything. As detached from myself as I was, to go from my normal routine in WI to this thumping loud magazine swank club thing in San Francisco jarred me so intensely that I was thrown past panic attack mode, right into the calmest center of my being, and allowed myself to be escorted about and take in the event as simply free entertainment.
There were awkward moments of course. As I sat against the wall with the other two girls, Jen immediately began writhing all over Eden, who was sitting so close to me our thighs were touching. Those two knew one other already, and they started making out. Well, I couldn't care less about them making out, but it makes me look bad to be the one just sitting there right next to them looking awkward. I hate it when people do that, it's so blatanly rude! At least move over a couple feet, right? With my body language and expression I very clearly communicated to Jen that although she was incredibly attractive, I had no intention of kissing or doing anything with her. Superficial sex was NOT on my agenda, that's for sure. In fact as the entire superficial evening wore on I began to crave some kind of depth from somebody. I wanted Nikki there, my friends, someone I knew, someone I could make fun of this whole elaborate magazine abusurdity with.
At one point I entered a conversation with Jen, Eden, and another photographer, but I entered the conversation half-way in, and it was loud so I couldn't hear well. He suddenly pointed to the upstairs VIP balcony and said he'd love to do some shots for the magazine with us later. They were nodding and smiling and I did too, but when he left, I said to them, "Look guys, I'm new here, I didn't even catch what magazine it's for or what's going on - I'm just going to observe and meet people if that's cool." and they said "well of course, yeah, definitely!" in genuine understanding, which was a relief to me, because I didn't want to just get thrown into some photo shoot not knowing who it is or what it's for, without signing anything. Just wouldn't have been wise. They never ended up doing the shoot anyway.
Later the 4 of us, Jack, Jen, Eden and I, were given bracelet passes to the upstairs VIP balcony, which was lined with enormous bed-couches people could recline on. There were tables set up with freebie items at each bed-couch. I immediately took my place on one couch, lying back and observing the crowd, feeling like a strung-out rock star. On the main floor there were a couple of performances going on. The famous Midori was there - actually during Midori's main performance I was standing on the stairway just three feet away from her. She was the only celebrity I really knew there. The rest of the time I just observed, either reclining on the couch talking about the social consciousness of Slavic immigrants post-WWII with Jack (we had to scream over the pounding industrial music), or standing alone at the balcony watching the proceedings. I'd met a few new people at the beginning, and decided my quota for meeting people was satisfied, so I just relaxed. Club events were all you do is stand around is so incredibly tiresome, and I was yearning for someone from "back home" to be with me, since I really didn't know anybody. Luckily I think these kinds of events are only once every few months, so it's not something I'll feel compelled to do often. I'd really rather have an evening in with close friends. But because I haven't been here long I don't have anyone close here, so all I have for the time being in superficiality. I'm hoping to develop friendships through the consciousness program, hopefully.
The funny thing is that as amazingly hot as we all looked/felt, pictures were put up on Facebook, and looking at them now, I just crack up laughing, because we look like a bunch of ridiculous dolled-up absurdities!
Luckily, we decided to leave the club at 1am. Whew.
Sunday morning was a bit of a relief. I met with Linda for brunch and we went to the SF MOMA - the Museum of Modern Art to see the new exhibit on Richard Avedon, which was black and white portraits of people. It was incredibly, and I loved it! Portraits are my favorite photography theme/motif/thing, that's for sure. We had a great time. I of course told Linda the story of the crazy fetish ball and we laughed. She told some funny stories of her own.
Last night we finally had a meeting of the entire cast/crew of Sacred Pain. Very interesting characters. One guy was an older guy who used to be a radio DJ and had a loud, booming voice - he is going to be the MC/barker of the show. There were a couple other bondage models, a musician guy, Jen, 2 stagehand people, and a playwright. We all sat in a circle and went through the whole plot line. Jen of course started stroking my leg in front of everyone, and so unsure of what to do, I playfully smacked her hand hard, which made her burst into giggles but in all likelihood encouraged her. She's actually a really interesting person to talk to, but jeez, turn it off once in a while, will ya?
Chase, this domme woman who is a playwright, joined us with an entire outline of what should happen. Her ideas were very good, and for the most part we all went with it. However at one point I broke in and asked her, "In writing this script have you left any room for how the music is going to fit in?" because up until that point we hadn't discussed the music at all, and after all, it's a hybrid musical. She answered me that no, she hadn't given the music any thought, and in fact, she hated musicals. Well, Jack and I just looked at one another. This is Jack's show, really, and his idea of this is kind of a Rocky Horror style, rollicking and dark, but fun. Chase declared that the best kind of music would be typical "scene" music, loud pounding industrial like Massive Attack or something. But that wasn't what Jack and I had discussed - we wanted a more fun, creative thing to happen. The concept I had in *my* head was that the musicians wouldn't be in the background at all, but would be physically right behind the actors, telling their story with our music as the action unfolds. The more "fun" aspect of it would appeal to our vanilla audience, instead of having it be a very serious bdsm play scene performance. So it's clear there are some creative differences we're going to have to work out. Chase even suggested doing away with the musicians altogether and putting on a CD of loud industrial music! Jack and I talked together in the car after everyone had left, and he made it clear he's not going to stand for that - it's his show. So we're going to have to push for our idea, I think.
More later....according to Nikki on Skype I appear "healthy and sunkissed," so that's good.
Wednesday evening our Sacred Pain band had another band practice. We've had three band practices so far - one guy blew us off, and another guy came and then later decided not to continue. The problem is that these people were found off Craig's List, and while they're into BDSM, they're people that are not completely ok with being open about it. It's common for people to do this, to express interest in doing something like BDSM art or performance or modeling, and then to back out at the last minute because of personal qualms. So, thus far it's been only Jack and I, but we've been perfecting our voices, so no time was wasted. We need to find new musicians though. I've already begun writing our opening song. I want it to start with a slow thumping beat and a killer bass line something like a mix between NIN's "Closer"" and Muse's Time is Running Out," kind of a sound like that, and then a sultry, sort of mocking vocals, directed at the girl being punished onstage, and then it'll build. I'm still concocting it in my head.
Thursday Jack, Jen, and I went to downtown SF to the Yerba Buena center for the arts or some such thing, so see a documentary about a bondage porn director, PD, of "Insex," and about his business's eventual demise. The film was good, but it was incredibly disturbing - not what I expected at all. This bdsm porn site, which was one of the first ever, was so successful that money was rolling in, and eventually corrupted everyone. The models were paid thousands of dollars per shoot, and as a result, they would do it for the money and not for the experience, and would push themselves far past their physical limits. PD ended up pretty much forcing the women, under threat of never working with them again, to push themselves physically. One woman was basically anally raped, I mean it was awful to hear these stories. I took away 2 points. 1. Money corrupts, duh, and 2. A certain amount of self-awareness needs to be a requirement for these models. If a woman does not approach this industry with some degree of self-empowerment, then they will easily fall into becoming a victim, it's just what happens. Anyway, so I left disturbed, and disappointed that more negative bdsm material is being shown to the mainstream. Afterward I got to know Jen a little better. She was a cute girl with short hair and glasses, about 21 I think, and very easy to get along with. We went to an insanely loud Mexican restaurant and hung out for a while before Jack drove us all home.
Then....the Saturday Fetish Ball. I was invited to this thing not really knowing what it was about at all. I was to go with Jack and 2 other models. Jack would pay for our tickets, since us models are poor and we were there partly to promote his business. Tickets were $45 apiece, so this was a fairly upscale club event. Well, me, I didn't know what the event was at all and I didn't have anything to wear, because all my fetish gear is currently lying in boxes waiting to be shipped. Fortunately though I did find one outfit I'd brought with me. The only problem was shoes - my mom hasn't shipped my shoe boxes yet. Roxie, the studio-dwelling art chick, had ONE pair of 8.5 plain black pumps, so we decided to pick them up on the way to the ball.
Jack arrived an hour late to pick me up, as is customary out here in Cali, with Eden in the backseat. I really liked Eden. She's a gorgeous-but-down-to-earth articulate woman in her lower thirties, and we hit it off immediately. The first stop was the studio, to pick up accessories and get my shoes. When we reached the studio, which, as I described earlier, was in an awful part of Oakland, we left Eden alone in the car to go inside. To make her feel safer while she waited, Jack said, "You want to hold my gun while we go in?" she said "Definitely," and he pulled out a black gun and just handed it to her. I simply swallowed my shock. I'd seen a gun only once before, even held it - they're really heavy, but I'm certainly not a fan of guns so I kinda just slipped out of the car and followed Jack. We quickly retrieved a bunch toys to use as accessories for the evening - I got a collar and shoes, and to my dismay, they were ever so slightly too large, which meant my heels slipped out of them and forced me to walk in a semi-hobble. I found two random pieces of foam in Jack's car and put them in the toes, but it didn't do much good. Stupid women and their shoes! We then drove to an even worse part of Oakland to pick up Jen, the girl I'd met at the documentary a few days prior. Jen COMPLETELY transformed. She was now in a short, tight, shimmering dress, her hair done up in curls, her skin somehow glowing. In a very short amount of time I was able to peg her as one of those "pseudo-bi" girls, the kind that love to flirt and make out with girls, but are really just doing it for the tease, you never *really* know what they're after, and at the end of the day they go to their boyfriend. I learned just a year ago, starting with Laura, the first "pseudo-bi" girl I ever met, that these girls are not worth going after, because you're not going to get anything out of them. They like to think their sexuality is fashionable, which, it is. I almost think that there are more of these pseudo bi girls than "real" ones.
We got to the club, which was in SoMa, where all the fetish clubs are in SF, at an absurdly early hour - 8:45pm. Jen, who, by this point, to my wry but tolerant amusement, was already stroking my leg and giving me vampy gazes, in her bubbly-femme-fatale voice exclaimed that she like to party until 6am, and I inwardly prayed to Jesus and Allah that we would not stay at this club event into the wee hours of the morning! Anyway, the four of us entered the club, and were suddenly thrust forward towards a photographer man who wanted to meet us "East Bay Girls" as we were suddenly named, since we all live in Oakland/Berkeley. At first I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed our semi-celebrity status, the way people stared. We were very hot. I did feel as if I were a character in a movie, one of those times you are in some situation and you detach from yourself, asking "Who am I?" I was completely out of my element, as I realized that, as this was the Marquis Fetish Ball, Marquis is actually a magazine, and this whole club event is a magazine promotion thing. There was an element of glamour to everything. As detached from myself as I was, to go from my normal routine in WI to this thumping loud magazine swank club thing in San Francisco jarred me so intensely that I was thrown past panic attack mode, right into the calmest center of my being, and allowed myself to be escorted about and take in the event as simply free entertainment.
There were awkward moments of course. As I sat against the wall with the other two girls, Jen immediately began writhing all over Eden, who was sitting so close to me our thighs were touching. Those two knew one other already, and they started making out. Well, I couldn't care less about them making out, but it makes me look bad to be the one just sitting there right next to them looking awkward. I hate it when people do that, it's so blatanly rude! At least move over a couple feet, right? With my body language and expression I very clearly communicated to Jen that although she was incredibly attractive, I had no intention of kissing or doing anything with her. Superficial sex was NOT on my agenda, that's for sure. In fact as the entire superficial evening wore on I began to crave some kind of depth from somebody. I wanted Nikki there, my friends, someone I knew, someone I could make fun of this whole elaborate magazine abusurdity with.
At one point I entered a conversation with Jen, Eden, and another photographer, but I entered the conversation half-way in, and it was loud so I couldn't hear well. He suddenly pointed to the upstairs VIP balcony and said he'd love to do some shots for the magazine with us later. They were nodding and smiling and I did too, but when he left, I said to them, "Look guys, I'm new here, I didn't even catch what magazine it's for or what's going on - I'm just going to observe and meet people if that's cool." and they said "well of course, yeah, definitely!" in genuine understanding, which was a relief to me, because I didn't want to just get thrown into some photo shoot not knowing who it is or what it's for, without signing anything. Just wouldn't have been wise. They never ended up doing the shoot anyway.
Later the 4 of us, Jack, Jen, Eden and I, were given bracelet passes to the upstairs VIP balcony, which was lined with enormous bed-couches people could recline on. There were tables set up with freebie items at each bed-couch. I immediately took my place on one couch, lying back and observing the crowd, feeling like a strung-out rock star. On the main floor there were a couple of performances going on. The famous Midori was there - actually during Midori's main performance I was standing on the stairway just three feet away from her. She was the only celebrity I really knew there. The rest of the time I just observed, either reclining on the couch talking about the social consciousness of Slavic immigrants post-WWII with Jack (we had to scream over the pounding industrial music), or standing alone at the balcony watching the proceedings. I'd met a few new people at the beginning, and decided my quota for meeting people was satisfied, so I just relaxed. Club events were all you do is stand around is so incredibly tiresome, and I was yearning for someone from "back home" to be with me, since I really didn't know anybody. Luckily I think these kinds of events are only once every few months, so it's not something I'll feel compelled to do often. I'd really rather have an evening in with close friends. But because I haven't been here long I don't have anyone close here, so all I have for the time being in superficiality. I'm hoping to develop friendships through the consciousness program, hopefully.
The funny thing is that as amazingly hot as we all looked/felt, pictures were put up on Facebook, and looking at them now, I just crack up laughing, because we look like a bunch of ridiculous dolled-up absurdities!
Luckily, we decided to leave the club at 1am. Whew.
Sunday morning was a bit of a relief. I met with Linda for brunch and we went to the SF MOMA - the Museum of Modern Art to see the new exhibit on Richard Avedon, which was black and white portraits of people. It was incredibly, and I loved it! Portraits are my favorite photography theme/motif/thing, that's for sure. We had a great time. I of course told Linda the story of the crazy fetish ball and we laughed. She told some funny stories of her own.
Last night we finally had a meeting of the entire cast/crew of Sacred Pain. Very interesting characters. One guy was an older guy who used to be a radio DJ and had a loud, booming voice - he is going to be the MC/barker of the show. There were a couple other bondage models, a musician guy, Jen, 2 stagehand people, and a playwright. We all sat in a circle and went through the whole plot line. Jen of course started stroking my leg in front of everyone, and so unsure of what to do, I playfully smacked her hand hard, which made her burst into giggles but in all likelihood encouraged her. She's actually a really interesting person to talk to, but jeez, turn it off once in a while, will ya?
Chase, this domme woman who is a playwright, joined us with an entire outline of what should happen. Her ideas were very good, and for the most part we all went with it. However at one point I broke in and asked her, "In writing this script have you left any room for how the music is going to fit in?" because up until that point we hadn't discussed the music at all, and after all, it's a hybrid musical. She answered me that no, she hadn't given the music any thought, and in fact, she hated musicals. Well, Jack and I just looked at one another. This is Jack's show, really, and his idea of this is kind of a Rocky Horror style, rollicking and dark, but fun. Chase declared that the best kind of music would be typical "scene" music, loud pounding industrial like Massive Attack or something. But that wasn't what Jack and I had discussed - we wanted a more fun, creative thing to happen. The concept I had in *my* head was that the musicians wouldn't be in the background at all, but would be physically right behind the actors, telling their story with our music as the action unfolds. The more "fun" aspect of it would appeal to our vanilla audience, instead of having it be a very serious bdsm play scene performance. So it's clear there are some creative differences we're going to have to work out. Chase even suggested doing away with the musicians altogether and putting on a CD of loud industrial music! Jack and I talked together in the car after everyone had left, and he made it clear he's not going to stand for that - it's his show. So we're going to have to push for our idea, I think.
More later....according to Nikki on Skype I appear "healthy and sunkissed," so that's good.