Artistic Pornographer at the Polls

Friends,

Yes, Emily & I voted. Right early, too. We got to our polling place, a fire station, around 7:30, a half-hour after they opened, at there was already a line outside the building. Most of that line though was for people getting registered to vote that day. That was remarkable to see. Also, I loved seeing all the parents with their kids with them. Not only because every time I see a parent with a kid, I automatically go "Awww" because my biological clock is a-ticking, but it's great to see parents modeling good, democratic behavior.

So we get in a line, to get in a line, to get into the wait-to-vote line, while holding our over-sized blue ballots. Emily and I wind up getting separated by one person between us, and while we wait, this man, a short moleish kind of guy with a sharp nose and wire glasses, jumps out of one of the other lines and introduces himself to Emily. Says he's a photographer, trying to get his studio up and running,and Emily had this bookish, right look about her and if she could just wait around for just a minute after she votes, he'd give her his card. Emily says sure.

We vote, and excuse this digression away from the title but, the ballot was really damn strange. Maybe this isn't like this everywhere in Wisconsin, but to vote here there's these arrows with gaps in the middle. And to vote for a candidate, let's say for me to vote for Obama/Biden (which I believe I did), I had to color in the missing part of the arrow that was pointing to Obama/Biden. It was a little like those match activities you had in school. I've never seen something like that before, and it is just begging for problems, I think, like say you start to low on the Nader/Gonzalez arrow, but mean to be coloring for Obama/Biden, can you just swoop up to the next slot, or do you have get a whole new ballot? What if you color too much, or make the line too thin?

Anyway, after voting Emily and I mill around outside the fire station, the moleish man comes out and introduces himself to Emily again. He's all aflutter with nervous moleman energies. He mentions the thing about him being a photographer, glances over at me as I loom over the proceedings, and he sheepishly offers me his hand to shake, he says, "Boyfriend?" I take the hand and shake it, firmly, "Husband" in my best "She's mine, cocksucker" tone.

So he tells her that she has the look that he's interested in, and that he wanted to give her his card. He pulls out one of those cigarette case things, opens it and says, "Shit, brought the wrong damn card" and hands it to Emily anyway. He says if she wants to get a hold of him, she can so to model for him.

Here's the card:Right.

Emily and I have a couple laughs over it. And I got to wondering where is this guy hanging out where this kind of card is okay just to spring on people. Voting day at a fire station isn't a typical place, but the guy wasn't shy. Maybe just trolling down the Cub Foods frozen section and he'll snap off one of these cards into your hand while your loading your card with ice cream and peas. But, then again, there is probably a fetish club somewhere in Madison, I just don't know where that is. And, again about the card, maybe he does have a more toned down one that has the words "Erotic Nude and Fetish Photography" printed in that tasteful, Victorian calligraphy, or maybe just a plain black card. Either way, thinking about his business card made me think of this:


Though, he did say that he had the wrong card, and while it was probably just an act to make us think that there is more to his services that leather straps over asses. I checked out his website just to see if there was anything else going on besides leather straps over asses.

I found out that there is. He in fact specializes in artistic nude (which I assume is different from the "erotic nude" advertised on the card), fetish and erotic photography. He is no one trick pony, ladies and gentlemen. I checked out his gallery (this has nudity, so underage BOMMers, those at work or those afraid of nipples need not click) out of curiosity, just to see how new he is to this whole photography game. And, yep, the couple Anne Geddes inspired photographs of naked people getting fetal were neither artistic, erotic or fetishic (?), and there is a few that, I swear to God, is that "take one knee and smile at the camera" photo every little league baseball player has taken. Just getting a girl to strip down to her epidermis does not make that pose artistic, erotic or fetishic (unless, maybe there is a fetish for little league photo poses). That's not to bag his whole enterprise. Some of the stuff does look a little neat, maybe one or two pictures I thought were interesting (the ones with the more interesting color), and I do applaud his use of normal women and not necessarily always model types. (But when your tactic for hunting models is to just spring out like a trapdoor spider and give them the old "asses and straps" card, well I suppose you must take what you can get). However, at the end of this, most of it just looks like excuses to take pictures of girls naked.

So, Emily decided not to pose for the moleish man. But, the naked photo guy did vote. Hopefully for Obama because even perverts with asses and straps cards need a middle class tax break, and particularly cheap health care. One could really sprain something with those straps.

viva el mustache