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.

Is it likely that a bleach blonde with fake tits who worked for Playboy appeared in a Playboy pictorial? Is it likely that a millionaire reality show contestant would murder his bleach blonde girlfriend and think he was going to get away with it by chopping off all her fingers and pulling out all her teeth but not removing her serial numbered breast implants? Is it likely that, if someone were so horribly cruelly disfigured, either just prior to being murdered or post-mortem to incompetently prevent identification, that TMZ would buy a death photo from someone in the coroner’s office and post it on the internet? Well, the only part of the the Jasmine-Fiore-murder-followed-by-death-photo story being reported which is not true is that the victim posed for Playboy. Full disclosure: Jasmine Fiore may have had a bit part in the horror movie The Abandoned which was an advertiser on this site and others I work on, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t bias me on this. I’m pretty sure I would find this story simultaneously ghoulishly hilarious and horrifically tragic regardless.

One Ryan Alexander Jenkins was indeed thwarted when one Jasmine Fiore was identified by the serial number on her breast implants. Apparently Ryan Alexander Jenkins recently finished taping on VH1’s I Love Money 3. I don’t really know what that show is about and I can’t imagine the prize dollars are anything significant to anyone already a millionaire, but I can’t quite bring myself to look it up either. Gawker’s Jezebel reports that, since Ryan Alexander Jenkins became a person of interest in the murder of Jasmine Fiore, VH1 has pulled all mention of the Megan Wants a Millionaire show he was a finalist on. Jezebel further reports that the murder suspect may have actually won the grand prize on I Love Money 3. Jezebel goes on to commend VH1 for their sensitivity in removing the MWAM content from the VH1 web site (juicy bits helpfully archived by Jezebel.)

I have also never seen Megan Wants a Millionaire, which was apparently canceled fairly early in its run. A while back I covered the Charm School reunion show where Sharon Osbourne and this Megan Hauserman ditzy blonde self-professed gold-digger got into a cat fight, although I admit I’ve never seen Charm School and only watched the cat fight vid on the VH1 web site when it became a hot topic.

At that time, Megan’s claim to fame was that Poison frontman/insecure meanie/embarrassment-to-aging-rockers-everywhere Bret Michaels rejected her on Rock of Love. Is being rejected by a guy who was okay-looking in 1986 really a resume item? Apparently so, as Megan Hauserman was given her own show Megan Wants a Millionaire. The Superficial reports, “You know what the most fucked up part of this story is? There’s a reality show where millionaires compete for the love of a self-proclaimed gold-digger with fake breasts. That’s the saddest thing I’ve heard all day.”

It seems that, immediately after being rejected by Megan Hauserman on camera for VH1 in March, Ryan Alexander Jenkins went to Vegas and married his girlfriend of some time Jasmine Fiore. Wouldn’t you be pissed if your significant other went on television to humiliate themselves pursuing someone who is not you? Certainly would not spell wedding bells to me. According to Jasmine Fiore’s understandably bereaved and distraught mother Lisa Lepore, Jasmine Fiore had the marriage annulled in May, but law enforcement can find no record of this. One Robert Hasman got a series of text messages from his ex-girlfriend Jasmine Fiore over the two days before her death. Then he got just one cryptic message, well after her estimated time of death, which just read “suck it“. In other post-mortem commentary news, What Would Tyler Durden Do reports, “Jasmines roommate says their relationship was “on the rocks”. She also said that Jenkins told her he was “done with the relationship” and that “he couldn’t take it anymore”. This was one day after Jasmine was found in a dumpster . . . She’s not very attractive, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to kill her. Legally, I mean.”

Ryan Alexander Jenkins is Canadian and is believed to have fled to Canada, although his father, a wealthy architect, developed a resort on an island in Honduras and owns at least one plane. The Huffington Post reports that Canada has agreed to extradite Ryan Alexander Jenkins if he is apprehended in Canada because the State of California has promised not to pursue the death penalty in this potentially capital crime.

Judging from video of Ryan Alexander Jenkins singing “I love my wife” to Jasmine Fiore in Vegas which he posted to his MySpace page (and TMZ helpfully archived), Jasmine Fiore was brunette at the time of her death. So bleached blonde and naked for Playboy = false. All the ridiculous stuff (including VH1 choosing not to profit from tragedy) = totally true.

I feel like I know a surprisingly large number of people who claim to be afraid of clowns. I think some folks I know only get uneasy if they go to the circus or something and some get full-on nightmares about being chased by axe-wielding harlequins or crushed to death in a small fuel-efficient vehicle with too many clowns inside. Coulrophobia is the technical term for extreme fear of clowns (in case you were looking for a vocab word of the day.)

Of course, by corollary, if there is something which makes some people crazy, I will also know people who love that thing largely because of the maddening impact on others. So I know a surprisingly large number of people who claim to be turned on by clowns. The extremely fabulous sex educator Dr. Ducky DooLittle even has a Knockers the Clown performance art character she does and I admit just last week I came across film proving I once bought a cake for the sole purpose of seeing Ducky stick her ass in it (a la pudding on MTV’s The State.) Entertaining though Ducky’s performances all are, I can’t say I am kinked for clowns.

People often take their children to circuses where there are clowns or invite clowns to perform at kids’ parties. Sad clown makeup used to trouble me, but it did not frighten me. I never found clowns remotely funny or scary as a child. I was going to say most physical humor misses me, but I find comedians like Steve Martin and Chevy Chase hilarious and there is a certain amount of physicality to what they do. So I guess I am just kind of unmoved by clowns specifically.

So I was looking at this half naked photo series of model Apnea for Apneatic and Deviant Nation which featured clown makeup and balloons and other tropes of soubrette clowning and it brought the vital question to mind: Are clowns scary or sexy or are they sexy because they are scary?

What the Duck is the best comic strip anyone has ever done about photography. Now Blue Blood readers, unless they are viewing the site with some sort of high tech braille conversion computer, are familiar with my more professional lit studio and location photography of rock stars, freaks, and naked people.

I also sometimes like to do, uhm, personal work, where I take my snapshot camera out on the town with me (and sometimes rock stars, freaks, and naked people.) In order to achieve my distinctive brand of party time nightlife photography, I do not look through the viewfinder and I keep the display turned off. I do my best work of this type when alcohol is involved.

I’m not much of a drinker, but I can tear it up from time to time on special occasions. Prior to the age of digital photography, I thought I had never blacked out from drinking. I mean, there was never a dead hooker in my bed in the morning and, in the absence of dead hookers, it is difficult to remember not remembering. Since the advent of digital photography, I’ve been made aware that sometimes less booze equals more memories. For example, I was giving my buddy Gonzo grief for not having introduced me to famous, err, computer wiz Kevin Mitnick when we were all partying in Vegas. Unfortunately, Gonzo was able to produce digital photographic evidence of us hanging out.

At any rate, I was first exposed to What the Duck when my brother emailed me the accompanying webcomic because it made him think of me and specifically my painting the town red snapshots. My brother is a professional photographer and he came across the strip because another professional photographer told him about it. When comic strip creator Aaron Johnson is asked whether he is a photographer, he replies, “I’m 40% photographer, 60% Photoshopper.”

Not to in any way belittle the importance of post-production in modern photography, but Aaron Johnson is 100% hilarious and insightful cartoonist. If you’ve ever picked up a camera for art or business or know too many people who have, the humor in What the Duck is very very spot on and funny.

Have a good weekend and make some good memories everyone. Don’t forget your camera.

Singer/songwriter Lady GaGa appears on the cover of the current issue of Rolling Stone. The cover is shot by photographer David LaChapelle. David LaChapelle has shot many Rolling Stone covers, is known for his bright colors and elaborate sets, and started in photography taking naked pictures of club kids. Lady GaGa went to an Upper West Side high school and became a New York club kid. Maybe I am biased because I enjoy Lady GaGa’s work and I enjoy David LaChapelle’s work and I’ve spent a fair amount of time inside edgy nightclubs, but I don’t get what all the fuss is about.

Rolling Stone has certainly run nakeder covers than the Lady GaGa one. Anyone remember the full nude of model Laetitia Casta on a bed of petals? It is not like you’d find artistic nudes likes these on PukingOnPenis.com. Seriously don’t click that, but you get what I mean. Today, in a world where all sorts of depravity is a click away, why does a teensy bit of authentic club culture make so many people hyperventilate?

Although a certain sort of bohemian club culture has existed since time immemorial and that artistic counterculture has always made some people uncomfortable, is it really that big a deal? Or is the problem that we have come to expect pop stars to be the best-looking possible actresses hired by management teams with songwriters and stylists and something which came about more organically now seems wrong? Lady GaGa is widely credited as having written on songs for Akon, Britney Spears, Fergie, Pussycat Dolls, and oddly enough New Kids on the Block. Although I’m not sure how or if Lady GaGa is credited in ASCAP, I’d be happier if I could find her songwriting credits. Still, I tend to believe that she actually writes songs. Even if you don’t find bluffin with one’s muffin as entertaining as I do, surely the combination of artist and performer is still better than solely artist or solely performer. At the very least, it is not worse, is it?

From my point of view, the most controversial thing about the David LaChapelle Rolling Stone cover featuring Lady GaGa is that New York fashionistas credit the whole bubble outfit look to designer Hussein Chalayan. Although neither a bubble dress or bubble corset appear on the web site for Hussein Chalayan’s 2007 collections, I’ve seen credible photos from his runway show stuff for that year. The designer was reportedly disappointed that Lady GaGa knocked off his design, rather than wearing the original.

So, if you’d like to recreate Lady GaGa’s Rolling Stone look, you now know where to commission your own bubble outfit, if you don’t feel crafty enough to make one. Then all you have to do is round up a bunch of your naked and barely-clad friends and get wet and messy. Photos optional.

Rolling Stone #1080 is on newsstands now.

Yesterday, gossip site The Dirty reported that they have exclusive nude photos of Miss California Carrie Prejean. Now the winner of Donald Trump’s 2009 Miss USA pageant on NBC is Miss North Carolina Kristen Dalton, but Miss California Carrie Prejean is likely to be the name you’ve been hearing about.

I don’t know if there is a Good Judgment category in pageants, but, if there were one, Carrie Prejean would get awfully low marks. One of the Miss USA judges this year is famous (and openly gay) gossip blogger Perez Hilton. So Perez Hilton asks Miss California Carrie Prejean what, in light of Calfornia’s Prop 8 debacle vs. other states legalizing it, she thinks about gay marriage. Let me just repeat here that Perez Hilton was one of the judges. So, in a show of what people who live in glass houses should not say, Miss California Carrie Prejean said, “We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And you know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.”

CNN reported “Prejean announced last week that she would star in a new $1.5 million ad campaign supporting what she called “opposite marriage” (marriage between a man and a woman) funded by the National Organization for Marriage.” And of course the naughty pictures surfaced. What was that about casting the first stone and being without sin and all that jazz?

Graphic designer Chad Serrano, who is in my pal Sabrina’s Fabulous Book Club for Fabulous People, says he would totally support the National Organization for Marriage type folks if they opposed divorce as heartily as they oppose gay marriage. If no National Organization for Marriage or pro-Prop 8 person ever got divorced, then it would be reasonable for them to excuse homophobia and being bigoted morons as being pro-marriage. Good point.

Then again, NOM is a group who chose as their spokesperson . . . a judgmental naked pageant chick who claims to be in favor of “opposite marriage”. I just wish the people from Opposite Land (really Vista, California), where she apparently from, is from would stop voting in California elections. Oh yeah, and Miss California Carrie Prejean does have a completely valid excuse for having posed for naked pictures and never mentioning it. She was like totally tricked. Uh huh.

Naked Girls Smoking Weed – Best of 420 Girls is a compilation of photographer Rob Griffin’s favorite images from his 420 Girls site. From the site tour, it looks like the 420 Magazine peeps got bored of updating much once they had this coffee table book out. You know how distractable stoners are.

Before the stoner-identified among you all make notes to send me hate mail, so you won’t forget to, allow me to state categorically that I feel strongly that pot should be legal. I think that making something, that most people do illegal, just teaches disrespect for the laws, and makes it a lottery whether someone’s life will be taken entirely off-track in a horrible way over kind of nothing. I am well-aware that caffeine is a drug and I’d be pretty sad if iced lattes got legislated against. I’d probably keep drinking iced lattes too, under those circumstances. We should have reasonable laws and enforce them. I truly believe that, if anti-drug laws on the books were genuinely rigorously enforced against all law-breakers for even a little while, those laws would all be changed. Rob Griffin, the mastermind and photographer behind 420 Girls, got a felony conviction for pot in Maryland in 1992. Being in the DC area, he was politically-aware and upset that this meant he lost his right to vote. In 1993, he says he was inspired to start 420 Magazine both to raise awareness and cover and entertain stoner culture. The 2003 crackdown on the sale of paraphernalia such as glass pipes demolished his advertising base, so he turned to the pay site business model. Voila, 420 Girls became the pay site you can join today. I really like that Rob Griffin says he is on a mission from Mother Nature and I always appreciate a good combination of education and entertainment.

Oh, and, while it is not my choice recreationally, you can be damn sure that, if I ever need chemo, I will be getting a medical marijuana prescription immediately because being nauseous is one of the things I like least in the universe. (Did I mention I live in Hollywood and California is awesome?)

Getting back to the hotness . . . the 420 Girls site still boasts thousands of photos of really hot girls, many of whom you’ll definitely either recognize or sit up and take notice of, including Lexi Belle from BlueBlood VIP, Bella Starr of EroticBPM fame, pornstar Charlie Laine, fetish goddess Brittany Andrews, and a bevy of other sexy 420 beauties.

Rob Griffin’s photography showcases an intimate side of these naked women, not just because they are nude, but because there is something very personal about his photographic style and compositional approach. The scenarios vary with some girls strolling nude through what looks like a forest of marijuana and some just building little Close Encounters mountains with it. Others toke up using everything from glass pipes to a giant plastic bag contraption I can’t begin to guess the reason to use just to smoke pot. Sometimes the paraphernalia is what makes an activity extra fun. There is just something really entertaining about tools and accessories.

Happy 420, everyone.

I admit that the majority of my unsavory pals would cheerfully take all of their clothing off in a grocery store for pretty much any reason at all. The partners of those in relationships would not think stripping down in a public place was indicative of anything out of the ordinary. Episode 203 of Breaking Bad, “Bit by a Dead Bee”, explores what happens if you live the sort of life where people do not get naked in food establishments. And then you step outside that world where everyone feels they know what to expect.

On Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston’s Walter White character neglects to mention to his wife when he decides that a dead high school chemistry teacher’s financial potential will be insufficient to care for his family. He neglects to mention to his wife that he might be earning supplemental cash by, ya know, cooking disturbingly high quality methamphetamine and putting his fine mind to figuring out how to distribute to the appropriate drug dealer meth channels without getting murdered or brutalized.

Is not telling his wife what he is up to in his final months before he is likely to succumb to cancer avoiding intimacy? Or are there spaces in one’s existence where it is important to be distinct from one’s partner and autonomous?

Would you fake a psychotic break with public nudity in order to avoid exposing a secret to your family members or romantic partners? If you got starkers inside a large local store, would anyone you know believe this might be indicative of a psychotic break, stepping down the path to madness? Or would that behavior just seem like everything was pretty normal?

Breaking Bad airs tonight on AMC. AMC is free with basic cable.

Last week, I started seeing all kinds of links in to Blue Blood from American Idol sites. As I have not been watching American Idol this season and have never covered American Idol on this site before, this seemed peculiar until we started receiving emails with subjects like Adam Lambert Nude, Adam Lambert Gay Kiss, Where can I find naked pics of Adam Lambert? and suchlike. Actually, this still seemed a bit peculiar until People Magazine got in touch with us and emailed us the photos we shot which everyone was talking about.

Now, of course I recall Forrest Black and yours truly shooting American Idol finalist contestant Adam Lambert. He is pretty memorable. I have also photographed guys before. Naked guys even. This does not mean that every single person, out of the thousands I have ever pointed a camera at, has stripped down at some point in the shooting process. In case this is not already blindingly clear, allow me to state categorically that we photographed Adam Lambert and Cheeks at a costume event sponsored by Blue Blood and promoted by Xian. Everybody at the event was clothed and most were even costumed. There was nothing scandalous about Adam Lambert being dressed up glam; he looked great and it was a costume party. So, no, I do not have any naughtier pictures than the portraits in this Adam Lambert gallery.

To all the ignorant prudes who hide their own bigotry behind platitudes about what “other” people in “flyover states” will think, I don’t think a few sexy images have exactly hurt the careers of any modern (like post invention of photography) musicians. Anybody heard of David Bowie, Keith Richards, Marilyn Manson, Twiggy, Madonna, Deborah Harry, Slash, Jeff Beck, Lily Allen, Katy Perry, Tommy Lee, Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Jones, Zack de la Rocha, Tom Morello, Jared Louche, Eddie Vedder, Dave Navarro, Flea, or Anthony Kiedis? These are all performers who have been immortalized on camera either nude or kissing someone of the same gender or, in most cases, both. Do any of these smug I-am-open-minded-but-what-about-the-middle-America-frauen people seriously think that nobody from say Iowa ever bought an album by the Rolling Stones, Motley Crue, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers?

Discussing the existence of photos of Adam Lambert kissing, Access Hollywood Dish of Salt interviewer “Laura [Saltzman] mentioned she had never been [to Burning man], Adam gave her a wicked little smile and said, “We are going to the Burning Man– I might kiss you too!”” Additionally, in the interview, Adam Lambert said, “You know what, I have nothing to hide. I am who I am. And this is about singing… nothing else.” So he can sing, he’s gorgeous, he has remarkably impressive presence, and he owns who he is and makes no apologies. I like that and I hope everyone reading this likes those traits in a person too.

Last week, the American Idol Judges had the following comments on Adam Lambert’s performance of “Black or White” (The theme of the episode was Michael Jackson.): Man-in-charge Simon Cowell said, “That was in a totally different league than everyone else.” Performer Paula Abdul said, “You’ve got the whole package going on.” Producer Randy Jackson said, “You could make a record right now and it would sail right to the top.” And the new judge songwriter Kara DioGuardi said, “I hope Michael Jackson was watching you tonight.” So I kind of think the good guy has a good chance of winning, having what it takes to be a star and deserving it and all.

If you happen to feel like tuning in to American Idol tonight, it would be awesome if some of the tens of thousands of people who read BlueBlood.net could cast some votes for Adam Lambert. Tune in Tuesdays 8pm/7pm central and Wednesdays 9pm/8pm central on FOX.

I’ve always thought that the scent of certain foods should be packaged as cologne. Who wouldn’t want to lick someone who smelled like fresh doughnuts in the morning? Baked goods in general can provoke this sense. I find Mrs. Fields cookies uninteresting as a food, but they smell so damn alluring in the mall; I just want to get close to them. Even certain frozen foods, like Stouffer’s mashed potatoes, smell like the sort of thing that could make a prospective partner’s mouth water. I’d love to have a really good coffee body spray. Heck, I want to roll around naked in a two person tub full of Intelligentsia Black Cat espresso beans.

Taking this concept one step too far, Burger King (aka the people who brought you a pervert Subservient Chicken in garters), have introduced Flame body spray for (I think) men.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and admit that, although I did used to enjoy Burger King chicken tenders, I haven’t eaten them in many many years and I never ever liked the Whopper. On school field trips as a child, I did always vote for Burger King where they sort of had food and didn’t object to leaving off the disgusting fast food spreads. BK, where I could have it my way, was clearly superior to McDonald’s where pretty much nothing, except the french fries, was remotely food. Some of my classmates would want to go to a place called Micky D’s and it took me ages to figure out this was a hip (if you are like eight-years-old) way to refer to McDonald’s.

Genius demented ad copy for the body spray scent like working in fast food:

“The WHOPPER sandwich is America’s favorite burger. FLAME by BK captures the essence of that love and gives it to you. Behold the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat.“

My favorite burger is one I cook myself, pan fried well done, with goat cheddar on top, and no bun, and no spread, and no rancid pickles. If we are taking all of the Americas into account, the best burger meat I’ve ever had was in Brazil. My next favorite burger is the Kobe beef burger from Lucky Devils on Hollywood Blvd, well done, with bacon and cheddar on top, bun and aioli and broccoli on the side. And, yes, I know they don’t have it that way precisely on the menu. I’m not sure I’d want to smell like it, even made precisely the way I love most, but so it goes.

Flame Burger King cologne is available for online purchase from Ricky’s Halloween Costume Superstore, the site for which explains that it is “The hottest, funkiest, craziest costume shop in New York City!” At the very least, it is your go-to spot if you want to get that BK burger funk all over your bod.