I.

“You look like the Godfather.”
“I need a ring.”

I wonder then if that’s the right stereotype I’m injecting. Doesn’t matter. We laugh. A good time was had by all with my court jester by my side. That’s definitely the wrong injection. King in his castle. That’s better.

II.
Chaz and Mayday have gone to Nikki Beach. Chaz, on his last Sunday night in South Beach before heading back to Queens (after a six-month stretch), decides that he should be there tonight, at the world’s hottest Sunday Night party. Mayday decides to go with him. And as a going away gift, he’s buying. They come inside to tell me (while I’m comfortably taking a break from looking at porn all day) of this master plan and invite me along. And it would be a sin for me not to go with my bros.

I decline. I have too much to do. Still have photos of Roxy to get to, my god. (I’m sorry Roxy. Tonight, I promise.)

There is much talk of proper attire. Chaz, who never wears a shirt, wonders if he should wear one. And can he wear flip-flops? Checks with Giselle as she’s inside studying. Studying like only she can, which is madly. Never, have I seen anyone study like her. Sitting in front of the computer, class on video on the screen before her, but she plays them at double-speed so it sounds like some impossibly fast-talking auctioneer. Only rather than trying to sell a car, he’s talking lab-level medical terminology. Hypo-accute-this. Dyslexinteri-that. And the next professor has a different accent which Giselle has to adapt to; his lecture, another pronunciation nightmare. And she absorbs it all.

“How’d you do on your test?”
Nonchalanty but not braggingly, she replies, “I think I made a 100.”

She sounds disappointed.

III.

“Any spare change, sir?”
“Not unless you take plastic.”

He is an old, black man in a blue baseball cap. A little unshaven, gray haired, but kempt. His pants are baggy and dark gray.

“Any change today, sir?”
“Nothing. I’ve got nothing today.”

The odd couple. Mayday and I are The Odd Couple, I realize. God, it’s hot today.

“Here’s a dollar.”
“God bless, sir.”
“No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As I drive the scooter home with the groceries strapped to the hook behind the handlebars, I think that this must be capitalism.

IV.
I expect Chaz and Mayday to be back any minute now. Something surely went wrong.

Player

South Beach Social
Episode III:
Squirrel Love

I’m thinking I should’ve cued up some Barry White for this.

Tags: South Beach Social

I’ve been seeing some unusual traffic patterns lately here. Up, down, up, down. I know why it’s happening. And it’s logical. But usually, my stats run fairly steady without so much of the jumping around. Adding onto this pile of statistical weirdness: by the end of the stat counting day today, there was an unusual spike due to some random (and typographically incorrect) link on The Village Voice. Apparently, breasts sell. Who knew?

I’m happy with the way ipanemic is going these days. Now if I can ONLY wrap up Headless Buddha… it’s driving me mad. I simply don’t have enough time. Which, I guess I should give an update.

I’m running a little behind. “Regular work” and trying to juggle some other things has left me pushing the release out for HeadlessBuddha beyond September 1st. I’m bummed about that. I’m shooting for it to be open for public consumption the following week. Also, since I put out the trailer, I’ve had some different ideas about layout and content and it’s somewhat slowing me down. There’s simply no way I’m hitting September 1st. But soon after, soon after…

Oh, as for the whole South Beach Social thing… I haven’t watched that train wreck of a show that everyone talks about. (You know, the one about Miami?) But my neighbors entertain me. So I figured I would film real life in South Beach. It can’t possibly be any worse, from what I hear. Plus, my attention span is only about 1.2 minutes so the videos are short. And commercial free.

I wish I could record some of the more serious drama that goes on here. But I think I should probably get releases signed for that. Just thinking out loud…recording my neighbors on film might end rather poorly. On the plus side, you’ll probably get to meet my douche of a neighbor that everyone hates, Brian. I didn’t change his name to protect his identity. His name is Brian. And he’s a douche.

Last bit of news for the day: Saw both a syringe AND a used condom on the beach today. Up around 34th. So not South Beach. Weird.

Player

South Beach Social
Episode II:
Skittish

Tags: South Beach Social

Player

South Beach Social
Episode I:
Waiting in Vain

Tags: South Beach Social

I was all excited when I woke up yesterday, feeling like it was Christmas morning. It was National Go Topless Day, sponsored by GoTopless.org. At 3pm, women would march topless down Lincoln Road, from Washington to Alton and then had back to the park at Euclid in front of Pizza Rustica/Nexxt Cafe.

Yippee! Boobies! Probably hundreds of them! Setting them free! Yay!

Yeah, no.

The story on CBS makes it sound more dynamic than it was. It was kind of… eh. And quite honestly, personally, I’m not sure I can endorse boobs out in the open. It’s bad business.

To start, I showed up at 3:02pm, two minutes late. Mayday wanted to come so we both rode on my scooter with one kinda flat back tire to the event. Park on Pennsylvania and Lincoln and begin heading towards Washington (the cut-them-off-at-the-pass plan in full effect).

There’s a crowd up ahead. Lots of photographers. Lens of all shapes and sizes. Signs of protest in the air. Smallish signs of yellow and purple. Wait for it… wait for it…

Boobs!

And… eh. Boobs. Six of them in total. Six attached to three women brave enough to bare their breasts. Three women bold enough to stand up for the right to bare breasts. Three women with beliefs. And with those three women, we covered some of the more natural of breasts. Here are the “I Look Natural” implant breasts. Here are the “The Sixties Were Awesome” breasts. And there go the “The Pasties Aren’t Big Enough” breasts.

For however many blocks it takes to get from Washington to Michigan (or wherever Segafredo is) and then back to Euclid where the park is… it was these three pasties-covered women, the six to ten topless men marching in solidarity, two-hundred photographers, and then the very few people on Lincoln who were insane enough to venture out under the sweltering sun at 3pm. Even the open air market that’s on Lincoln Road every (or every other) Sunday was barren.

As a bonus to all of this, there were some nicely weird moments:

• Like when Mr. Clucky didn’t display any surprise as the crowd (which I was a part of) moved past him.
• Like when the photographers starting shooting birds in the sky and random people not at all connected to the event.
• Like when a man in a black t-shirt that I’m sure had a wolf howling at the moon on it, yelled out, “Move out of the way you damn queers,” as the topless trio approached. (I asked him, too, just so you know. “Sir, WTF? I mean, really. WTF?”)
• Like when one random young lady was nearly converted on the spot to go topless, the crowd going wild with anticipation. And by wild, I mean “my god, will the heat ever let up and she looks like she might do it.” And by crowd, I mean photographers hoping to catch a nipple and not a pastie for a change.
• Like when the older – and I want to say granny but it feels so wrong – woman joined in with her red mesh shirt and sailor cap. And I think those were actually nipples underneath the mesh.

I mentioned this in the forums on MiamiBeach411: it was like eating a box of chocolates without the enjoyment of eating each one of those chocolates, and instead only enduring the pain of eating a box of chocolates.

Carlos Miller was there covering for NBC Miami, though, so I got to see him. And then all of a sudden, the marchers were at the park, the speech was being given, the wrap-up interviews being done and the event was over. And by this point, my linen shirt is now entirely unbuttoned, having unhooked the buttons one-by-one over the last hour. I’ve unwittingly freed my breasts. Maybe the heat was part of their master plan to get people to think seriously about freeing their breasts, I think. Then I realize that’s just the heat talking.

What I was saying originally, though, was that for purely selfish reasons, I can’t really condone breasts out in the open. Visions of breasts and the taboo are what I sell. And if women are just going to be giving them away, then that kind of affects my market share. And I’m a nice guy and all, but I don’t know if I can go along with it.

I kid. Free breasts are good. Free breasts of all kinds. I support the right to bare breasts.

Just like the woman from the sixties chanted through megaphone through the duration of the walk, “Free your breasts, free your mind.”

Photos from the event here.

In two weeks, I’m launching a new site. It is a project I’ve been working on for almost two years now. It is an exploration in erotica; my exploration in erotica.

As some of you know, I kind of work in the adult industry. I’ve kept that pretty much off of ipanemic.com. What I’ve presented on ipanemic, both in photos and in video… some would call it porn. Believe me: it isn’t porn. What I am presenting now, you can call porn, but I “try” to stay on the erotica/artistic side. Either way, I’m comfortable with it. I like what I do and I’m good at it.

HeadlessBuddha.com, is the site. (Again, that’s an entirely not-safe-for-work link.) I’m finishing up layout and finalizing initial content over the next two weeks. The site will actually be very similar to this one in that there will be a blog in the front (only, the blog content will deal almost solely with my life in porn – half of my life every day), photos, and video. I will probably make the front of the site as very safe-for-work as possible.

There will be a LOT more photos and video than there has ever been here. Nearly all erotica, and a good bit of what we could call porn. I’ll show raw footage from the shoots and a ton of behind-the-scenes stuff. Good stuff.

Anyway, this is the other half of my life, soon to be open for public consumption. Watch the trailer below and you’ll get an idea of what’s to come.

Player

HeadlessBuddha.com, Everything as it should be.

As I was moving furniture around tonight, trying to set up my workspace to be a little more ergonomic, I noticed that my roommate, Mayday, and I have more black briefcases between us than two men should own in their lifetimes. I wonder about his briefcases, wonder if their experiences matched my own: Years of sitting behind shoes, in corners, collecting dust, and with a little black polish, ready to go to that interview and say, “Hey, I’m serious about this job!”

Times are hard now. More people that I personally know are unemployed right now than at any other time I’ve ever seen. In desperate times, a man will sell his soul.

I was talking to my neighbor the other night… no wait, I was on the phone. On the phone with someone. Somehow she said something about selling your soul. I had said I sold mine a long time ago. And I paused and reflected in my mind about the years that have come before. I have been fortunate.

I don’t remember who it was on the phone exactly.

I killed the LCD screen on my laptop last night. Fell asleep and in the midst of turning, I knocked it off of the couch. (I sleep with my laptop at my head, usually; it’s like my security blanket.) Woke up in the middle of the night, I look at my laptop standing on it’s side, facing away from me. Bad news, I thought. Looks like I’ll have to deal with that in the morning. Currently, for the next few minutes while Mayday is out, I’m using his monitor to access my computer.

This last Wednesday, while shooting Anastasia, my video camera began eating cassettes. Couldn’t record video. Still can’t. Video camera = worthless as of right now.

It’s been raining a lot lately. Not so frightful, really. But I wish the sun would stay out. It feels so warm.

5:48pm, rush off the phone. “Dude, I’ve gotta be there before they close.” I’ll make it, he assures me. I wonder if Mayday, sitting in the cubbyhole corner between the living room and the bathroom, computer monitor glazing his face, is playing solitaire or checking stocks after close for the day.

Scooter to 11th, left to Alton. Print shop just ahead. Lettering on the door informing me of their Mon-Fri hours: 9:00am – 6:30pm. Half an hour to spare. + 3 minutes.

It seems like I’m forever running at the limits. Three minutes to close, one week to launch, twenty minutes till we meet, four miles to go. Still, I somehow get things done and the results usually come out well.

Silver, the gray Chinese Crested of child of Giselle, is running in front of me now. Chaz, her stepdad, is following behind.

I have to code tonight. Code for tourism stuff. I have to work on site layout tonight for another site. I have to go through more photos and begin processing. I have to do some work on photos. I need to do invoicing.

Stop. Chaz is here reminding me of Cesar, the drunk Italian, who was here the other night at 3am, calling Jaqueline’s dog Barnaby “Vagina”. In the breezeway, we sat and Cesar would belt out, “Vagina! Vagina! Look, he comes!!” Barnaby would timidly walk towards Cesar.

Ashtray is full again. Dishes in the sink need washing. Need to put up my lights from yesterday’s shoot.

“Definitely, we should be going to conventions together,” I say on the phone. A fantastic idea and one of the many reasons I like working with her; she thinks about things that don’t cross my mind.

…..

As a matter of tides and current, I see I’m going to reach the buoy first. Chaz is five feet behind me, Giselle three behind him. But I’m only thinking about reaching it before Chaz; Giselle is just there for the swim. I’m nearly there. I look over my shoulder and he’s gone. He’s underwater somewhere swimming toward the buoy. The race is on.

I turn around to grab the buoy and just as I’m about to reach it, Chaz splashes out of the water and slaps his hand on top.

Bastard! There’s always tomorrow.

…..

Giselle, sticks her head out of her door: “Scott, you’re not coming?”
“No, I’m coming.” Chaz had just told me we were invited over for dinner.
Chaz just tells me it’s ready now again.
“I’m going to smoke this cigarette first and then I’m all about it.”