It seems like it should be unnecessary to point out that models are human beings, but a lot of people seem to have difficulty with this. Nobody is as beautiful as their best photo or as hideous as their worst. Ugly may go to the bone, but beauty is still only skin deep. All true.

The nature of digital interaction makes the relationship of humans with their images more difficult. Once upon a time, my unsavory pals and I could hang out at our punk rock group house and, if someone said a model in some of the trannie porn in our living was not feminine enough, nobody’s feelings were going to get hurt.

Today, a lot of people seem to be polarized in their responses to imagery, in particular in their responses to sexual imagery. On the one hand, there are people who callously and casually critique a model’s weight or body parts in public, even though the human being in those photos is going to see those comments. On the other hand, there are people who, on some deep lizard brain level, feel that, if they have seen someone’s hoo-ha, even someone who was paid to show it to them, that person is practically their mate.

It does not make you respectful and/or feminist, if you pathetically slavishly agree with everything someone ever says or posts because you have seen naked pictures or video of them, especially members of your gender of preference.

It does not make you intelligent/ and/or nonconformist, if you aggressively criticize all erotic media and the people who appear in it, especially members of your own gender.

Someone can appear in updates on your favorite website or the boxcover of your favorite DVD or the cover of your favorite magazine. You can appreciate their work and that is awesome. But they probably are not rich for life off of the work you enjoyed (or didn’t). The world has enough pain in it. Don’t be cruel to someone who was generous enough to share their naked selves with you. Just don’t be a lapdog either. You know that whole rather walk beside me and be my friend thing? Treat models like human beings.

In the internet age, most of us become somewhat reduced to our avatars and how we come across when typing. Nonetheless, models are still human beings and no more or less human, no more or less right, no more of less deserving, for having had more pictures taken of them than the average person.

A lot of models are afraid to go interact in public because people online can be so critical and most models know they are not as beautiful as the best photos where they were lit well, made up just right, dressed in clothing they may not own, shot with good composition, and post processed to perfection. In real life, people tend not to say the sort of rude things they write when in keyboard warrior mode. But, after seeing one’s best efforts nit-picked to death online, not just models, but most creative people find it more difficult to interact IRL.

Photos of models or real world parties or whatever are posted here from time to time. If you have something nice to say about them, by all means do. If you don’t have something nice to say, please don’t fake it, but don’t go out of your way to be a dehumanizing cruel jerk either.

In just a few weeks, EroticBPM is going to be having a rave in Arizona and lots of girls who have stripped down sexily for EBPM will be there. We’ve got a little free EroticBPM photo gallery featuring some of the confirmed guests, including Eyecandy, Jamie, Money, River, Lucky, Stevie Neko, Uzi, and Ziggy. The best stuff is in the members area of EroticBPM and there is a party bonus for members. Details below in my exclusive interview with EroticBPM’s Scott Owens about the Lingerieve party.

Amelia G: What festivities are planned for the party?

Scott Owens: It is EroticBPM’s 10 year anniversary and we are having a Lingerie-themed rave in Phoenix, AZ. August 22nd. We just confirmed DJ Swamp for the lineup (Beck’s old DJ)

Amelia G: What was the reason for this event’s choice of locale and venue? Who is involved with putting it together?

Scott Owens: The reason we chose Phoenix is because Ebpm photographer Clix is also a rave promoter in the area. We have a lot of models from Phoenix and he has all the resources to make it happen . . . Clix from clixbagoftricks.com is doing most of the real work.. Ebpm is of course making sure lots of models will be attending and providing any additional support . . . We *might* also do a dvd of the event combined with behind the scenes footage of photoshoots that will be done with girls at the venue beforehand.

Amelia G: What special deal do you have for EroticBPM members?

Scott Owens: All EroticBPM members from out of state get into the event for free. Lots of members are already arranging caravans or booking flights to make sure they come come be part of the fun.

Amelia G: Last words?

Scott Owens: We are working on setting up a live broadcast of the event online for those who can not make it in person . . . We should have some contests and giveaways, but the details of that have not been confirmed yet.

The end of Spring was approaching in San Francisco and that meant that the annual Emerging Illusions Alternative Fashion Show was soon to happen. For those unaware, Emerging Illusions is meant to showcase up and coming fashion/costume designers from the Goth, punk and industrial scenes.

Again, I was honored to be asked to set up a mini studio backstage and shoot the models and designers, make-up artists and hair stylists and anyone else who wanted to pose.

The smell of make-up and hair spray filled to backstage area. Nearly every square inch of floor was covered by people, clothes and props. Activity was everywhere. Make-up being applied, hair being styled, models dressing and undressing, dancers stretching out. It was more difficult to negotiate than the dance floor when the DJ plays everybody’s favorite song.

And it was no wonder that it was packed. Each designer is limited to only five or six models and provides their own hair and make-up people. This year, saw 14 designers: Somnabulance, Wisp-her Wear, Gibbous, Severd, Eirik Aswang, Lisa Goblin, The Window Lady, Dragoness, Chelsea Aragon, saKAna Desgins, Larvae, Shawk Designs, Shadow Bound and Clotho Constrictor. Plus there were stage crew running the show, photographers & videographers and the occasional friend of someone.

As I set up my equipment, I looked over the outfits being worn by those already dressed. With fourteen designers, their designs were as diversified as you would imagine with outfits ranging from everyday wear to clubwear to costumes to things you’d probably only wear at Burning Man if you wear anything at Burning Man.

Though I really enjoy the energy backstage, my only regret in being backstage is I don’t get to see the show. This is because Emerging Illusions is not a simple fashion show. One thing that the organizer, Miqua, has done, is to add broader appeal by eschewing the catwalk. No models simply strutting up and down the stage in this fashion show. The designers are encouraged to create mini performance pieces to showcase their creations. So rather than a fashion show, you get a show that has fashion.

Luckily, after I had everything set up, I had some time to watch some of the rehearsals. And again, the range of performances varied as vastly as the style of clothes. From dolls coming to life and turning their little girl owner into one of them to handmaidens who feed their queen to sea demons to a post-apocalyptic, spy-thiller demon hunt amid snowing fallout. I was even asked to stand in for Vampirabat and Nixon Sixx during one rehearsal. Not an easy task, as I am the opposite of what comes to mind when the names of Vampirabat or Nixon Sixx even come up.

Even before the show started, I was taking pictures and shot nearly continuously for the next six hours. And with the exception of a wayward mannequin punching a hole in my backdrop and fisticuffs nearly breaking out between two groups of models over who was going to shoot next, it was a pretty fun-filled evening.

The show for 2009 is already looking to be the biggest of them all.

If you’d like more information on the show or the designers or where to purchase clothing, visit the Emerging Illusions website.

So I guess this is just weird sex trial coverage week at BlueBlood.net. First Max Hardcore gets convicted, then Ira Isaacs gets a stay, and then R. Kelly got acquitted. Now it appears that notoriously litigious, Hot Topic-esque, altporn, membership site SuicideGirls (aka SG) has settled their most recent lawsuit. It is hard to keep track of all their legal scuffles, but this was the one against their former contractor fetish photographer Philip Warner and his collaborator altmodel Apnea.

The initial dispute between SuicideGirls and Apnea appeared to arise because she modeled with a girl named Katie for a forthcoming site, which had offered her and Katie disproportionately large sums of money for a simple nude photo shoot. Even though this new site had not launched yet and most planned sites never do launch, SG was particularly bent out of shape about the Apnea and Katie photos because Katie had also reportedly worked as SG’s accountant. This presumably meant that she was privy to very proprietary information. SG went so ballistic over this that they not only took away Apnea’s complimentary site membership, but they put a stop payment on a check they had already written to her.

The dispute between comically psycho-competitive SuicideGirls and their staff photographer Philip Warner appeared to arise when Philip posted on the internet that he was going to be adding community features to his own web site, basically making it a lot more like SG. According to AltPorn.net’s exclusive interview with Apnea, SG handed Philip a new and more exclusionary contract one day after he announced his web site intentions. He refused to sign the new more controlling contract, so one day later SG made a public break with him. SG then apparently had the hubris to inform Philip that “alternative images of beauty (dyed hair, piercing and tattoos)” were their sort of trademark and therefor his work was a violation of his noncompete and he fired back publicly saying that the images

“you describe reflect the same style that I photographed [Apnea] in prior to our participation and awareness of the suicidegirls.com site. SG has no ownership of this broad genre, it is clearly in the public domain and has been around on web sites like BlueBlood since before SG was created.”

Five weeks later, without bothering to reply to his publicly-posted letter, SG filed suit against Philip Warner.

Here is where it gets weird. First of all, Philip did not stop working with SG when they put a stop payment on the check to Apnea, but, as soon as he had a problem with them, he started asking other people to donate to his legal defense. As far as he was concerned, while Apnea’s problem might not have been his problem, his problem was apparently supposed to be everyone else’s problem. The second weird thing was that Philip presented like SG was trying to take away his livelihood, yet the gossip sites claimed he actually made his living by owning and operating rental properties in Texas and court documents assert that SG, over all the years he worked for them, paid out a bit over ten grand total. This works out to a little over $2,000 a year. That is not exactly enough to live on. The third weird thing is that the court documents for the initial complaint nowhere mention that Philip appeared to have been planning a competitive site targeted directly at SG’s slice of the marketplace. Instead they named Apnea’s solo girl site in the suit as what they were concerned about competing with. Yes, the Apneatic site domain was registered to Philip and he shot a significant portion of the content on it and he probably ran it in partnership with her. But why mention her site, especially when Philip claims his contract specifically permitted him to shoot for solo girl sites, and not mention the planned multi-girl site which seemed to trigger the falling-out? Somewhere in here, SG also licensed a bunch of their own unretouched photos of Apnea to a number of adult internet companies with the condition that they were not permitted to use a name Apnea wished to be called. Eventually SG apparently also named Apnea in their suit which was initially just vs. Philip.

Here is where it gets really weird. For the past year and a half, Philip and Apnea have been aggressively campaigning for charity and donations from the creative community for their legal defense. Photographers have been told they are not allowed to participate in art shows unless they promise to donate any proceeds from their own work to Philip’s defense. Models worked for free to make anti-SG legal defense posters. Philip made T-shirts and prints promoting his lawsuit and asked people to buy them in support of his legal defense. Site owners and other clients all felt like maybe they should pay Philip and Apnea slightly higher rates to help with their legal plight. Every time Philip or Apnea sold an unwanted piece of photo equipment or an old dress on eBay, they reminded everyone that all this was to pay for their legal defense and that everyone who hates SuicideGirls should contribute to their legal defense fund. I do not know exactly just how many people gave them money or exactly how much money they were given because, unlike what one would expect from a charity, there has never been any kind of public accounting of donations nor the expenses those funds covered. Certainly, a lot of people championed Philip and Apnea’s cause and tried to be as supportive as their personal situations permitted.

Here is where is gets really really weird. Today, Philip Warner and Apnea issued a joint statement, apparently written by Philip but signed by both, which said in part,

“We want to make it clear that we 100% have no hostilities towards SuicideGirls in anyway anymore, we all came to a really fair agreement over this dispute, and there were no bad people here, just mistakes and misunderstandings. If you’ve boycotted SG on our behalf, you helped us come to this agreement, so thank you but the battle is over, and we’re all friends again.”

They state that there will be new SG product authored by Philip and they include a link for anyone who wishes to join SuicideGirls. The link is an affiliate link which they explain saying,

“To help offset our legal expenses, when you sign up with SuicideGirls, please use this affiliate code so that we can use the money to pay off our lawyers and focus on Apnea’s modeling and my photography!”

Did they seriously keep beating the dead horse of their legal expenses, while asking people to join the very site they were fighting and telling everyone to boycott for its evil ways and lameness just one day ago? The very reason Philip and Apnea were able to get so much support for their legal defense was that a lot of people truly believe that SG is an evil company.

According to Apnea’s MySpace, she is currently, in 2008, twenty-two-years-old. The first nude photo set featuring her posted to the SuicideGirls site in 2003. I think people should take responsibility for their actions, no matter what their age, but I do have some sympathy for a teenage girl who entered into business with a predatory corporation. Philip’s MySpace, on the other hand, puts his current age at thirty-nine-years-old. He is a grown-ass man, and he knew what he was getting into with SG, and he still chose to lie down with dogs, and then ask everyone else to help with his flea problem. He supported SG aggressively when many other people complained of all manner of mistreatment. He asked for a hand-out when he had a problem, and now he is telling everyone it is all good because he is getting back in bed with SG. I can’t find it in my heart to have the same sympathy for him that I might for Apnea. They are still supporting SG, which is still an organization that is a blight on our scene.

I believe that SG head honcho Sean Suhl is pretty much personally responsible for most of what has gone horribly wrong with the counterculture in recent years. He helped collect alt demographics for secretive data mining corporation Experian, and they sold that info to Hot Topic, so Hot Topic could effectively shut down all the independent punk rock stores which were the cornerstone cultural centers of so many local scenes. And don’t even get me started on how Sean Suhl’s projects have made every effort to inhibit the creation of art, disempower men, and turn women into jokes.

Now, to be fair, despite the fact that I feel this way, I actually think SG had a totally legitimate complaint if they signed a photographer and a model to an exclusive agreement, promoted that photographer and model, made that photographer and model privy to a lot of proprietary information, and then the photographer and model both violated their contracts. Then again, SG was unable to win a legal case against hacker Chad Grant, even when he admitted to hacking SG’s server and having every intention of competing with SG in the marketplace in a way which he hoped would put them out of business. The court transcripts from that trial are truly hilarious and maybe SG settled this case to avoid creating another laugh riot at their own expense.

Now Philip and Apnea are having their joint statement with its affiliate link spam posted to all sorts of sites which generally never allow that sort of blatant commercial promotion. The responses so far indicate that SG may have laid off on a case they could have won, but they also managed to give Philip enough rope to hang himself. Here are a few of the responses Philip and Apnea’s incredibly sell-out and self-centered statement has received so far.

On MM, photographer Chris Keeling sums it up nicely, saying,

“wtf? I thought we had been trained over the last year or so to Hate SG? Now the OP is spamming the Forums to get us to go join SG to go see his earlier work with them? It makes me think this whole fundraising thing was just a carefully orchestrated piece of shit! I’m pissed off. They are either vile despicable people or they are not. Just because the OP can make money again doesn’t make them okay now.”

The beautiful blogger Baby Sinead adds,

“Seriously, I didn’t even send money or anything but I feel like a tool. I guess everyone has this time where they choose to sell out or keep up the fight.”

Photographer Carl J Speed II says in part,

“I’ve been a staunch defender all over the internets and my social circles, spent a lot of time convincing people to stay away from SG (members and perspective models alike), wore my Vive La Picnic shirt (that I bought) , and this just feels dirty. Lying in bed with the bad guys now doesn’t give any sense of justice about this scenario … I’m still angry. I don’t care what arrangement was reached of “what had to be said”, SG are not “okay”, this wasn’t just a fucking misunderstanding, and maybe I have no room to point a finger as I’m not in the position, but going back to those that bent you over for the last two years, where’s the principle? HOw could someone lay back in bed with the bad guys?”

Photographer Visions Of Excess posts,

“I was one of those folks who hosted an LP fundraiser – money that it seems could have been more well spent paying my rent. The OP aside, I am reminded of the charge that SG is still selling its content to porn sites. Now why would I want to support that?”

Shortly after this, because MM mods always hide SG spam threads if they get too negative about SG, the thread got locked down.

Over on LJ, there is some energetic conversation going on still where people like Baby Sinead are able to visibly post, “Honestly if it was all a “misunderstanding” people should be refunded,” without having her words immediately locked. User bunnie_page writes,

“Realistically, I’m thinking it’s part of the settlement that they had to retract all of the bad things they said about “Worst Website Ever”…all of that shiftiness with them not able to say WHO was suing Apnea really makes it seem like SG was suffering from all of LP’s support, and had a gag order (which obviously didn’t help), and now their trying this. If the agreement *was* actually fair I would think SG would’ve ended up covering all of his legal bills. I’m sure there’s more here that we will just never get to know. But whatever, I still hate SG.”

In Apnea’s personal journal, mxa_photo writes,

“After all the crap you guys have claimed to have been through with this case it sure looks like you are now pimping out sign ups to SG??? Congratulations on suckering everyone in with your superbly run publicity campaign and congratulations on your seemingly total lack of moral fibre.”

My favorite LJ post about the settlement so far comes from user slutbunwalla, who wrote,

“Maybe it was just a long con and there was no real lawsuit to begin with! They all drummed up a bunch of business and donations and support and sympathy but the whole time there was already an implicit agreement between everyone to keep the drama going!!! Or maybe I just watch too much LOST.”

The most tragic posts come from redchickpoet who writes,

“Me (who couldn’t afford it in the first place, but thought I was helping to support a worthy cause) —–> BIG FOOLISH IDIOT … The funny thing is, me and my guy JUST got our “Free Lithium Picnic” shirts. Well, at least I can sleep at night knowing we helped to pay for their new tattoos. *kicks myself and becomes just a bit more cynical*”

This last post breaks my heart because it gets to the core of why Sean Suhl’s projects like SuicideGirls have been so damaging to the soul of counterculture. Everything he touches seems to spew out a lot of rhetoric about things people want to believe in, yet everything he is involved in seems to end up being a disillusioning smoke and mirrors sham. Once someone like redchickpoet is disillusioned like this, she may just walk away from the whole scene. Heck, I’ve been a part of this world since before I founded Blue Blood fifteen years ago. And this sort of disillusioning nonsense gives me pause.

My father is an attorney who has never lost a single litigation, yet he still always says that the only people who win lawsuits are the lawyers. I don’t know who won the $G vs LP lawsuit, but I know that all of us in the larger community are the ones who really paid the price.

There are a lot of people in Los Angeles who get decked out in full regalia every day, just in case. By this, I mean that they blow dry their hair or put product in it or put makeup on and make sure they are wearing something versatile but hot. Every day. Because you never know, in this city, when fabulosity may strike. A lot of actors and models and so forth end up getting discovered because they happened to already be ready to go, in the split second the iron was hot here.

The thing is that it tends to be a split second of hot opportunity. Because, due to a combination of flakitude and being on the forefront of cell phone technology, most party plans here are made at the last minute. If someone phones to tell you to look off your balcony because their car is outside, you can be relatively sure they will not flake before you get across your lawn. I pretty much only use the phone to (a) say I’m running late, (b) ask where to park or (c) compare notes on the party I am at with the party someone else is at. The last minute thing is also because everybody, who already has the hookup, works long and unpredictable hours. The various entertainment industries may yield fun jobs, but work is still work and tends to come first for anyone committed to what they do. Which is an awfully high proportion people in this city. I know I can’t be ready to go all the time because I work way way way too much and I have a lot of days where I end up having to put out unexpected fires. (Flame is the official metaphor for this feature article.)

So there is this really excellent raw foods place which has opened up near me. Real Raw Live has great smoothies, super cool and friendly people, and the best cashew burgers in the universe. So I’ve been telling my pal J that he has to check it out and he keeps almost making plans to do so and then flaking. Which is totally normal for Hollywood. So we are supposed to go over there and get delicious raw food smoothies and J, who is also a photographer, calls me on my cell, with his cell, to tell me that actually the Corbis photo agency is having a party that night and he doesn’t think he got an email on it, but Corbis called his cell to remind him and the shindig is at The Cabana Club, which is pretty close to me. He asks if we could shift the plans around a little. I tell him I have a headache and I’m tired and I’m going to flake.

Then I remember that I made a birthday resolution to get out more. The resolution was simply that I realized it was too difficult to pick the specific most perfect events to attend in such a vibrant city, so I resolved to just say “yes” to more of the invitations I get from all of the interesting people I know. And I do know an interesting and diverse cross-section of the population. This might seem like I resolved to take the path of least resistance, but, believe me, the path of least resistance for me is just to work through all waking hours. I’d already showered and my hair looked fine, so I surprise J by hitting him back on his cell and saying that I was going to keep my resolution and I was going to go to the party with him after all (after I got my raw smoothie.) He says he was thinking about flaking, but so long as we don’t get there ten minutes before it is over, it should be cool. He tells me he should come get me in about a half an hour. I tell him I’ll need a half hour more than that to get dressed. We agree on an hour. We finally hook up after an hour and a half. Traffic is insane because apparently some band is playing at the Hollywood Bowl.

J and I and actress Sydney Lauren all head over to The Cabana Club. Sydney Lauren had to get dressed in the dark because, ironically enough, her roommate spaced on her electric bill and is now unreachable on her cell because she is at the bad traffic-inducing concert at the Hollywood Bowl. We park in a parking garage up the street and there is this bizarre collection of things in there with a whiteboard sign behind them, bearing the legend: The CAGE RETURN ALL ITEMS TO WHERE YOU FOUND THEM. This seems like a suitably surreal start to the evening and it does not occur to me until later that the garage is near a film school and perhaps doubles as storage for filmmaking props. It does not occur to Sydney until later (after the open bar) that maybe she should do a dance with the wooden Jesus on a chain she finds amongst the props. I convince her not to take it with her. Since when am I the voice of reason? J is unconcerned about the unconventional shape of the parking spot as he is driving a rental care because his BMW SUV has been in the shop for the past month because of, I kid you not, a safety feature. But that is a story for another time.

So we end up walking the red carpet and being photographed by Frank Trapper who has photographed a veritable who’s who of Hollywood over the past decades. Frank Trapper’s packager Welcome Books is one of the goodie bag sponsors for the party and, during the party, they did a couple of giveaways of his book Red Carpet: 20 Years of Fame and Fashion, edited by Katrina Fried. Welcome Books is, like Blue Blood, both a publisher and a packager. What this means, in their case, is that they put books together and sometimes they publish them in-house and sometimes other people publish them. When someone else is the publisher, we call that packaging. I believe Welcome packaged the Red Carpet book, but Random House is the publisher. The goodie bags also contained the coffee table book Cinema By The Bay, by Sheerly Avni, published by George Lucas Books, but also packaged by Welcome Enterprises. The book is about the specific sensibilities of big San Francisco-based filmmakers. I got a nifty new shirt from Royal Guard. The absolute best and most inspired swag of the evening was the Corbis Rubix cube with photos by Corbis photogs on it. J and I wheeled and dealed for which of us would get which color shirt and which tote bag. I ended up with the lavender Royal Guard shirt and the green Welcome Books tote, which smells like a new car, only weird. The Corbis tote bag was black, but I felt I could part with it because most goodie bag events I go to have black totes and there are only so many black canvas book bags any person needs.

So comedian Chris Wylde texts us a series of barely intelligible and totally unrepeatable (but funny) messages from the Viper Room. As Chris Wylde is always a blast (and the open bar is over), we head over to the Viper Room. I’m pleased to run into Casper again there and he is rocking a sort of riverboat gambler look. He generally is wearing the season after next’s fashions today, so I’m hoping this is an augury of things to come because that is a nice look on a man. Apparently, Viper Room security, although pleasant and polite, would prefer it if no one took snapshots at the bottle service tables, even if they are sitting there. Who knew? Chris Wylde points out that he says “great things” so we should probably go somewhere less loud.

After a comedy of errors, where six of us managed to switch who was in what car more times than should have been mathematically possible, most of us eventually ended up at Snake Pit. We meet up with Brian Walsh aka Forty from the Chris Wylde Show (although I don’t place him until some time about five minutes before typing this.) We end up debating all manner of things that I probably can’t repeat here, not only with our table, but with neighboring beer patrons as well. It is that kind of bar. Although I’ve been told by multiple people that Slash, of Guns ‘N Roses and Velvet Revolver fame, owns this pub, I’ve never seen him there nor seen any verification I would trust. Regardless, it is a very barlike bar, with a lot of good microbrews, and that is nice and harder to come by in Los Angeles than one might guess.

And all I wanted was a smoothie. The moral is that, in Los Angeles, like in the Boy Scouts (like I’d know), it is always good to be prepared because you never know what might come up.

Fun Fact to Know and Share: Although Chris Wylde is probably most familiar from his role as the hot funny guy on Julie “Earth Girls Are Easy” Brown’s Strip Mall TV show or his more recent turn as the horny beast in the Del Taco Feed the Beast commercials, he also had a bit part in the movie My First Mister. There is a scene in a sex shop in My First Mister where a number of blasphemous dildos are on display. Blue Blood traded beer to the person responsible for props on said major motion picture there. In return for said dildos. Yes, I traded beer for blasphemous sex toys. Which I then ran through the dishwasher, to be on the safe side, and then Forrest Black and I used them in photo shoots for some of the BarelyEvil sets on BlueBlood.com. Even Blue Blood sex toys are famous. And, no, I am not going to Hell because I stopped Sydney Lauren from stealing the wooden Lord and savior from the film students. Although, come to think of it, Lord knows what they will do with it.

In March of 2003 I wrote an opening editorial for the late lamented Swag magazine project. The editorial was about how a lot of freaks internalize the negativity the larger society has for them. It was about how punk was supposed to promise the allure of a classless society. It was about how we shouldn’t hammer ourselves down because we deserve the rewards of the larger society, at least as much as anyone. The mere existence of this editorial is ironic in so many ways. I have no idea how many people read this the first time around, though, so I’d like to share it online now.

You should also definitely read the piece on Swag, by my old school, zine explosion compatriot Scott Hefflon, which ran first in Lollipop in print, and is now reprinted on Lollipop online. Part of what Scott had to say about the content Forrest Black and I and our pals created was, “It’s really surprising how rarely you find something unique in these “alternative” times. So many things still tow the line, the line is just called something else . . . So yeah, on the surface, Swag could look like a Gothic fashion mag. Lots of scantily-clad vixens, most of them models for one of the sites under the Blue Blood umbrella, but seeing as Amelia G and Forrest Black are top-notch Goth/fetish photographers and have great taste in hotties as well as the few bits of clothing the models wear, that’s far from a bad thing . . . What makes Swag cool is what doesn’t become clear right at first. Style . . . It was fun, I learned a couple things, and there was no nostagia back-in-my-day shit or mindless bashing of how everything sucks now and everyone’s a sell-out. No, it was well-researched bashing – funny, but not hatefully hipster ironic – and it read like something I’d write, or something one of my friends’d write. I wanna buy the writer a drink and see what they say next. That’s good writing, right? Hell, I even read Amelia G’s one-pager about buying a fuckin’ car. Sure, I know she can write and all, but who the hell care what car she bought and why and what it means to her? By the end of her story, I did. Who knew? It was a little tough to read cuz the text was one column across the entire page, but I read the whole thing, liked it, and I wanna buy Amelia G a drink to see what else she has to say. (OK, maybe I just wanna get her drunk. Heh.) . . . All in all, a damn fine publication, and one quite unlike anything else out there. And it’s got layers, baby, cuz these are not stupid fuckin’ posers spouting hipster slogans, parroting some review they just read and passing it off as their own wit. There’s eye candy, there’s smart, attitude-laced editorial (without being needlessly vicious), and there’s coverage of topics you didn’t know you were interested in until you found yourself absorbed in the piece.” Go to Lollipop and check out the whole feature on Swag there.

And now for the promised editorial:

I admit that sometimes I get discouraged with my subculture lifestyle. I think to myself that I started down this path by choice and maybe it is not too late to change direction. I think that, now that I have finally paid off my student loans and gotten my brain out of hock, maybe I should go back to school. Maybe business school could beat the importance of money into my head. Maybe I should become an attorney like my father. Maybe, at a bare minimum, I should steer my photography and writing towards more mainstream subjects.

There are a variety of things which will make me spin out into the headspace where I think such things. Inconsistent friends pretty much top the list. We’ve all known people who were our friends one day and the next they were blabbing our confidences or talking trash and then the next day they thought they could just be pals again. I’m not talking about plastic Los Angeles fair weather friends. Those are honest in their fashion and all you have to do to keep them pleasant is to keep doing well. I’m talking about alterna-identified people who have such deep-seated unhappiness about where they are at that they strike out at those closest to them because they just feel upset and are sure it must be somebody else’s fault. One of my pet peeves is cool counterculture girls who get to a certain age and start obsessing on how classy they are.

I became the sort of person I am today partly because my parents raised me to be without prejudice of class, color, or religion. On the face of it, one might think that bringing a child up to be genuinely colorblind was a very virtuous act. I believe it was. Of course those are the values I was brought up with, so I am biased. But it certainly contributes to my sense of alienation because some of the artificial things that other people use to identify supposedly kindred spirits just don’t apply for me.

One of the things which first attracted me to the counterculture was the lack of class boundaries. It was up to the individual what impression to make. You could be cool whether your parents were rich or poor, educated or illiterate, prominent in the community or living in another country. The lack of boundaries also meant a rich cross-pollination of ideas because everyone had a different background and there was not a this-is-the-way-it-has-always-been mentality.

Okay, over time, I have realized that there is one hidebound idea which really bothers me but which is endemic to subcultures. There is the notion that freaks should not be successful. This self-defeating sentiment can be found throughout most of the counterculture, whatever the specific affiliation of the people involved might be – Gothic, punk, deathrock, rockabilly, fetish, hippie, altrock, etc. No matter what I believe intellectually, my inner punk rocker believes that, on some level, success equals oppression. No matter how hard you work for it. On some level, like any minority, I have internalized the prejudice of the mainstream. I’ve been told that my weird hair and my perceived sexuality and my leather jacket all mean I do not deserve to be successful.

Well, the point here is to tell my inner punk rocker that there are rewards for being cool. Being able to express yourself with your appearance and being able to enjoy unique cool stuff are important rewards for taking the road less traveled.

And I deserve those rewards. And so do you.