Current mood:	awake
Current music:	Big Mama Thornton - "Hound Dog"

Of heterosexuality, hipsters, and homicide.
Also known as, Melissa's Labor Day Weekend 2006 LOL!!11!eins!1

I know I haven't *really* updated, as in, without the aid of surveys, printscreen commands, and the like, since January 4th. The thing is...when I have more interesting things to actually tell people about, that's when I can't find the time/motivation to write. But tonight I realized why I got into Livejournal in the first place...I've considered myself a "writer" since I was 8 years old. Like most writers, I've suffered from The Block. This block of mine has been rather persistent, not constant, more like a re-occurring cough, for about 4 years. Were it not for blogging outlets like this, I would probably not write at all. At least, not for any sufficient length to truly tell a story.

To break it down, I've had this journal about 2 years and 10 months:

2003: 2 months and 29 entries which gives an average of 14.5 entries a month
2004 before moving to New York: 5 months and 41 entries, average of 8.2 entries per month
2004, after moving to New York: 5 months and 31 entries, so 6.2 entries/month
2005: 10 months and 47 entries, so 4.7. entries per month
This year: 6 months and 9 entries, which is 1.5 entries/month

Summary: As I've gotten older, my adventures have come fewer and farther between.
Actual truth: My life has gotten stranger, less predictable, and too new to be able to write about, at least for someone always criticized as being "too descriptive" in writing assignments in school.

Next time, I will tell about my 5-week roadtrip I took this summer, and I will have pictures. As much for myself as youz guyz, as this roadtrip was a true chapter in my life. You know when you have a life-altering event that becomes a marker of time. Like "The first time such-and-such has happened since he died" or "The best time I've had since moving to whatever place". Well, this roadtrip was just what the reminiscence doctor ordered...10,000 miles, 19 states, 5 weeks...the first 2 weeks and 6000 miles by myself.

I will tell a bit about all that once I have the pictures ready. They're on my camera still, which has died, so I must get the memory card to a working device of some sort. Ah well. I had such a gay weekend, I wanted to get it out now, while I'm awake.

Friday:
I did a shoot for Playboy TV. It was for a reality show based on a NYC photographer named Andrew Einhorn. He was photographing us for his next book, and Playboy was filming him for their reality show about him, which starts in January. I believe our episode is sometime in February...
To briefly bring you up to speed...I've been posing in the nude for some student artists in the UES who go to Jacob Collins's Atelier. I've done it 3 times in the past few weeks, and I will be doing it every weekday in October. It pays well, and in cash, and in all honesty, it's the best thing I've ever done for money. I'm getting paid to be a human being, with a body. It's not sexual AT ALL, and requires nothing except full nudity. I don't get touched, and don't touch myself. I found the gig on Craigslist.
Sooo...I also found an ad looking for "naked happy couples." It looked legit, as it namedropped Playboy. I showed it to my boy one night after a party, thinking he would just laugh. But alas, he's got some of the exhibitionist in him as well, and emailed the dude with a picture of us. Just our faces. The guy wrote back immediately, liked us alot, and wanted more pictures, more revealing. We sent those, no nudity though, we wanted to get paid before showing any real skin. And next thing I know, I'm talking to the producer, who wanted to make sure my stomach tattoo was not offensive. I told him the story of Porkchop, as well as my ethnic background, and we were in.

The shoot was like 9 hours total. Basically, our "back story" was that we were married for 3 years and lived in TriBeCa. Lie, and lie. We've been seeing each other for less than 7 months, only met each other in January, and I live in the East Village while he lives in Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn.
It started with us in Central Park, and Andrew just kind of finds us having a picnic. You know...that thing we do every weekend! That took about 6 takes. And honestly...There was a lot of acting involved, considering this was a so-called reality show. If a guy came up to me in Central Park, whether or not I was alone or with a dude, and said he a photographer, then handed me his book of naked girls...he woulda got stabbed. But because I was being paid, and there was a camera in my face, I smiled alot, giggled mildly, looked to Seth, and said "We'll talk about it, and get back to you!" Yeah right! The Melissa we all know and love would have thrown his book into the lake we were sitting next to, called this mensch a pornographer, kicked him in the balls, and run to the park po-po. Ohhhhh my friends...it was a true exercise in self-restraint. Thank god I have the patience of a teacher these days.
Then the next part of the shoot was at Seth's place, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. To Non-New Yorkers...this is the closest thing to The Ghetto that NYC possesses, I believe, at least, among Manhattan and Brooklyn. TriBeCa is in downtown Manhattan, where the Olsen twins supposedly live. It's rather fancy. The 2 areas couldn't be more different. But, like the producer said, "The magic of editing!" So Andrew comes to Seth's place, like it's a different day and we've talked about it, etc. Seth has 3 roommates, and his room is probably the smallest. So we shoot in his roommate Kate's room, with his sheets, though. The next part is outside, which was sketchy, because he has neighbors. And it ended in his living room.
This particular episode focussed on Andrew's inability to be in a committed relationship for any length of time. While he normally photographs naked girls, this episode was supposed to focus on couples, and how they managed to "keep it real" and "stay in love." Throughout the day, more than being photographed or filmed, we were asked questions about our relationship. Pretty ironic for 2 people who are probably still together because of their very lack of relationship-communication ;p.

The Central Park part and the very end, which was us clothed doing an interview, were not photographed, they were just for Playboy. Those were the hardest parts for me. I can be an incredibly good liar, due to my dead pan delivery, when I WANT to be. But when it comes to being asked to lie, I falter. I have a hard time letting go of my identity, my personality. So this shoot, which was "heightened reality", was harder than real acting. There was no script, it was us, just the playboy version of us...married, younger, and able to afford living in Tribeca just on income from being performing musicans! hahahaha! *wipes tears of incredulous laughter away* Another thing that was staged was this part at the end of the living room shoot. Andrew feels hot all of a sudden, the walls are closing in, etc. In other words, all the relationship talk was making him claustrophobic. He has to lie down, and we get him a glass of water. In the final interview, conducted by the producer, the questions revolved around being in love, Andrew's situation, and our experience that day. Seth and I had enjoyed posing naked, no doubt. But more than sexy nudists, we're smart, verbose, and nerdy. So that the interview was more of a show-off for us than getting naked. We spoke freely and thoughtfully, until the producer, Ross, would ask questions like "What did you think when Andrew had to lie down?" We both stared at the camera for a good 60 seconds, silently, because that whole situation was so staged, we couldn't give a real answer!

But at the end of the day, we got $500 apiece. We've already received a few photographs, which I'd be happy to share if anyone wants to see them. We'll be in Andrew's next book, due out in about a year, and the air time for this episode will be probably sometime in February. We're getting the DVD of it. Here's a photograph that's safe for work:

And yes...my mother knows what I'm doing. And she said, and I quote, "I'm so proud of you! You've gotten rid of sexual hang-ups that I STILL have!"

Ewww, daylight...I'll make the rest of this quick, I swear..

Saturday:
My fried Aaron works at a club in the West Village, which hosts MisShapes, some gay hipster party. I never would have gone, except that he got me in for free, and I drank for free. Also, Ashlee and Jessica Simpson were in attendance and very visible to me, which sadly, was the highlight of my night. I had bought some coke earlier in the night from a guy who brought his girlfriend along to my place, who smelled up my bathroom, no lie. Anyhoo, I drank free beer, till almost 4 a.m., at which time I was harassed by a tall blonde "stylist" from the Midwest. The drugs and drinking, and the fact that he partied, coerced me to hang out with him after hours, and we proceeded to tour the Hudson, one darkened doorway at a time, doing bumps. He was soooooo not my ideal anything, despite being very cute in a Justin Timberlake kind of way, it was entertaining to hang out with him. Next thing I know we're making out, and buying booze at a bodega at 6 a.m. In non-New Orleans world, doing this on a Sunday morning is a crime of some sort. Which is how I ended up being charged $17 for 2 24-oz. Coronas. The corrupt cashier threw in a couple of to-go coffee cups.

I invited Elton back to my place. No, I had no plans to get in on. I just thought he was interesting, in an ordinary kind of way. He also had his own drugz, which was a plus. So we continue to drink and snort, until he offers his ass-eating services. I declined, giving my bean-heavy dietary history as an excuse, and told him to sleep it off. We made out for a bit, but we eventually passed out around 10 a.m. till around 2 p.m., without removal of clothes or sexual touching at all.

Sunday:
Seth invited me to his place for a BBQ. I was still feeling the effects of the night before, so when I got there at 9 p.m., and he told me that he had a headache and wanted to lie down for an hour, I was more than happy to join him. There were a few people downstairs, doing lines and drinking, but I had no interest in that for once. Little did we know what shit was about to go down 3 hours later. We woke up around 2:30, noticed that everyone from the party had disappeared, and that there was a white van labelled "Body Examiner" in front of his house. We peered out the window and saw 2 dudes wearing latex gloves bend down and pick up a a dead body, right in front of his door. NYPD was all around, gathering up caution tape that had apparently been stretched around Seth's place and his neighbors'. We asked his roommate in the room next to his what had happened. And apparently we had slept through the cops knocking on the door in the midst of the partying a little before midnight, and asking everyone to look at the corpse for indentification purposes. It was no one anyone knew, by the by. The look on his roommate's face told us that it had been a fucked up, life-altering experience, not easily forgettable. The party had understandably disbanded after viewing the corpse. We had all known the area was rough, but to be the final resting place for someone was a new thing.
It kept me up the rest of the night, thinking about the differences between city and country living. I always assumed that if I die when I'm old, it'll be from cancer, and if I'm young, it'll be a car wreck. I live in New York, and like any urban setting, the chances of being killed by another human being are pretty high, higher than by driving, since I don't drive up here. It could be over like that. We all try to be healthy...eat organic, jog, stay away from 2nd hand smoke. One day while running for our cardio health, someone could just drive by and shoot us. When it comes right down to it, all the technology and computers and surveillance and weapons can't keep us alive forever, they can't even tell us when our time will come. That guy who got stabbed in the gut...did he know when he got dressed that day that he would die in those clothes? Did he tell his girlfriend or wife or mother he loved them before going out for the night? Did he get stabbed there, or just drag himself as far as he could, in the hopes of getting medical attention? Needless to say, my days of going to Bed-Stuy after dark are probably over. Oh, to really be married in TriBeCa!

Oh, and the Crocodile Hunter died. Coincidence? I think not.