Possibly the Best Part of Union Square
July 3rd, 2008 | No Comments | Posted in Just My Fabulousness, Just My Photography, Just My Thoughts
Porn Stars and House Parties
The night began and ended at the same place. Nick Starr called us up and told us to meet him in the Castro at a particular address. Knowing the area a bit, I realized quite quickly that we weren’t going to a club, no businesses exist past 600 Castro…
Ryan and I make it down Castro and are searching for the address Nick txt’d me when someone calls from a window inviting us into the house.
It turns out it is the very house where we are supposed to be meeting Nick. We glide up the stairs and into the house meeting some wonderfully friendly and fabulous people. Of the first we met was Skye, pictured to the left. Skye (with an E) work for Southwest Airlines and lives in San Francisco. He was a whole lot of fun.
Ryan and I helped ourselves to the free booze in the kitchen keeping them strong and keeping them coming!
The person who welcomed us into his home was Adam. He is pictured below sitting with Brent Corrigan (aka Sean Paul Lockhart), who is my favorite porn star… Seriously, he is beautiful. Also, a wonderfully fun and friendly person. We talked about his new, legitimate, movie and other random things. He’s smart, capabile, funny and adorable (read, hot).
Sean Paul Lockhart or Brent Corrigan ( brought in a few of his porn star friends, which are always welcomed, but really didn’t help the party… Let me explain. Everyone there was pretty darn hot, some of them were sinfully so. It was enough to make you insta-anorexic-workout-addict. Damn girl.
Speaking of porn stars, these two guys certainly have a future in the business, if only they weren’t so camera shy, or rather, so damn bitchy. Cool it boys, and why don’t you get a room? I swear the couch had a wet spot once they finally peeled themselves off. Cute/hot but the attitude has got to go.
So we hung out, drank, chatted, had a fabulous time. I didn’t take many pictures though, felt kinda weird doing it in someone else’s home and with all the porn actors, it felt like maybe I was taking pictures of them and not of the fun times? Hmm, not sure. Adam took a ton of pictures, wish I had his memory card haha.
The highlight of the evening had to be meeting these two guys. Tyler and Sean. Tyler is a graphic designer and Sean is a graphical user interface creater… GUI-C. They have been together for three years through the whole long distance thing and now live in San Francisco together.
Basically they are just awesome guys and when/if Ryan and I move here, we will have to hang out with these two guys. After about an hour of talking with each other, we were fast friends. I’m pretty sure living in San Francisco and having friends like these two… we’d be living life famously.
After a while we decided it was time for the obligatory Myspace photo.
The party ended at 2:30 and Ryan and I found ourselves walking home around 3:00 until I caught us a cab for the rest of the cold, long walk home.
I hate that I didn’t take more pictures. All the people there were so nice and fun, we had Marc (with a C) and his friend, and another Sean and a Mark and three Johns (Jons?) and… the list goes on. It sure was a fun fun night.
Jesus Sells Hot Dogs
Ryan needed a California Driver’s License for a job application so off to the DMV. We took the 21, got there in perfect timing, which was weird since most of our vacations, while fun, never fall on schedule.
Ryan made an appointment. Thank goodness, that places was packed. Though, I never have been to such an efficient DMV or DoR.
He passed the test, horray. Now he is officially a citizen of the great state of California, kinda. ;-)
Ever since the lasik I have felt that I’ve become a bit dyslexic and this was illustrated as we walked out of the DMV and found ourselves faced with a classic city hot dog stand.
However, what I saw was something different. Yes, they both sold hot dogs and both offered you two gallons of mustard and ketchup, just one pump away… But the one I saw had direction, had a message and was owned by Jesus, the son of God…
This is what I saw
I think it is a sign. I think what this tells us is that Jews can in fact consume ham, if it is good enough for Jesus… or maybe these were Kosher Jesus Hot Dogs. I’m still not sure.
Scouts Concert
Last night, after enjoying a meatless bar-b-que with Geoffrey I went off to The Blue Note to see Chase’s band, Scouts, play.
I hung around for the first band to play, headed by a feisty lesbian (broad assumption), they rocked pretty hard. Not my particular style, but I did enjoy their sound. I had not been to The Blue Note in a while so that was fun in itself. Not many people were around for the first band, but as they left the stage and Scouts went on to setup, people starting coming in through the woodwork.
I watched them set up their stuff. Glad I didn’t have to do it.
They were awesome, of course. Just for who cares, my friend Chase is the guy directly above this picture. It’s pretty cool, like three of the guys in the band all play percussion, keyboard and guitar. Something like that. I thought that was pretty awesome, but maybe that’s cause i don’t play any of those things…
I went upstairs to waste some time while their broke down their stuff and saw a sign for the women’s restroom and it totally reminded me of how Chase says “ladies”. So… I took a picture of it. Of course I did.
The concert was great, I look forward to hearing them play again, hopefully a longer set. I’m also hoping to do some photography for them, just like some studio type work, but we’d need to find a cool set/place and I’d probably need to get some new strobes (read, an SB-800 or two) to do it properly. Course, for that money, I could get an AlienBees strobe light setup which would kick 20 SB-800’s collective asses!
Tags: Chase, Concert, Fun, Geoffrey, Just My Music, Money, Photography, The Blue Note, The Scouts
The New York Post Thinks I’m Single?
Breaking News:…
Justin is single. He just found out and now he has to chat with hot singles in his area.
Only I’m not single and the only hot singles with whom I chatting is my friend Chase so, once again, the New York Post gets it all wrong. It’s just another round of targeted marketing going amuck.
Wine and Cheese Bistro Photoshoot
I did a photoshoot today at the Wine and Cheese Bistro featuring Chef Cyr and his dish, Seared Scallop with Spring Asparagus and Apple Cider Country Ham Vinaigrette. Yes, quite the mouthful.
Micheal and I went to the Wine and Cheese Bistro a few weeks ago and were definitely not impressed. We had a good time but the salad was weak and the cheese tray a disappointment. I guess we just ordered the wrong things because the dish that Chef Cyr delivered to the table today was beautiful and if it tasted as good as it smelled, incredible.
The lighting in there wasn’t so great. Was hoping to use the “natural” light in the restaurant but had a sneaky suspicion that I wasn’t going to get that option. The combination of overhead, low wattage incandescent lights with the green tinted sunlight streaming in the windows… yuck. Green faces and orange foreheads.
Here’s what I had taking a shot of the area before adding my lights.
Then, we turn on the left light and see what that looks like. It is a 650w light bouncing off a white light screen.
Let’s try the right light. It’s a 1000w light shining through a softbox to diffuse the light.
Put them together and this is what you get! 1650 watts of lighting power! Muhahahaha!!!
Click below to see all four combined and larger
So here are a few shots of the dish and Chef Cyr. He was a fantastic sport getting his picture taken.
Click above picture to enlarge
I had a fun time taking the pictures and he was fun to talk to while I did the portraits. I wish I had another softbox so I could close the aperture a little more to decrease the depth of field but, oh well. Sure looks a lot better than what I started out with! Just goes to show the necessity of good lighting.
Oh, and that I’m a huge nerd… ;-)
What Can Go Wrong…
Ryan and I had this plan. The plan was that we would have a couple of friends join us to St. Louis where Six Flags was “celebrating” GLBT Day. The idea was, two hotel rooms, one car, four friends driving, having drinks with mutual and new friends Saturday night, waking up Sunday and picking up Jenny and going to the park for a fun filled day of rides and expensive bottles of water.
Well damn!
My car broke down. A recalled part landed my car in the shop. Coincidentally, that recalled part cost me money to get fixed…
Ryan’s car was too small for four people and the air conditioner is on the fritz so we investigated a rental car. Every dealer was sold out.
Jeremy’s cousin volunteered to drive us, quite nice of her. A few problems there. That made a total of five people driving up in a car made for four people. Never mind picking up Jenny the next day, never mind that we wouldn’t have a way to see our friends for drinks that night. Never mind that the other three in the car would be under 21 and thus unable to go out with us.
We get about ten miles outside of town when I get a phone call from my dad that he has managed to get us a rental car. Our driver reluctantly turns the car around. (Not so secretly, I was thankful to get out of the car. Between the packed backseat to the driving skills of our 17 year old driver… I was ready to get the hell out of there).
The car rental place does indeed have a car for us. It’s a 2008 Ford Mustang GT.
You’ve got to be kidding.
$75 a day, 14-20mpg and you have to be 25 to rent it. I’m 23. Reluctantly, again, our driver brings us back to the condo. Ryan and I decide we will just take his mustang. It was really the only choice. So we go inside the condo to pick up a few things… and notice the fabulous trail of chocolate tracked in by my flip flops.
For real? OMG.
We work hard to clean up the mess, it was actually a bit fun, thanks mostly to Ryan’s eternally positive attitude.
So we clean up the floor, pick up our things, get some gas, buy a few drinks and drive. We have fun in the car because… well we always have fun together. If left on an otherwise deserted island and given the option to bring one thing with me, it would be Ryan.
He makes me laugh, he makes me see the brighter side of things. He makes me feel whole.
Ryan would bring hydrogen peroxide. He isn’t as romantic as I am in times like these. wink wink
We make it to the hotel, we get dinner, and ultimately decide that driving 40 minutes to meet our already partially drunk friends at a bar and then have to find our way home would be a bad idea. Plus our other three people are under 21.
After about an hour of talking to each other about me allowing myself to be trampled on by my friends and my exes, we head downstairs to the bar. Ryan charms the bartender, I drink my vodka and Sprite. It was tasty. We again, have a wonderful time together.
We wake up, head to Jenny’s, get lost… get lost some more. Get bagels, cheat the system at Panera, get to Jenny’s, eat said bagels, meet her roommate, meet her roommate’s boyfriend and his friend, head to Six Flags. We forget the camera. Holy shit.
About the park later.
After the day at the park, we went back to Jenny’s, took a nap, took a shower, and headed out to see Geoffrey for dinner. Got lost, then we got really lost. Then we made it.
This weekend has convinced me that Ryan and I have to get a Garmin, or at the least, I’ll definitely have to get the new iPhone 3G with built in GPS. Holy hell.
The Devil’s Icebox
The other day I wrote about needing a picture in order to post these days. That or unwrought emotion. Pictures are safer ;-)
So I went to Rock Bridge State Park to visit the Devil’s Icebox cave. It’s a pretty neat place, very cool, literally. It went from around 80-90 degrees to the 50’s in just a short trip down some stairs. It was fabulous.
The entrance is pretty majestic and daunting when you are alone. I just knew someone, or something, was going to get me as soon as I turned my back on the stairs and began my journey into the cave.
The cave is 11 kilometers deep, I went in about 50 feet before I decided that was enough. In my defense, I was carrying my Nikon D80, Tokina 10-17mm and my SB-600 flash. Plus I wasn’t wearing my “play clothes” haha. Oh, and there was the whole, no flashlight deal and the, is that a serial killer just around the bend waiting to kill me, thing. Yeah, I wasn’t paranoid at all.
All and all it was a fun little trip all by myself. It would have been a lot more fun had taken a friend with me and the proper cave exploring tools, like a lantern…
The temperature difference hit me pretty good and hard once I got out of the cave. Hot, humid and gross. Fogged up my lens pretty nicely but created an interesting effect on this picture.
Ahhh, even though I didn’t take but a few pictures, and even though the park is pretty damn boring, I had my fun.
Tags: Adventure, Alone, Cave, Devil's Icebox, Fisheye, Nature, Photography, Rock Bridge, RyanI Need Pictures
I am coming to realize that I cannot post without a picture to “muse” me. So, I’m going to leave you with this picture for now, while I go out and take a picture of something new and relevant. Till then, let this entertain you from Halloween 2005.
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