Rough Day

I gathered that today was a rough one when I found myself curled in a ball in the corner of an airport crying uncontrollably (never a good look, dangerous when flying into New York on 9/11)

The reason was very simple, I think. The people that we rent from have the house on the market. We knew that when we moved in, and we were cool with it. Our last place had been on the market too. They just started showing the place and now there's an offer on it. I'm not around to work out a mortgage in time to counter the offer and so we're going to have to move (again) in June.

This shouldn't be an issue. We move a lot. What's the big deal? Right?

Well the big deal is that we chose this place with all kinds of future plans in mind. We saw it the day after Judith found out that she was pregnant. The pictures had a nursery and a crib in them. And I'd imagined this being the place to which we brought home that first child. This wasn't another house - it was going to be a real home for us, for the family that we were going to have.

Of course, as those of you who read this blog know, our happiness seems rationed and so the baby - like health and employment so soon before it, but with more tragic impact was lost. Leaving us with a house that we loved and dreamed of filling. And now (it seemed at 1pm today) was taken too. This wasn't a house that we were losing, it was the last physical connection to the baby we lost and the dreams we had for it.

And I am SO done with uncertainty. Cancer haunts ever quarter. Employment is at the whim of people who have proved mercurial, and three times a day people walk into my home and discuss in front of me what they're planning to do with the room that I'd planned would sleep my baby.

The truth, the real truth, is that I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. Just one pillar that I could cling to in the tsunami of bad karma that has been the last 5 years would be great. But I can't find one. And I am drowning. And just as Stevie Smith said people seem to think that I'm waving.

Normal service will be resumed tomorrow -- when I will go back to a windowless office and spread my brand of optimism and good cheer amongst people sulking at losing a weekend. But today, I think, I'm allowed to be down.

The things you miss

So while I was in Brazil I managed to miss the Fetish weekend here... which was a shame as they have a fetish exhibitionist walk that would be fabulous to photograph.

Similarly I'll be away from the Burlesque Festival - which I really wanted to be involved in but somehow conspired to be away for.

So I'm missing everything but coming back to Montreal each time is feeling more and more like coming home - especially as the skies are both brilliant blue and always visible. The temps are down a little (23c as I write this) but the sunshine more than makes up for it.

I like it here. It's a shame that the house is for sale - 3 people a day tramping through is enough to disturb even my sense of equilibrium... but we're looking at buying options (it may just be too early for us) and at the idea of moving again with less dread than in the past.

I'm happy today - working hard on a cool project and from a distance; in a city I really like. Life is good. Now where's the kick coming from?

Last day in Brazil

It's my last day in Brazil today - though they have asked me to stay. By they I mean the people who I"m helping out here, not the Brazilian government. It's been damp, gray and fattening. Too much food, too little time outside and as a result I'm feeling fat and a though I swallowed a million razor blades.

Other than that things are good. Annoyed at not being able to really use my phone due to $3 a minute roaming charges... but in spirits as good as weight gain will allow.

Be good to be home... even for 3 days

And it's Brazil

So here I am in Brazil... on too little sleep and with 'dinner and samba' being the thing that is going to make it a late one tonight. The weather is grey and cold(ish) and we're working the weekend - but it's nice to be in an office that has great natural light, on a schedule that blurs the days and amongst people who have ideas for a living.

Reading "Risk" and again loving sociology - if only it wasn't so Educatating Rita - all middle aged women trying to figure out where their lives and marriages took such a wrong turn. I could be interested.

Right - power nap time! Then it's hip swinging starters and heel ball toe entrees

Mission Part Complete

So I had my New York meeting and was rabidly but genuinely enthusiastic... meeting went reasonably well and I really liked the people. Usually that means nothing as average tenure in a job in NA is 4 years - but these people like to stay a while in their positions and that would be good as I'd love to work with them.

9 hr flight down to Brazil comes next... will be there until the 7th - and then fly back home to Montreal for a couple of days before coming back down to the mothership for one final push... should be good (we hope)

All of that said it's been an uneventful couple of days, I've remembered why I do and don't like agencies and I'm looking forward to working with creative types over the next couple of days.

Sing hallelujah

The Royalton

I'm at the Royalton in new york, preparing for a meeting on Weds and then a flight to Brazil on Thursday that will eat up a holiday weekend and swallow up a birthday as I head for home on Monday.

The hotel here is all slick chocolate browns and glass sinks, flat surfaces and fake wood - it's kinda nice but you wonder whether they'll get the money they spent on the design back before fashion changes and they're forced to spend to change it - and whether they ran those numbers. Still it has a gym (desperately needed after the last three weeks of airports) and a bed that's free of bugs and not overly soft - so I won't complain to anyone about this choice.

Be good to get past this trip and be home again. Life on the road is expensive and it's lonely; my credit card bill being the only thing that I seem to check in with while traveling. Oh well, here's to Sept 23rd and being back without a trip on the horizon (said the man about to leave one great city for Brazil... surely a better trip than Toronto)

I am now officially the worst blogger ever

So after all of the drama at the airport I got home to see my wife and a very dear and equally old friend and settled into a routine of frenzied hard work. I'm busy. Partly because I'm helping out on a global pitch and partly because, as global pitches too often are, this is one that has a million loose ends all urging you to tug a little and see what happens.

Throw in a couple of flights this week - first to New York and then down to Sao Paulo, Brazil and the hotel shown above and you suddenly start to see just why I've not been around. It's crazy. Stupidly crazy. And of course I'm letting myself suffer. The gym routine is down to nothing, the wine intake up 100%, I have a metallic taste in my mouth that makes the thought of food too bloody much and I'm sleeping like a baby (waking every two hours and screaming)

But it's almost done. I shall be home soon,

Steve will...

... attempt to leave NYC tomorrow

Cross all that you have

Not so fast

Two days after my last post I'm still in New York City. Blame the weather, blame mad chinamen, blame whatever.. it's a mess.

So here's the story. I leave the office and head to LGA, stand in line, wait 20 mins for someone to validate my passport at the self serve booth (if you need validation from a member of staff it's not self serve in my opinion but I digress) and am given this message.

"You are attempting to check in too early, boarding passes can be printed no more than 24 hrs in advance"

A lot of wrangling and I see that my flight has been canceled. And that I'm on standby for a flight 26 hours hence. Which is pants as I have to leave Monday at 4am to get back to New York. The office swings into action and finds a 9.40 flight out of EWR. I get in a taxi and start to head there... only to find on my Blackberry that this flight too is canceled. I call Continental (the airline) and they confirm, but say that my ticket was held but not bought and that if I want to fly at all this weekend I have to throw $1000 at them right now. I crumble. I buy the ticket. Cancel Delta and get some of the money back and then head back into town to find a hotel (remember no hotels if it's a weather related delay)

So today I leave early, Get to the airport and find my flight delayed due to a late arriving incoming plane. 3 hrs later I'm onboard and happy to be heading home. We pull away from the gate and grind to a halt. Bad weather. But we're being re-routed and will be away soon. Then that route is canceled. We still the engines and wait an hour - happy to be 3rd in line.

The clouds start to part and the screaming starts. A Chinese man wants off the plane. he's had enough. He doesn't want to fly. He wants to go back to the gate. We turn around and head back. To take off against his will is legally kidnap. Cool. As we head back planes start moving. There's a gap in the storm and they all take off. We don't. We get to the gate and the Chinese man refuses to get off. Planes are moving. He wants to leave. They throw him off. His three sheepish looking kids are ushered to the door. He forbids them to leave. "Booooo" say the plane. "BOOOOOOOOO" says the sweet but deaf man next to me. A stand off, they they too are off. We refuel. We head back to the runway. We stop. The storm is back. We're no. 17 for take-off. We wait. For about 4 hrs. People cry. People faint. The deaf man next to me shout / whispers "YOU CAN SEE THAT ONE'S NIPPLES AND HER ASS... SHE MUST BE A STRIPPER... NOT ONE FOR MOTHER ANYWAY"

"We'll make it" say the cabin crew

"We won't" says the pilot and we head back to the gate. Deflated.

"I TELL YOU SHE'S A DANCER" yells my seat-mate. Fun.

Weather again means no hotels but I stand in line with the deflated few and wait to change my ticket. It takes hours. The guy behind the counter seems distracted by the stripper / dancer. He offers me 5pm tomorrow. I don't want to fly at 5pm tomorrow as I have to be back Monday at 6am. So I decide to change for mid-week, suck it up and head into town.

Walk into my fave hotel and tell the tale. Tearfully. They take pity and upgrade me to a suite. It's nice. And cheaper than where I've been.

I try to call home but Jude is out doing the things that I'd planned for us to be doing together. I have a friend in town and I'm not seeing him at all. Still mid-week.

I decide to check the flight times and see that it's booked in the past. For July not August. Old Nipple Tassels certainly has an effect on men. I call and change the ticket. For no charge. That's nice. Check the weather for mid-week, it looks good. Then I cry, a lot.

After that I call some friends, arrange some dates, sort through expenses (a lot of small bits of paper) and generally feel better. Work some too and manage to improve a brief and get into a position to start work tomorrow. More drained than a bride-groom to be at one of 'SHE'S A DANCER, WINK, WINK's - and now for some TV and bed.

Farewell NYC

My last morning in NYC and I have a 7am call. That means having to stay until the next flight out - which is at 5.40pm. Long delay for a short call but hey, it's with Singapore and that's a 12 hr time difference so c'est la vie.

Have a wife and some friends waiting for me at home, along with a kick-box, yoga retreat - which could be fun (or disastrous, I'm hoping the former) then a couple more weeks of flying around the globe before finally getting back to Quebec and real life.

Still it's all good and it's all money in the bank...

A blog from a plane

As I got onto my Delta flight today they gave me a 'free wi-fi' coupon

And guess what? It works

Another refuge gone, huh?

Delayed, on a plane, with a moron

And so the noise continues. And not just any noise. Not the gentle hum of the air against the aluminum tin into which we are crammed, or the drone of engines fighting for thrust. No; this noise is more penetrating, a bullet hole, an exposed nerve in sub zero temperatures. This is a cacophony of noise in the first person. A litany of “I” and “me” and “then I” and “it’s amazing that I”s that is as relentless as it is boastful. The pauses for breath are few but precious, counted in nanoseconds, a silence which his unfortunate row-mate feels compelled to fill with the “Wow’s” that are taken as ‘please continue, only with more volume, more self interest, less sense of other people being around and punchlines to each story that are identifiable as such only by your laughter and the shake of your swollen head.”

And in the moments that you’re not imagining pushing a spike through the soft part of his brain responsible for speech you’re wondering what life must be like for those around him, Because this man sees himself as a motivator, as a coach, as a shining example of how self belief can overcome any obstacle. To his kids he will be first a hero, then a bully, then a figure to be kept at a distance, before eventually becoming a story as short as it is tragic. “My dad? Yeah, he was an asshole.”

You see them, these guys. On touchlines everywhere. In shorts. Urging the kids on. And of course these days you see them on TV too. Most famously Survivor’s biggest planet of one ‘Coach’… men too caught up in the rhythm of their speech and the energy of their telling to notice the slight recoil or the open disbelief of their ‘audience’


Some make a fortune as ‘motivational speakers’ – telling those cursed with meekness and manners that the way to ‘get on in life’ is to blast right through it, picking up ‘pearls of wisdom’ as you go. But there’s never any real wisdom there. Because these guys are all about the reaction to a sound-bite. They live for a ‘that was deep’ reaction, not for moments that are deep. Skimming along on a a thin surface of polite strangers and people caught too deep in their web to disappear to a quieter space.

And much as you may want to hurt them. To point out their folly, to highlight the reactions of the people around them, you don’t. Because there’s no room in the conversation. And no hope of getting through. These are guys who don’t know things they believe them and their belief is unshakable. They’re the assholes that love the military but wouldn’t join it, that love their wives but wouldn’t say no to the hooker in the bar, who’ll give you a piece of their mind – even though they don’t seem to have much to spare.

And they’re always, always, seated behind me.

International de montgolfières de Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu

So the summer here starts to draw to an end with temperatures set to a gentle bake, skies that grow hazy at night with the sweat and fatigue of the people here and with the last of the big festivals all vying for attention.

Yesterday we had the choice of hot air ballooning (with music by Wyclef Jean) or an Italian Fest with lots of sports cars, pasta and music by someone other than Wyclef (why do I always say his name as though I'm Tom Jones?), the Gay Pride community day with music by Michel Dorion or Festiblues with music by old guys who have had lives as hard and wives as battered as their guitars.

Having watched a scarcely attended drag queen homage to the 80s (Tine Turner good, Cher bad, Pat Bennetar a revelation), been depressed enough having lived in Michigan and both having the desire to still fit in our clothes we decided to eschew gay community, pasta and old guys with rough lives and rougher hands and set off for the Balloon Festival - or International de montgolfières de Saint-Jean-sur-Richeli.

And what a good decision. More inflatables than an It's a Knockout Special, fat kids refusing to jump from the bungee platform as mom tried harder and harder to fake credible adoption papers, a wine tent with outdoor seating and 100 hot air balloons taking to the air with near silent majesty. Really cool.

I have five days away now - a meeting in NYC and one in Atlanta... with lots of tricky flights in between - and I'm going to miss being here. Especially as Jude is finally back, the dog is finally well and we have a friend coming to stay for the first time in close to two decades (this friend, not any friend)

Oh well - home by Friday, and then a few days off before I have to head for Brazil.

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