Dita Von Teese is currently performing her second sold out series of artistic burlesque performances at the Crazy Horse strip club in Paris, France. Every time I have seen Dita Von Teese perform, she has done something different. Whether she is rocking a glittering horse, a sudsy martini glass, portable fairy forest, or a bondage rope spiderweb, Dita earns her crown all over again every time she hits the stage.

She is also hard at work on a book of tips for glamour-queens-in-training who wish to emulate her classic beautiful burlesque look. I for one will be thrilled when various chicks who hope to model start emulating Dita Von Teese again, instead of thinking that any random assortment of tattoos makes them alt and sexy. I love well-considered original skin art, but I just don’t think counterculture and inked are synonymous. The reason we have women like Dita Von Teese in the mix on BlueBlood.com is that I feel she easily exemplifies being self-actualized, independent, and marching to the beat of one’s own drummer. If someone had told me sixteen years ago that some day I’d be turning away models because I felt like they got their tattoos for conformist reasons, I would have thought that could never happen. C’est la vie.

Sadly, I must also confess that I have had Motley Crue lyrics going through my head, ever since I first heard about Dita Von Teese performing at Crazy Horse in Paris France.

Motley Crue Girls Girls Girls Lyrics

Friday night and I need a fight
My motorcycle and a switchblade knife
Handful of grease in my hair feels right
But what I need to make me tight are

Girls, Girls, Girls
Long legs and burgundy lips
Girls,
Dancin’ down on Sunset Strip
Girls
Red lips, fingertips

Trick or treat-sweet to eat
On Halloween and New Year’s Eve
Yankee girls ya just can’t beat
But they’re the best when they’re off their feet

Girls, Girls, Girls
At the Dollhouse in Ft. Lauderdale
Girls, Girls. Girls
Rocking in Atlanta at Tattletails
Girls, Girls, Girls
Raising Hell at the 7th Veil Have you read the news
In the Soho Tribune
Ya know she did me
Well then she broke my heart

I’m such a good good boy
I just need e new toy
I tell ya what, girl
Dance for me, I’ll keep you overemployed
Just tell me a story
You know the one I mean

Crazy Horse, Paris, France
Forget the names, remember romance
I got the photos, a menage a trois
Musta broke those Frenchies laws with those

Girls, Girls. Girls
Body Shop. Marble Arch
Girls, Girls, Girls
Tropicana’s where I lost my heart

Girls, Girls, Girls

Every now and then, I will use my TiVo to download a bunch of music videos. I download a bit of everything and then watch them briskly and efficiently. No reality programming in between. No commercials. If I don’t like the beginning of a music video, I fast forward to the mid-point to see if it gets better once it gets going. If not, I’m on to the next one.

I never heard of Justin Moore before, but I just got through playing his “Back That Thing Up” video about five gajillion times. “Back That Thing Up” has what Tapeheads fans would know to call serious production values. For those of you who must shamefacedly admit to never having seen Tapeheads, allow me to illustrate:

Mo Fuzz: All this video is missing is production values.
Ivan Alexeev, Josh Tager: Production values?
Mo Fuzz: Yeah. Tits and ass.

If muscles on video vixens and tight faded jeans on singer boys are coming back in style, I think I owe some deity a sacrificial goat now! Maybe two goats for the drummer still having tattoos and a mohawk. If “Back That Thing Up” is representative of Justin Moore’s body of work, he falls somewhere between Brooks & Dunn and Garth Brooks on one side and Motley Crue and AC/DC on the other. There are at least as many appalling sexual double entendres in “Back That Thing Up” as there are in “Big Balls”. I loathe puns. Unless they are sex puns. Then I love them.

Justin Moore has a mischievous smile, an easy charismatic stance and delivery style, and a smooth Southern voice both speaking and singing. Justin Moore has enormous star quality and looks really good in tight faded jeans and a cowboy hat. I usually don’t like cowboy hats (even though my foot was once photographed with one for Playboy.) He has an uncomplicated comfortable way of moving in his country duds which just works very very well. According to The Valory Music website, Justin Moore’s parents were deeded a fifteen-acre farm from his grandfather in a 272 person town called Poyen in Arkansas. His bio includes such American small town pastimes as high school baseball and gospel choir. I know country performers tend to talk about their mad farming skillz the same way rappers represent their drug-dealing resumes. Justin Moore is kind of being pitched as both flawlessly country and kind of indie, although it sort of looks like he is a Universal recording artist and he did get an awesome music video directed by Wes Edwards and produced by Brittany Hailes.

I have lived in both Georgia and North Carolina and, when I was thirteen, there were a lot of accent fetishist New Yorkers who wanted to date me for the five minutes I really had that Southern twang, until the moment passed. There is still the occasional word I say with a Southern accent, but I do not now identify as Southern nor have I ever identified as Southern. I have never thought of country as my community or culture. So I don’t care if Justin Moore’s comically country music-ready resume is over-spun or not. Apparently Country Music Television is a little wound up about the content in the video, so too racy for CMT is certainly a selling point in my book.

I know, I know, I get all excited about some media thing. I research it. Then I have to ponder whether it is real or not. In my defense, the YouTube comments on the cowboy singer’s videos tend to be mostly girls saying they are super “cuntry” and way better than those “Playboy whores” in the “Back That Thing Up” video. Except for the one gay guy who wanted Justin to back his nice thing up into some dick. This was apparently very offensive to some country fans. Some “cuntry” girls also complained that the video was degrading to women, but they were un-eloquently debated by other posters who apparently ran the lyrics through a rap filter and felt that it was good that “at least” it was not what they had come up with. Yeah, ’cause Justin Moore is more talented than they are.

This all brings me back to what was really my only point:

There is this kinda new singer Justin Moore and his catchy and nicely performed song “Back That Thing Up” has an incredibly cool video out directed by Wes Edwards. The end.

A while back, we were chatting in the forums about horror movies and gore on film. It occurred to me that outspoken Blue Blood superstar hottie Jax, with her extensive body modifications, would have a very interesting and unique perspective on subjecting the human body to extremes. Definitely a topic which called for an in-depth interview with Jax!

Amelia G: What are some of your favorite horror movies or other media?

Jax: I grew up on the oldies like Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween movies, I remember watching them with my dad when I was really young so I’ll always hold those as some of my favorites. I really, really like almost anything done by Takashi Mike.

Amelia G: What are some of your favorite real gore movies or other media?

Jax: My most favorite real gore are the Faces/Traces of Death series and the movie Cannibal Holocaust (thanks TOA for showing me that real gore movies are out there).

Amelia G: Do you find gore in horror movies scary?

Jax: Scary? Not really. Sometimes some things will make my toes curl, because I have an overactive imagination. But that’s because I’m thinking “Woah, what would that feel like?” or “Yeah, I remember when I did that, and it didn’t feel very pleasant.”

Amelia G: I think a lot of people would be freaked out by seeing someone hung off a hook or someone getting their tongue split or a hole punched out of someone’s flesh in a movie torture scene. Obviously, you have an intriguing and different perspective from the average person because you know what all those things would actually feel like. Do you think that your real life experiences make movie scenes more visceral for you or more ho hum or just more interesting?

Jax: I’d have to say more interesting mainly, but only because of other people’s perspectives. While I’ve actually felt what it was like to hang from hooks, punch holes in my ears, get my tongue split or any other sort of more extreme body modification, it’s interesting to see other people’s reaction to them on the TV. Like recently, my mom watched Strangeland, and was freaking out over some of the suspension scenes, knowing full well I have done multiple suspensions. The difference is she watched them on TV but wouldn’t look at the pictures of me doing them, haha. I think maybe if she saw pictures of me doing them, it would have become a little more realistic, I dunno.

However some scenes are more visceral for me. Seeing it and actually being able to relate to those feelings is almost odd in a way that sometimes those feelings will rush back to me. Almost as if I’m participating again.

Amelia G: Do you think the context of, for example, a consensual one hook suspension is so different from something forced on someone unwilling that the experiences are not really comparable? Does the manner in which something like that is done entirely change how an individual would experience it i.e. what aspects do you feel would make an experience like that more uplifting vs. more like torture?

Jax: Being forced and being willing I feel are two entirely different experiences. For example, when you willingly do a one hook suspension, it is because you want to experience the pain, the emotion and the overall sense of what is going on. I can’t imagine being forced to do a suspension. Your mind is just not in the right place to get the full aspect of what is about to happen. For anything to be an uplifting experience, you have to want to do it. You have to be curious, not repulsed, by the act in certain situations. I feel in these situations, torture is any physical or emotional pain that you are not willing to be consensual to, and is being forced upon you. Some people feel that suspensions, tattoos, piercings or any other body mod is performing torture and mutilation upon ones self. I completely disagree, because these are things I want to feel and experience as far as the mindset. In order for it to be uplifting, the number one thing (I feel) is you have to be comfortable.

Amelia G: Some people enjoy going to the gym and some people just like how working out makes them feel or look. To what extent have you enjoyed the process of getting each of your varied body modifications and to what extent was the ends of having them more enjoyable for you personally than the means of acquiring them?

Jax: If going to the gym and working out makes you feel or look great, then kudos to you. I respect your decision to do so, as I would hope those would respect my decisions for my body mods. The biggest thing I really enjoy about the process of getting new mods is the planning that goes into each one. While my piercings dont really have any sort of meaning other than I like the way they look, each and every one of my tattoos has meaning. And I have to say, through all the years the most enjoyable thing about having what I have is being able to look back and remember each and every detail about my life at the time I had them done. Almost like a picture album. Where I was, my thoughts on life, and my innermost feelings are things that could never be captured with a camera.

And I have to admit, the endorphin rush and the feeling of overcoming pain once its over is pretty attractive to me in itself regardless of the mod. No, I’ve never orgasmed while getting a body mod, the feelings of accomplishment and the love I have with the finished result is much more powerful.

I kind of like this year’s female pop sound, but, for some reason, all the top-selling pop artists this years seem to sound oddly similar. Moreso than usual for such things, which is saying something. I don’t think that normally Britney Spears, Pink, Christina Aguilera, Rhianna, etc. all have nearly identical voices. I think this is one of those occasions where, if I knew more about how the female pop sausage is made, it probably boils down to just a few writing teams and just a couple of producers.

This year, barring visual cues, I can’t tell any of these chicks apart from their singing. The new Britney Spears single “Womanizer” is predictably stylish and expensive-looking. It is in the format of one of those videos where the girl wears a whole passel of different outfits to appeal to a larger variety of demographics. Britney Spears has always been marketed somewhat like this, but this vid kicks it up a notch.

There is even a sequence where Brit is all done up with a reddish pinkish bob for hair and fake tattoo sleeves. Basically, the scenario has her done up as a waitress who would have a lot of “friends” on MySpace. The temporary tattoos are what feel like they put it over the top, although certainly, as the meaning of having ink has changed, tattooed hotties like Masuimi Max and Kellie LaPlegua are getting their ink lasered off. So maybe there is no true permanence in counterculture beyond what is in your heart. The look can always be co-opted, often in ways which are glossier than the original.

They will gobble up fashion as fast as the underground can produce it, although genuinely individual and independent spirit is the part mainstream wants to leave behind. But, like, America’s favorite trainwreck Britney Spears is, like, sorta naked in the “Womanizer” video.

Edit: So apparently, although this video has been uploaded about a billion and a half times to YouTube, it is not embeddable the way most vids from there are. Blue Blood has a policy against linking pirated content, but Antiquiet has the Britney Spears Director’s Cut video and I’m linking that, despite Kevin Skwerl’s FBI arrest and indictment because him once again having special materials means that either (1) it’s all effing astroturf and thus the copyright holders want it approached this way or (2) Kevin Skwerl takes stuff from work.

I love music, or at least I used to, but the music industry sure makes me sick.

I have had a lot of fun in Portland before and I’ve shot a bunch in Portland before. So I was down for a trip, a few weeks ago, when long-time Blue Blood hottie Rachel Face called me up and said that she’d been designing disposable clothing made out of trash and she was having a fashion show she’d love me and Forrest Black to come up and do some press coverage on. She had messaged me online about shooting some new sets for BlueBlood.com and I often enjoy shooting trips more if there is an event to shoot. Rachel invited me and Forrest Black to stay at her place, but we figured she would be crazed getting ready for her fashion show, so we stayed at EroticBPM HQ instead.

It’s not that Rachel didn’t tell me excitedly about how there would be all these strippers there. Hot girls who dance in Los Angeles usually prefer to be called dancers, but Portland cuties throw the word strippers around all the time. Yet I hadn’t quite grasped the nature of the venue. The Trash Factory fashion show was at a club called Devil’s Point. Portland peeps are probably starting to smirk now, as it occurs to them what I did not know. Never having been to Devil’s Point, I had assumed the Trash Factory fashion show venue would be a nightclub with maybe some go-go dancers or maybe a place full nude dancers went to get a beer . . . when not actually, ya know, nude.

Humorously, I had not realized it was an actual strip club. Doh! Nonetheless, the Devil’s Point people were helpful and nice and the photography did turn out awesome, if I do say so myself. Check the photos out here and check the club out when in Portland.

(Thanks to our beloved advertiser Busted Tees for the photos in the graphic. Please do not blame them for the lewd linguistics lesson which follows.)

Will Judy: Coffee had better be the answer right now, because there’s nothing else going.

Considering initialized knuckle tattoos. Right hand: ROFL, Left hand: TLDR

Amelia G: I am not sure you are jovial enough for an ROFL knuckle set. What is TLDR?

Will Judy: “Too Long; Didn’t Read”

Shittiest, most smugly dismissive response to a post possible, worse than “Id hit it” or “tranny?”

Amelia G: It is probably good for the world that I didn’t know what that stood for and, perhaps solely as a result of this, had not noticed it before.

This conversation reminds me that I need to start a “Would you hit it?” thread somewhere.

As a linguistically informed individual, how would you deconstruct (deconstruct is my word of the week) the hit it expression. What is one hitting? Is the usage that one will smack one’s privates against another’s? Is it a more general colliding of human beings in a sexual context? Is hitting it something one does *with* someone else or *to* someone else? Is the usage supposed to apply only to men hitting women (e.g. tap that ass) or also to women hitting men (as it certainly is used in common parlance)?

Will Judy: Etymologically speaking: One of the many theories explaining the word “fuck” traces it back to the Olde Englishe verb “fokken”, “to strike”. Fokken in the sense “to strike” is still in use in German, although there is a separate word, fichen, for “to fuck”.

I think the current usage of “hit that” traces back to “hitting skins”, late 80s slang conflating beating drums (drumskins) with having the vigorous sex. “I’d hit skins with that fine thing” boiled down to “I’d hit that”.

There’s also the whole thing of shouting “Hit it!” to get something started, which goes back to time immemorial.

Amelia G: You have no idea how much pleasure and relief I am currently receiving from your explanation. Can I repost this? (with credit/blame of course)

Will Judy: You have my freely given permission.

Corporate Goth is a familiar expression in East Coast cities where people tend to separate their playtime from their workdays. I was living and working mostly in Washington, DC and Baltimore when I founded Blue Blood in print. I did primarily contract design work and most of the companies I worked for were conservative federal contractors, management consultancies, and lobbyists. My hairstyle at the time consisted of only natural colors, albeit definitely not colors which would appear striped together in nature. On my own time, I believed that shirt was spelled L-I-N-G-E-R-I-E. Heck, one of my neighbors harangued me from across the street, telling me I belonged in a whorehouse for what I wore just to clean my car. (I called the cops on her.) But, when I was seated at a computer in someone else’s place of business, I might not have looked like the most standard employee (or contractor). My clothes might have tended towards a darker palette and my hair was not really a businessperson’s cut, but it was usually businesslike enough. (When I worked at EDS, my manager did complain to my agency about my sexy stockings.)

This might go without saying, but I’m going to state the obvious here: I read a lot of cyberpunk at the time. I loved William Gibson and John Shirley and Richard Kadrey and Norman Spinrad and Pat Cadigan and Walter Jon Williams and George Alec Effinger and of course Bruce Sterling’s Mirrorshades anthology was seminal. The list goes on, but one of the salient points of the emerging cyberpunk genre at the time was that it acknowledged both street culture and corporate culture. Cyberpunk was, in many ways, first and foremost a sociological study of how the human need for tribalism might manifest itself in a future with new technology.

So there were the heavily modded post-human gothic and punk tribes with writhing tattoos and tusks and animal muscle grafts and music implants in their ear drums. But there were also the sleek corporate melds of gangsterism and business core values. I don’t know how it was where you lived, but, where I was, both styles had a real appeal to counterculture people striving to achieve their personal goals and power, despite preferences for rebellion and individuality and flamboyance. This is where Corporate Goth comes from. The whole steampunk fashion thing sort of built on and evolved from some of this scene as some of the cyberpunk authors started writing steampunk and Neal Stephenson burst onto the scene. But the evolution of steampunk is another article.

In Los Angeles, many of the sleek black business stylings of corporate goth are just dressed for a certain sort of meeting. This is aesthetically pleasing to me, but it removes some of the tribal appeal.

Xian (pronounced “zigh-ahn” despite my stupid left hand always trying to add a letter t) Vox is not your typical Los Angeles promoter and DJ. She is interested in varied philosophies and works tech industry day jobs. So it sort of makes sense that she would like a corporate goth theme. A much smaller percentage of Los Angeles denizens who like spooky nightclubs have ever worked a corporate job . . . at least a much smaller percentage than it cities where it is common to be at least as interested in books as in movies, at least as interested in the heart and mind as the body.

So, anyway, Xian did a Hex VIP event as a run-up to a larger ball and Blue Blood were media sponsors of the event. I did not ask Xian what her reasons or inspirations or motivations were, but one of the possible themes for the event was Corporate Goth. So here are the gothic photos Forrest Black and I shot at the event. If you might have otherwise wondered at quite what the theme was, now you know. Unless, of course, you didn’t read this and just went straight to the pics. I think everybody looks really great, so enjoy.