Jude home tonight

So we headed into downtown Montreal for dinner. Valet parking was all Bugatis and decent Porsche, restaurant an old fashioned steak house that serves too much stodgy food in an atmosphere of clubby geniality. Not bad at all - but a 'once if you have to' experience

More of me...

I have a lot of photo shoots coming up over the next couple of weeks and so I've been taking any down time that I have to play with lighting set-ups and lenses. Of course the bad thing right now is that I'm home alone, the dog is banned from the photoroom and the cats move too fast to ever really be of any use to me.

So I end up as my own model. Which is actually very weird... there's something about editing your own pics that smacks of vanity - even if your intentions have been good. What I've found is that I really don't have the face for modeling. I seem to have a perma scowl and an eyebrow that looks as though it was raised wryly just as the botox went in. 90% of the shots are ruined by my face. And 70% by my body. The good models I'm using have about a 10% : 20% ratio.

But still in my new spirit of boheme I thought that I'd share a couple of 'test oven' shots with the world... why the hell not, huh?

Bonjour

Okay it's been about 37 years since I last blogged - at least in blog years, it's actually decades in Tweet-time but hey we're all spewing more and more information in less and less space and in service of nothing; so maybe a hiatus is good.

With Jude now in Chicago I find myself wandering the city on a schedule that's only really moderated by the fact that the dog seems to have constant (and texturally consistent) diarrhea and needs checking in on / wiping up after / cleaning up every other hour.

That said the weather has been gorgeous, the streets awash with festivals and my days relatively free this last week so I've been cycling, photographing, head nodding along to the musicking and generally partaking in active relaxation

Life is good.

The new Avant Garde

So the other day I was watching a documentary about the ever booming porn industry (13,000 DVD titles a year just out of the US) and I started thinking about how and when it all became so violent. Porn it seems has become about competitive degradation.

A friend of mine spoke at Ted this year about the effects that US porn has on teenage kids and what they regard as normal sexually... and the boundaries of acceptable have been massively expanded since the 70s. The modern porn industry is at a place that seems to be increasingly violent - with spitting and choking being the moves du jour.

This is where the degradation part comes in. The theory is that we see things as being degrading if we, when we imagine OURSELVES being in that position the thought is one that would make us feel less about ourselves. Of course this idea of what's personally degrading has changed over time. It was degrading to be a stripper long before it was empowering. Blow jobs on film once made you persona non-grata with Hollywood now you're no-one until you have a sex tape (Paris, Kim, Pam *2, Nicole, Colin, Meg...) and having a sex tape isn't going to keep you out of the teen magazines. And so it goes on. Where people draw the line on what's acceptable comes down to a couple of things... familiarity, social acceptability and access.

The internet has brought about access and familiarity. Look up a sex act, any sex act, and you're going to find 100s of matches. It's hard to be a pervert when there's a vast machine amalgamating every whim and quirk out there. So it's easy to think "well everyone is doing it"... and because access is a click away it feels a lot more socially acceptable too ---> porn isn't something that you have to seek out in cinemas, along top shelves and in dodgy back rooms behind slash curtains anymore, it doesn't come in a brown paper bag. No porn stopped being something that you whispered about when it moved from being something you had to look for to something that you had to block if you didn't want to see it. The modern world is made of bits, and most of those bits are given over to reproducing 'the bits you didn't used to see'

So okay porn is everywhere and what's acceptable is changing as technology brings visibility. But why is it increasingly about demeaning women? And why do women agree to be demeaned so?

Good questions blog readers. And again I think that the answer is two-fold (maybe more, we'll see)

The first is a simple one. There's no shortage of young women looking for easy stardom in the porn business. There's money to be made and ever since Jenna crossed over there's the chance of real fame and perhaps and actual fortune. So for young women the industry holds opportunity. Or they think that it does. The problem is that to become breakout means being stand-out --- and standing out in a world where physical attributes can now be copied, cloned and siliconed means finding a niche and owning it.

So to stand out you've got to do something that the other girls won't. Which means more girls prepared to do more and more stuff. And to get more extreme in order to do it.

Then you've got to be able to live with yourself. You do this by detaching from the fact that you're doing things purely for fame or for money and you start to believe that what you're doing is pushing the boundaries. That you are the avant-garde. And of course you can point to how far people have come in 30 years as evidence that you're not being violated - you're leading the charge into a brave new world. 30 years ago a handful of girls would do anal, dp etc. now a handful won't. So your deciding to ram a swan up your ass whilst taking out your own appendix isn't a desperate cry for attention... it's a political and artistic statement.

When you get to this stage you can actually do things that the world may look at and say 'that's degrading' and not feel degraded in the slightest. A tough argument for the feminist politic to handle. That their outrage is nothing more than a generational gap and a refusal to move with what's acceptable.

This socio-political, avant-garde, anything for attention, perversion as an artistic statement porn movement has a face too. That of Sasha Grey. Gray is smart (The name "Sasha" was taken from Sascha Konietzko of the band KMFDM, and "Grey" represents Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the Kinsey scale of sexuality), she's happy to do things that others would baulk at - and she's turned this full on hypersexuality into a career that's seen her become a model, a singer and now a legitimate actress in Steven (Ocean's 11) Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience.

I've no idea what prompted this. Maybe it's that I'm thinking about what I want to shoot for 'The Dirty Show' or maybe it's just a look at how we each justify bravery (or self abuse)... I'll stop

yes, but are you happy?

Right now I'm loving Montreal. Only the lurking brutality of winter is clouding my view of what otherwise seems to me a perfect city. For example yesterday I got up and did a couple of hours of work before breakfast. This paid me as much as I'd have made for a day's work in previous lives.

Safe in the knowledge that I had earned a crust I toasted some bread bought from the market and then headed to the gym, where I broke a sweat and shed some pounds. From there it's a 25 mile drive down to the beach, where I shed all of my clothes in the company of around 300 likeminded people and get about reading the first installment of Michael Palin's diaries (see pic above, if only my camera phone hadn't lost its zoom function when I accidentally threw it to the ground).

Five hours later I drove home, in traffic that was incredibly light, made myself a pizza with more fresh local ingredients and wandered down to the subway station to meet a model who I was due to shoot. He was charming and good fun and very willing to work with some of the ideas that I had and I think that we got some good stuff out of the day



And the whole day the sun shone, the dog was looked after (for C$14!) and people were sweet and charming to me.

What's not to love? Now about that winter...

The perfect Montreal day

Today may have been the perfect Montreal day for me (albeit one that I spent alone)

It started, as all of my good days do with me stepping on my ambitiously named 'thinner' brand scales and seeing that my weight was down again. I'm now a full 13lbs (6kgs) lighter than I was when I got here and getting dangerously close to being Singapore weight, with some added muscle.

Delighted I took the dog out into the brilliant sunshine, a perfect 27c and just enough breeze to keep it feeling fresh and we walked along the canal for an hour before turning back for home, stopping only for fresh bread at the market.

Called Jude, who was enjoying the mountain air and felt a surge of 'gotta get me some of that' - as I did I passed a store that was advertising a workout / yoga / hiking weekend in the countryside just outside of the city. Called them and will be hiking, swimming, doing yoga, taking a bootcamp class and BBQing in 3 weeks. Perfect.

After breakfast I headed out in search of a haircut and a massage. We live in a gentrified block so it was those places that I tried first, no luck. Each place sighed sadly and then took great delight in showing me their appointment books, full to burst into the next millennial and then pointed me in the direction of someone equally busy and chi-chi. En route I chanced upon Jerry's and looking through the window spied an extra seat. I walked in and hi-fives were exchanged all around. It seems that Jerry's attracts a lot of white faces at the window, but that when people look in and see three young black guys with clippers they run a mile. I was the first white customer in 3 months and they loved it. We buzzed off the hair, sculpted the beard and did something a little Cary Grant with the moustache. I look different, but actually pretty cool.

Home to search the Internet for massage and turned down by all until I get to Miami. I call, they have a spot. I walk down, it's three blocks from the house and am offered the menu - Thai, Shiatsu, Hot Stone ($15 more), Hand job, Blow Job....

"Just a sec" I say. "I just want a massage. Is that okay? Or am I in the wrong place?"

"Up to you" says the small Asian woman who moments ago looked like a grandma but now has all of the markings of a mamasan.

"You pay me $20 for hand-job now, or you negotiate with girl and it cost more"

Too embarrassed to leave (I get very English when faced with having to offend) I walk into the small room, note the bucket full of used tissues and await my fate. In walks a girl dressed for a cocktail party/

"I only want a massage" I say

"Really? she says

"Yes I say, I'm having back problems" - I point at my back with my ring finger

"Well I make all of my money on services" she says "how about you pay me $15 for no-hand job"

I agree and her face lights up. She's from Indonesia, is learning German and Arabic, has an Aunt in Berlin and loves Bali. Freed from the idea of having to blow me she's all smiles and genuine massage expertise. I like her.

Of course only I would have to pay to get no action in a brothel.

From the massage to Dr Sketchy's - held in a dark bar away from the sunlight, but with a bikini beach theme. Mad but fun.

Back out into the street and the people are universally gorgeous. The women have decided that bags are out and that tits are in and almost to a woman have used a push up bra to create enough cleavage to act as a holster for a cell phone. They're everywhere and one wonders whether they're on vibrate.

The men are equally gorgeous. The big gay festival (well one of them) is in full swing and so the skin is uniformly olive, the arms buff and the v-neck t-shirts tight and complementing equally tightly cropped hair.

I decide to walk. Down through parks and little pedestrianised enclaves where 100s mill, eating and drinking Rose. Then down onto St Laurent and all of the fashion and boutiques. Until I come to Cinema L'amour - the biggest sex cinema in North America. I take a few shots and then a few more of the lobby. The girl behind the desk suggests I come back between shows as the theater is gorgeous and could be photographed then, but that right now they have people in and they're having sex. And here I was thinking that the sex was all on screen. This time I made my excuses and bolted.

Back home by 6.30 and realize that I've not eaten today. All of the walking has pretty much taken me past restaurants but somehow I didn't feel the urge. So here I am, contemplating what to put on my home made pizza, with the sun shining and the temperature still steady at 27c. The dog as been out and in an hour I leave to photograph a giant outdoor drag queen party... before skipping over to Parc Jean Drapeau for the fireworks and an open-air Coldplay gig.

It's been a very different day, but I finally feel like a local. Hey I almost joined my taxi-driver as he cat-called and wolf-whistled every woman he saw on the street - ruefully lamenting "And today, of all days, I am working"

The perils of nude beaches

Came across this article while looking for an image to accompany a piece I'm writing called "It's easy to love a nude beach when you have a big cock"

The image needs to be clean enough to be published, and not copyrighted. Tougher than you'd imagine.

Still fun story

New Routine

We haven't quite managed to settle into a new routine here yet. With all of the running around that moving takes, the people that we've had visiting and my company finally starting to land some jobs and take me away for a day or two it's all felt as though we were making it up as we go along.

But today I find myself home alone and facing the task of setting a routine for myself going forward. Jude is away for the next couple of weeks - first in Whistler where she's vacationing with some friends and then in Chicago where she has a conference to go to. So as of this morning I'm home alone and wondering what life here really looks like.

Today's schedule is a nice one I think. The sun is already shining but yesterday's deathly still and stupefyingly humid 31c has been replaced by a light breeze and 26c. So I'm making the most of it. Here's the plan.

Up at 7.30, make some breakfast (or finish up the breakfast that my mom had delivered for Jude's birthday, yum) then take the dog for a walk before it gets too hot, come back shower and head for the gym for an hour or so. From the gym drive down to the beach in a bid to look less like The Programmer guy here and spend an hour or two reading the Michael Palin diaries. Head back around three and sort out some expenses and book-keeping before spending an hour on the book and a couple of hours on the business, and some time on the phone drumming up interest in the Burlesque Festival. Walk the dog along the canal (she'll be tired as the dog-walker will have run her earlier) to a favorite dinner spot, order a huge salad and sit by the water as I eat. Come home, a little TV, hit all of the internet bookmarks and bed.

That's what life looks like here. It's not scintillating but it is happy. :-) See. :-)

A really simple model

I've spent much of the week being irked by companies' failure to understand that a two way dialogue requires more than allowing people to post what they think of what you're doing on a hub somewhere.

Here's my issue. There are so many companies out there asking "What do you think?" that my head spins. Most people offer me a place to post my commments. But they don't actually take any action based on what I say.

An example. HSBC understand local differences. They say so. They solicit my opinion based on this idea. So far better than most. They have an idea; they're involving me in their idea. I like. But they then launch not a single product based on any of the feedback that they get. If 80% of people in the West say that they'd like to be part of a solution to african poverty where's the product that allows micro loans? Or the product that diverts part of your interest into a aid? Or that allows you to buy shares in community ventures?

The model should be simple

- Introduce your idea

- Invite participation in your idea

- Use that participation to inform new products and services, communications and thoughts

It's not hard and it becomes a virtuous circle. But as long as there's a wall between innovation, r&d, marketing and manufacture it's just not going to happen.

Gnnnnnnrrrrrrrr.

Long day

So I left for the airport at 6pm yesterday
Arrive at 7.15 to be told that due to weather issues my flight is cancelled

Call the car rental companies who want $1300 for a one way to Montreal
So check in to a hotel.... at $180 a night it's not cheap by Taxis would have been $110 alone

A couple of drinks and a bad salad later I'm in bed
The whole hotel smells of sewage

Breakfast is Toast that is actually stale bread left to 'warm' in front of a radiator and a coffee
They charge $18

But I make it to the airport without incident and hit the standby line for the 9.45
Plane is oversold and broken

It sits on the tarmac.

I get confirmed for a 1.50pm flight; but they won't give me a seat.
I talk nicely to someone and get a seat assigned

Should be on my way,
Barring weather
And breakdowns.

Will arrive home 15 hrs late

But hopefully will arrive

Blessed

While in New York I've been reminded of how blessed I am when it comes to the people in my life.

Tonight I met friends doing cool web stuff (www.urdb.org)
People that had just finished books on Creative Spaces
And talented artists in the theatre, acting and film making spaces

And I realize that this isn't the norm. That most people don't have the ability to plug into a network of people as fascinating as it is fascinated. And I thank whatever entity is appropriate for the opportunity to mix with people who are driven, interesting and committed, because it rubs off.

I spent a night with friends and came out energized, motivated and stimulated. Wow. Feeling very, very lucky

IN NYC

So here I am in NYC, working hard on an idea that's starting to feel quite nice... and getting ready to see some friends.

Have Mike and a night at a book launch and documentary screening tonight
Jen and a drink in the LeS tomorrow
Will and baby Jack at Ali's "Leaving New York" party tomorrow
And then back to Montreal on Friday... checking in with 'base camp' Toronto over the weekend

Busy but buzzy

Hurrah

To Paraphrase JFK

Or at least translate him from bad German into basic French

"Je suis un beignet"

Tired, but happy

I'm knackered right now... a mix of lots of walking, some sun, too much food and drink, late nights, airport runs, plane delays and time with people who I really like... 4am start tomorrow too; so gonna cut this short and see whether I can go back to bed.

Just a quickie really to say that I'm still alive and kicking...

Airport run

Montreal is now having its second worst summer since records began. Temperatures are 8c lower than usual. The sky is unusually grey and more and more storms keep thundering through; bringing masses of moisture as they do. Into this washout arrive our friends Gareth and Amy; and luckily they're people who really know how to entertain themselves... as we won't be around for bits of their trips and the city is doing all that it can to stop them venturing outside.

But I've set them a couple of 'go order a French breakfast, en Francais" tests and challenges and I'm sure that they'll rise to them. Must go and collect them, and then jet off myself

Photos to follow..

A weird feel in the city

New York is hot and it smells of sweat and garbage. But that's not the funk that seems to be in the air. The city that was defined by frivolous consumption now seems ill at ease with the very idea of ease itself... sitting awkwardly at pavement cafe tables suddenly very self aware. It's as though everyone here caught a glimpse of just how ridiculous their life had become and suddenly become self-aware... unable to relax back into the mode of 'all is good here in the greatest city in the nation'

It's not the hangover I'd been told to expect, it's a clumsy, awkwardness. As though the whole city is looking for a new definition of what constitutes an acceptable good time. If it's not Carrie and the Girls then it's what? who?

Californian cities get to keep their identities as laid back, creative and hippy
Seattle and Portland get to keep crustiness
The midwest gets to wallow in the decline of the rustbelt
While Miami maintains its sass and Latin spirit
And Boston still has its university

But what of New York - that small island off the coast of America that has lived as the amplified spirit of unconscious consumption? What does New York do now?

It's a question that seems to be being asked in the awkwardness I see all around me...
Answers on a postcard please

Highlights / Lowlights

Our friends Gareth and Amy are coming to stay later this week - which is of course the cue for me to start looking at the weather, checking out new and cool places, feeling responsible for their every second in town and generally fretting over all of the things that I can't affect... or effect... I think that it's the former... we shall see. Anyway I'm trying to relax and I have some work (my first since December) to distract me. So all is good there.

The good thing is that G&A (A&G sounds too financial) are pretty good at entertaining themselves...

Anyway they've been doing a lessons learned from their HIGHLIGHTS and LOWLIGHTS thing on their blog recently and it started me thinking. What have been my highlights/ lowlights over the last couple of years. And the weird thing is that there seem to be more of them since 2006 than I can remember in the previous decade.

I'm spinning this toward being a sign of real positive growth. Of being more aware and more in touch with my emotions than I have been previously, of the thick lacquer of British reserve cracking some under the strain of life... but it could just be that I'm bipolar and in need of a litany of medication available only in North America.

So without further ado here are my lessons learned of late


NO EXPERIENCE CHANGES YOU UNLESS YOU ALLOW IT TO

People believe that Cancer makes you wise. That walking up to the precipice of the valley of death, having a good old peer over and then deciding to bungee that than jump right now makes you somehow wiser. The truth is it first makes you wise, then smug and then you forget all about it and turn back into the asshole you always were. This process takes about 6 weeks. Unless you decide to not only look for enlightenment - but to implement some changes to. It took me 3 years to do that. But finally I feel as though I have.


PEOPLE MATTER MORE THAN ANYTHING

I've always been one for jettisoning people as we moved to the next place and the next adventure. It's not a deliberate thing but new cities throw up new challenges and bring new people into your life and before you know it you're thinking - "whatever happened to whatersface?" Which of course is a recipe for unhappiness. What matters are the people around you. Do everything you can to keep close to your friends (Facebook helps enormously) and you won't go far wrong


SOME PEOPLE ARE EMOTIONAL VAMPIRES

If you surround yourself with the kind of people who are without a spark for life it's easy to get sucked into the moshpit of misery. They'll suck you dry and then move onto the next person with their low energy, their lack of belief and their motivation-less wandering. If you have a friend who brings you down tell 'em so.. if that doesn't work... boot 'em to the sidewalk. The occasional complaint is fine, decades in the doldrums ain't


LOVE WHERE YOU LIVE

I lived in a town where the weekend highlight was a tour of the municipal dump. I did what I could to make the most of it, but ultimately it was an uphill struggle... and you want to have your breath taken by awe and beauty, not by struggle and the constant quest to find something to do. So do what you can to love where you live. And if it feels hard more often than it feels freeing - get on a Greyhound and head on out (be careful not to get beheaded though)


BOUNCE

It's good to bounce. To be childlike. To be free. To not care. So bounce. Do new things with enthusiasm. Sing too loudly. Jump in with both feet. Commit. Be silly. Wear something age inappropriate. Enjoy not caring. And do it with other people who don't eaither. Life's too short to be adult all of the time.


GET FIT and LEARN A LANGUAGE

It'll help you think. It will get you laid. It will stave off Alzheimers. It WILL get you laid.


More tomorrow.... gonna go throw Pizza Sauce at Jude now...

Ou est l'ete

Montreal is a city that throws itself into the arms of summer wholeheartedly and without reservation. Having been brutalized, battered and bewildered by the onslaught of another unexpectedly dreadful winter, the summer is greeted with festivals and outdoor cafes and live events, each topped with layers of glistening, newly revealed flesh, begging to be bronzed.

Right now we have the Jazz festival, the Zoofest, the Comedy Festival, Piknik Elektronik and a whole bunch of other things going on to ("Haiitian drumming fest? well since you're asking Parc Jean Drapeau, turn right at the water fest")

People here say things like "Life is short, summer is shorter" as they throw off their clothes and head for somewhere mortifyingly public.

So when summer is late and clouds spoil the sparkling blush of your second glass of Rose people get upset.

It's not as warm as it should be here. 23c rather than 28c. It's not as sunny either - humidity bringing in clouds in the afternoon. And people are pissed. They've been cheated. Out of the arms of brutal winter into the arms of a summer that turned out to be flaccid? Hell no! They won't stand for Summerectile Dysfunction... and they're out for blood.

Me? I'll admit that when the sun shines brightest the place is amazing. That its rays are transformative. But I'll settle for a watery sun here over the oft brilliantly blue skies and searing heat of Michigan. As I write - the sun is pouring through the window. I have a Cafe au lait in my hand, the cup that holds has the most beautiful graphic (it's from Toi, Moi et Cafe - si vous adorez le cafe) and I can hear birds in the trees outside.

Am I feeling cheated? Only out of the comedy festival... I had tickets for shows between July 20 and the end lined up and now need to be in New York all of that week. But that's money in the bank... and money in the bank means less time here in the winter.. so all is good....

Peace out

A change of plans

So the Seattle based thing may have become a New York / Atlanta thing - which is much easier for me and a lot less time in the air... hurrah

Still really interesting too.

Plus it gives me time to work on Burlesque Fest with the lady pictured above (I'm a HUGE fan of the strategically placed fan and volunteered to help in any way that I could, it's time to get involved with something good again after the A2 hibernation)

And I get to carry on with French... another good thing

Anyway this is short and hurried (like Napoleon on the retreat)... heading into the bank now

Something thoughtful soon... promise

Filling up fast

Next week is looking busy and not just with French classes....

- I have to fly to Seattle (an 8 hr meeting that means 16 hrs of travel)

- I have friends arriving from the US

- I have a meeting in Toronto

- I have meetings with the business people at the bank

And I have a few follow-ups to do with people who have expressed an interest in 'The Fish'


Might not sound like a lot - but looking at 16 hr days here...

Youch