Archive for 2008

Say two people hook up at some random event. They are not in love. They do not have a relationship. Maybe the guy doesn’t even know the chick’s last name. But the condom breaks and she gets knocked up.

Should he be required to pay for an abortion?

Should he be required to pay for half an abortion?

Should he be required to support the proceeds of a broken condom with a stranger for the rest of his life or at least 18 years and nine months?

What if the chick put pinholes in the condom because she knew the guy had some money, but the kid is definitely his genetics?

Is there a point at which the man stops being responsible for a choice someone else makes or does he lose the right to make further choices when he agrees to have sexual intercourse?

Quark

by Amelia G : May 31st, 2008

So, after knowing each other for nearly a decade, and working together on multiple projects, over many years, I finally finally got to meet Scott Owens of EroticBPM fame in person! We once almost met in the flesh when he got stuck at LAX on a layover, but I’d just finished being somewhere one good friend of mine was attempting to sleep with the husband of another good friend of mine and having to give a police report on some psycho who was incoherently threatening me outside a nightclub for firing a girl she just met and barely knew but had a crush on or something. So anyway, I didn’t think I’d be at my charming best when I got to LAX, which also happens to be my least favorite California airport.

Anyway, Forrest Black, who is in charge of the look and feel of all Blue Blood sites, and I visited Portland and stayed with Scott and his charmingly negative head coder Antisocial and his beautiful bride (who, in a flash of small world, turned out to be a model from some of the earliest naughty sets I published from photographer Tom Hunscher.) We had an amazingly good time just hanging out in their gargantuan Pacific NW headquarters with them and their three very cute and almost disturbingly friendly and well-adjusted cats.

We also got to see old friends from our DC stomping grounds. We shot new stuff of the always fun Voltaire and of Rachel Face. Rachel has a new clothing line and we shot that, as well as a whole passel of new hotties. Parts of the trip were really bizarrely and gratuitously stressful, but most of it was really super nice. Portland is so beautiful and the air is so clean and we got to go up on the volcano . . .

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PEOPLE WHO ARE COOL: The Amelia G Interview

by Amelia G : May 20th, 2008

Sean Abley (zombietruckstop) is working on a series of interviews for a possible book project entitled People Who Are Cool. The theme is, as you might suspect, people Sean Abley knows who are cool. You can read the two part interview he did with yours truly online now here and here. It is a two parter because, as Sean says, we are a couple of chatty bitches. Seriously, it is very in-depth and his questions were really interesting and unusual and I answered a lot of stuff I don’t usually talk about in interviews. This is going to post to Dark Blue Films in approx six weeks, but you all get the inside-skinny on where to read it pre-publication.

Socket writer/director Sean Abley writes:

“Somehow Amelia G and I became blog friends about 8 years ago. I’m not really sure how that happened, and when we’ve discussed it, neither is she. But somehow one of us surfed into the other’s Live Journal account and friended same, and we’ve been reading each other’s stuff for years now.

When I first started reading her blog, I was immediately struck by the photographs she’d post, taken either by her or her collaborator, Forrest Black. These were semi- (or not so semi-) naked shots of Goth chicks with beautiful lighting, styling and makeup. As I say further down in my interview with her, “[She] took two things I have no interest in – Goth culture and naked girls – and photographed them so I can’t turn away.”

Soon I realized Amelia had a mini media empire based on this subject matter, the hub of which is (are) http://www.blueblood.com and http://www.blueblood.net. Start there and you’ll find yourself winding down internet corridors full of fetish photos, films, music and art. And none of it feels exclusionary. Less “Butt out, square!” and more “Hey, we’re awesome! Check us out!” I would encourage anyone reading this to do just that. Amelia and Forrest’s work is pro and punk at the same time, and never boring.

When I decided to interview Amelia, I did some research and found out she has a crazy interesting past, from living in a punk/goth group house in D.C. to moving in the industrial music scene, to founding a magazine . She is also the kind of feminist that I love, e.g. one that doesn’t think a naked girl is being suppressed just because she’s having her picture taken. She’s also a workaholic, as evidenced by the sheer number of projects, websites, and events she has to attend to in any one week.

Although we live mere blocks from each other in Hollywood, I conducted this interview via email, which probably lead to us be much more verbose that we would in person. (I hate transcribing, so I tend to keep it short in person).

How did the daughter of a diplomat and an attorney become the reigning Queen of Goth Erotica?

Please give a warm welcome to Amelia G!”

The interview kicks off with:

Sean Abley: I read that you’ve lived all over the world and the States . . .

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So my bags are packed and I’m heading to Portland in less than half a day.

A funny thing about the internet is that you can feel like you totally know someone and then realize that you’ve never met in person and it seems impossible that you haven’t. I’m going to finally finally get to hang out in person with Killshot from EroticBPM. We’ve known each other digitally for nearly a freaking decade, been in regular contact for a number of years, and partnered on multiple projects, but we never actually got to meet before. We once almost met in the flesh when he got stuck at LAX on a layover, but I’d just finished being somewhere one good friend of mine was attempting to sleep with the husband of another good friend of mine and having to give a police report on some psycho who was incoherently threatening me outside a nightclub for firing a girl she just met and barely knew but had a crush on or something. So anyway, I didn’t think I’d be at my charming best when I got to LAX, which also happens to be my least favorite California airport. Anyway, I’m excited about the trip. Rachel Face also invited us out to a cool fashion show thing she is doing and Voltaire is in PDX for one more week before she heads back South. And I’m going to get to see one of my pals from my old stomping grounds in DC. And a bunch of stuff . . . I should wash my hair, make sure my TiVo is programmed and go to bed.

My laundry is done. Laundry is hard or at least I suck at it.

My magazine deadline is met.

My batteries are charged. I’m ready to go.

Forrest Black and I are shooting women and real life couples for BlueBlood.com in Portland this week. We only have a couple of shooting slots left open right now, so, even if we would like to shoot you, it may or may not end up being possible this trip.

Requirements:

You must be able to do an extravagant and impressive look. Although interesting extensive tattoos and other body mods can be a plus, they are not required or sufficient in and of themselves. We are really looking for very unique individuals with strong personal style.
A minimum of full nudity is required. Comfort with explicit nudity is preferred, although we may or may not shoot it. We want to work with people who are completely comfortable with themselves in this way.
You must be in Portland between the 21st and 25th of May this week.We are looking to create the most artistic and striking images possible, so we are looking for a select few models who can really bring something extraordinary to the table.Preference for models who have really cool ideas for a shooting location or concept. Our idea of a cool shooting location includes options from artistically graffitied urban settings to beautiful woodland environments to a well-appointed personal space decorated to really reflect who you are as a person.

Refer to Forrest Black’s and my work for an idea of what sorts of people we prefer to shoot in general. Blue Blood publishes many photographers besides us, but, if you are here, you probably have a good idea which is our work and the larger images on the BlueBlood.com tour are all shot by us.

Rate is high for art and low if your usual job is Valley pr0n gangbangs or escorting for GWCs. Models appearing on BlueBlood.com are eligible for free memberships, swag, appearances, etc. and receive preference for magazine gigs.

To submit, please message me here or email submit@blueblood.net with the title PORTLAND MODEL. Please indicate where pictures of you can be viewed, what city you are near, what your nudity comfort zone and interests are, and a suggestion for a location we could shoot you in. If you have any special reasons for wanting to shoot or other information you feel is relevant, please feel free to include it. Please note that BlueBlood.com and BlueBlood.net are not the same. 🙂

EVERYONE PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REPOST THIS MODEL CALL TO APPROPRIATE PLACES.

(Image Courtesy of Blue Blood)

Madonna Viral Marketing

by Amelia G : May 13th, 2008

So, I think Madonna is pretty awesome in general, but I’m vaguely baffled by her message to YouTube video. In it, she is supposedly vacuuming the set for her 4 Minutes video because apparently other people didn’t take care of it. Then she tells the world of YouTube good job on making tons of videos for her 4 Minutes single. To date, her thanks for making essentially fanfic versions of 4 Minutes video has received 3,175,135 views on YouTube.

The actual official Warner Bros video for Madonna’s 4 Minutes has only received 846,562 views. It opens with a little rap from Timbaland and most of the song is a duet and coordinated dance moves from Madonna and Justin Timberlake. Madonna and Justin Timberlake take off some of each other’s clothes during their choreography and, unlike Janet Jackson, I guarantee Madonna won’t apologize or pretend that her clothing flying off is a wardrobe malfunction.

A search on YouTube for +”4 minutes” +madonna yields 2,860 results, including both the fanfic (or whatever YouTube people call this sort of thing) vids and multiple copies of the official video and various video responses to the go ahead and make videos based on the video video. This sort of viral marketing is all very meta. Will encouraging people to do more of what they were going to do anyway work to Madonna’s benefit? Will it sell more of her music, raise her stock for endorsements, or otherwise make bank?

I don’t know the answer and I’m really interested in hearing what other people think about how this will work as a marketing effort. Do you enjoy fanfic videos? Regardless, you should watch the real official video because it’s fun candy and Madonna and Justin Timberlake dancing is way hotter than most porn.

And, to the desperate, sell-out assholes who will say that Madonna’s boots in the video mean fetish is crossing over to mainstream . . .

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I posted this question on a certain modeling site and some people seemed awfully freaked out by the notion and some were particularly troubled by the idea of having the whole deal with a model spelled out in one document. They seemed to think it would take two. I’m going to write something more article-like and less journal-like on this at some point, so I’d love to know what other folks think.

For many years, my standard boilerplate model release for nude shoots has given models a royalty % of any significant lump sum sale to a third party. If I pay a model at the time of a shoot, this counts as an advance against future royalties.

To me, this seems fair.

A lot of times, at the time of a shoot, you don’t really know what the images will be worth.

Giving up rights to place images, in order to do trade, seems very wasteful to me. What if the work is great? As an artist, I want my work seen. But, if the work turns out very valuable, it seems like all parties should benefit, not just the photog or just the model.

It seems kind of like bad math to pay a model $75 an hour to pose nude or semi-nude for artsy shots when the photog has no idea who he or she will sell the images to and odds are good it will be for less than that.

But it also seems unfair that, if a photog does get a windfall profit from photos of a particular model, the model does not usually share in this.

Should standard model releases give models a % of a photog’s sales?

I know I was not particularly well-rested in this photo. I know from the nightclub stamps on my hand here and the fact that my suite, oddly enough, did not have blackout drapes. But I just seem so much more relaxeed than what I see in the mirror today. I just came back from a cool trip to San Francisco. I just made a magazine deadline. I got my period early from being around so many other women’s pheromones, but it is done now. My sleep schedule is sort of off-kilter, but I have nothing I must do until noon tomorrow. Only I’m pretty much vibrating with stress. I just emailed the hotel I was staying at when this photo was taken and asked them if they have any condominiums available for sale.

Have you ever considered living in two places at once? Ever done it? Did it work out well or do you think it would?

(Image Courtesy of Blue Blood)

How do you avoid feeling awful in the morning?

by Amelia G : May 9th, 2008

How do you hack a hangover? Apparently this is one of the most viewed recent YouTube videos in the how-to section. Well, if you don’t count all the ones related to achieving erection, orgasm, or conception. I haven’t watched any of their social relations vids, but, if the advice is as terrible as this hangover advice . . .

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Death Guild Monday with Blue Blood

by Amelia G : May 3rd, 2008

The first time I ever went to Death Guild was when Forrest Black and I were out in San Francisco for Bat of House of Usher’s Zine Slam. We were there promoting Blue Blood in print and also my antisocial punk rock humor zine BLT or Black Leather Times.

This was like more than a decade ago, so when Vampira Bat and Nixon Sixx suggested dropping promoter Decay a line, I was thinking he might not remember me. Pretty much the first thing he ever said to me in person was to give me grief for not publishing an article he wrote and submitted to my zine BLT. His article was fine and contained some punk education; it just didn’t fit the BLT format. So the first thing he emails back to me yesterday is his cell number and the pledge “I promise not to give you shit about the story I submitted to you guys in 1990.” So we are two veterans who do indeed remember each other.

As most Blue Blood readers probably know, we are celebrating our fifteen year anniversary this year. Death Guild is also celebrating their fifteen year anniversary. The moral of the story here is that having perserverence and longevity means that somebody somewhere will always remember it if there was that one night you drank too much, that one person you said that thing to, the time you gave someone a mohawk you were not supposed to, that guy you threatened with a shotgun, or potentially the weird factoid about that person they always confuse you with. If you stick to your guns and succeed, every little thing ever will probably haunt you. Just thought y’all …

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Is it hot in here?

by Amelia G : May 2nd, 2008

So right now FUSE is playing a block of Nelly videos. I find Nelly ridiculously hot. Hot like sexy, not hot like kindling. I’m not even sure if I like his music, but I certainly enjoy his videos. They’ve got productions values! (Bonus cool points to anyone who gets the movie reference there.

So I was sitting there, letting the purple hair dye set in my hair, watching the Hot In Here video, and I suddenly realized that at least part of the video was shot inside a particular nightclub on Hollywood Blvd. Specifically, it was shot inside . . .

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I just had a total stranger send me an email (actually like a dozen emails) where they were freaking out and they actually typed “I AM NOT FLYING OFF OF ANY HANDLES” in all caps. Now that is some hilarious irony in action.

I usually post photographs Forrest Black and I took of other people, but here is a shot of me and Forrest Black back in our old East Coast stomping grounds this past month. I believe it was shot by Kevin from the cover of Blue Blood #5 in print. Whole free gallery on BlueBlood.net after the jump. Friends of mine in the gallery should feel free to use the re-post code beneath the pictures of you in your own journals, communities, bulletins, and profiles.

(Image Courtesy of Blue Blood)

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Long-time Blue Blood fans will recognize the beautiful Cherry from the cover of Blue Blood #7. She is still good friends with Rich, who she did that shoot with, but they parted ways romantically. She is now married to the very gorgeous and startling tall Ledgrey. On a recent trip back to our old DC/Baltimore stomping grounds where Blue Blood started back in 1992, Forrest Black and I had the opportunity to hang out with Cherry and Ledgrey and to photograph them. This series of portraits is sort of a teaser for hot stuff to come and you’ll spot some clubbing shots on BlueBlood.net as well. Whole series for members of BlueBlood.com

( Free Photo from Series After the Jump )