I'll have the one on the left, please.
I rolled up to the club on my skateboard, wave “HI” to the general assembly of smoking comics outside.
I walk in.
Find the host.
Get my name on the list.
Order a beer.
Find a table.
Take a seat.
The vibe is not good tonight. Before a single comic has taken the stage, I can tell that there is Continue reading
The Master does his job
and then stops.
Tao te Ching, #30 (S. Mitchel translation)
How did you like that stupid f-stop pun in the title? Yep. That’s the kind of thing that no sleep will get you. I need to talk shop for a minute. If you are a photographer or similar creative professional, I’d like your thoughts on this…
Plagued by over-shooting and wasted time in front of Lightroom.
I’ve fallen into a terrible habit in my photography: I’m burying myself in work, and totally unnecessarily. Continue reading
Okay, before you read any further, I want you to queue up some sexxxaay porno music. Or maybe some Barry White. Or the Bee Gees.
What you are about to read is not, in fact, my latest porno screen play. This is an actual story from the heart of Mormondom, Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s the story of working so hard to protect and serve the citizens of Salt Lake City from the dangers of the world…
"Yeah baby... you have the right to remain silent... Or NOT! HEH HEH HEH HEH...."
Dim the lights.
Let’s be honest, you might want to even lock the door and make sure you can have a little “alone time” while with the computer, my blog, and this very sensual story… Continue reading
Saturday night is upon us again. As usual, my apartment was the launching pad for an evening out on the town. My cousin / BFF Melissa, Dr. Normy, Kober, and the lovely, newly single Stephanie, congregated at my place for drinks and some chit chat. As I was getting ready to roll out, I contemplated my attire for the evening…. the question that plagues men all across the globe descended upon me:
Pants, or no pants?
Continue reading
I have the best job in the world.
Somehow I have been blessed with a life where I get paid to be photograph the things that I love most in this world: girls and guitars.
…and kids.
Only in my craziest dreams would I have imagined that this is what my life would look like, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. There have been many strange little twists and turns along the way that have led to this. I’m so grateful for the lifestyle I currently have. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to several key friends that encouraged me to keep going when I was on the verge of quitting.
A recent lingerie shoot in my studio
A few months ago, I got this idea that doing boudoir photography was impeding my dating life. I became very self conscious that women might find it hard to be close to me because Continue reading
Adam Carolla often muses over the elusive possibility that Guns & Roses will reunite and tour. He always asks the question: “How much money have they left on the table, just because they can’t get along enough to play a few shows?“ Axl Rose refuses to reunite with the band. It’s difficult to imagine how much money a reunited Guns & Roses would generate on a world tour…. and money aside, can you imagine how much *&#%ing joy, happiness, excitement, and awesomeness people would experience in seeing Guns and Roses play live again??
It makes me wonder what beliefs Axl is doggedly hanging onto, that are keeping him and the rest of the world from something amazing.
A female friend recently told me ” …attractive women like you. I can see it.” She is convinced that I’m amazing with the ladies and that I constantly have gorgeous women dripping from my fingers. I don’t get it. I don’t see it. Yet she and many other people have said this to me before. I got thinking about Adam Carolla’s billion dollar Guns & Roses question as it pertains to me:
How much love have I left on the table?
How many amazing women out there have I met but not experienced- and even worse – failed to meet, just because of some false belief I’m holding onto, that keeps me from launching into something amazing?
Here’s the thing: I’m an incredibly average guy. Just by sheer numbers, there is a good chance that YOU are more talented, better looking, richer, healthier more intelligent, more cultured, and funnier than I am.
Ask yourself the Axl Rose question:
How much have you left on the table? Why are you leaving it there?
I’ve been all up in my head about my blog for the last week or so. I’m always very self conscious about it, but sometimes that self consciousness decays into inaction. In a recent post, I talked about how awkward I feel about the darkness of some of my topics. I got a comment the other day from some dude saying, “I hope you pull out of your funk soon, get feeling better”. The funny thing is, I am doing great. This is the happiest I have ever been, and cool things happen to me every week. I am often reluctant to blog about them because I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging.
Sometimes it seems that this blog is a ridiculous parade of my Continue reading
My friend Nate (aka “Super Nate”) have decided to institute a new tradition: Wine Wednesday. Every Wed evening, we do a stand up comedy set at Wiseguys Comedy in Salt Lake City. Following the comedy club, we convene at my studio for an informal wine tasting party. This week was the first such pairing of wine and wiseguys, and I could not have asked for more.
My first stand up set at Wiseguys was not fun. I was far more nervous than I anticipated being. I raced through my jokes in order to cram them all in to a 3 minute set. Bottom line: I was not funny. I only got a few laughs, and I think they were mostly from the 3 friends I had in the room. Last night was different – I have since taken lots of notes, done a few more stand up sets at The Complex, and feel like I took the stage with a much more informed perspective. I got up there, looked around the room, and just held some silence for a moment. Just THAT got the crowd laughing (or it may have been the Fuck You Paul Duane t shirt I had on. Or maybe both ) I tried some new material out, and I’d say 70% of my stuff got good laughs from the crowd. I felt like I started to find my pace up there. As for myself, I have to feel really connected to who I am in order to go up there and really own the stage. I got a compliment from another comic that I don’t even know as I returned to my seat. Bottom line: that felt good. I have lots of areas to work on, but I am also really excited to get up there and work on it again.
We returned to my place and prepared for a few guests. A few guests did come. We poured wine and had some laughs.
The evening evolved further, into something far beyond anything I had ever imagined for Wine Wednesday Continue reading
Confession: I’ve been hooked on Celebrity Apprentice. I started watching it because on of my heros, Adam Carolla was on it. Since his firing on the show, I’ve become very interested in Penn Jillette. In the board room, Mr. Trump was talking to Penn about a recent project on the show:
Donald Trump: “Do you need a certain tough side to be a comedian?”
Penn Jillette: “I think it’s the opposite. I think you have to act tough. Bravery is not an absence of fear, bravery is action in the face of fear. I think to be a tough comedian, you must keep going. But that doesn’t mean your heart doesn’t get broken. Constantly.”
Vulnerability is really hard for me. I suffered the two worst heart breaks of my life a few years ago, and since then, I’ve been very guarded. I’ve become very self conscious about it. Trying to learn to do stand up comedy has forced me to look at myself in ways that I’ve conveniently avoided for many years.
Blogging has been another humbling task master since Jory challenged me to step things up. I’ve been trying to blog on a consistent basis. Forcing myself to get more real in my blog has been a difficult and instructive process. I’ve realized what a guarded, verbose, boring asshole I can be.
I discovered this blog the other day: http://blissbombed.com/blog/
The Yin / Yang teaches us about the duality of all things.
It’s quite brilliant. She is so positive, so radiant. I then look at my blog – frankly, I’m quite embarrassed by how negative and dark my writing tends to be. I became very self conscious. I’ve been writing all week, but never clicking the “publish” button. I wish I was more cheery and radiant like Stephanie St. Claire. I love people like that. Sometimes I am almost ashamed of the dark side of my personality, and this week is one of them. It seems that I’m in midst of reacquainting myself with the duality of my nature. I’m even embarrassed that I’m embarrassed about my dark side. How meta.
Anyway, there is no moral to this story. I just had to share Penn Jillette’s awesome words and explain my momentary silence.
I'm a quasi - cross dressing professional photographer / ex mormon / father of 2 / musician / aspiring stand upcomic. I have changed the names, dates, and chronology of some stories in this blog in order to protect the guilty, but the stories are all true.
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domestic violence, hipsters and apostles
I saw this on Facebook today:
