Winding Down

I hope everyone’s having a nice final week of the decade. I’m having a nice time with the family in Atlanta and had a nice evening yesterday seeing “No Country for Old Men” with my Dad on cable TV. I’d seen it once last year but enjoyed it even more this time. It’s really brilliant and the themes of aging and the randomness of the universe really resonated. (Spoiler alert following). One of my favorite moments is when the young wife refuses to call the killer’s flipped coin, and she basically tells him that the coin doesn’t mean anything, it’s just you. I also love the irony of lawman Tommy Lee Jones (who normally always gets his man) never really figuring out anything in this one. It’s pretty dark and mournful but for the end of the decade it just felt perfect and gave my Dad and I plenty to talk about for the next hour.

Back to L.A. on Friday and back to work for the new year. Have fun tomorrow night!

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas has had a nice time today. I’m not really a believer but was raised “sort of” Catholic, though it didn’t take (but I still ended up guilt-ridden anyway). My Dad never really went for it and my Mom was a convert who almost immediately regretted it. I have no problem with Jesus; it’s religion that gives me the willies. But I still often enjoy going to an Episcopalian service on Christmas Eve, especially if it’s in a big cathedral. They really put on a show and have some of the best music. One of my favorites is “In the Bleak Midwinter,” which you don’t hear too often, but it always brings a tear to my eye. Last night I went with a friend and we had a really nice time, and it was really good for us both to get out and not be alone.

Then I’m going to Atlanta soon for a few days to see my parents and am looking forward to hanging out and watching the New Year’s Eve shows with my Dad. It looks like Kathy Griffin is going to be back again this year on CNN, with Anderson Cooper and Lance Bass. I just love her. Here’s a clip on YouTube from last year when the open mike caught her dealing with a heckler – funny stuff!

Oldies

I was doing some housecleaning tasks on the website the other day and got to looking at some old galleries from years ago. There were a few old favorite pictures that I hadn’t seen in a long time and I went back and dug up the old files for them and re-edited a few at a larger screen size. It’s funny how small pixel-wise some of the original pictures were. There were a couple that were shot on a 2.7 megapixel camera – and heck, we were happy to have even that back then! I know it really wasn’t that long ago, about six or seven years, but it sure seems like it was ages. And looking at these pictures I get that feeling of, “Oh, to be that young again…” The years pass and where do they go? Time in a bottle, that winding road, blah blah blah.

Anyway, it was fun to see these old pics and to see them re-done in Photoshop and looking about as good as they’re probably ever going to look. That last one, by the way, was only from last year, but it just struck me as a neat picture with nice lighting, so I removed an extension cord on the garage floor with Photoshop to make it a little better.





Club Fantasy on Jan. 15th, THEN on Feb. 5th

Whoops, I got totally confused on the Club Fantasy schedule, so I just deleted that previous post. Here’s the correct info: the next Club Fantasy party will be on Friday, January 15th, and then starting in February we’ll be moving to the first Friday of the month, starting on Friday, February 5th.

Right before the January 15th party there’ll also be an interesting-sounding presentation by Raven Kaldera called “Double Edge: The Transgender/BDSM Intersection” from 7 PM till 8:45 PM, with the party starting right after. I’ll be there and at the party.

Here’s some more information on the presentation. Hope to see you there.

date: Friday, January 15, 2010
time: 07:00 PM to 08:45 PM
where: The Threshold Society
address: Los Angeles, CA map
cost: $10 for workshop (party is separate)
dress code: Anything

Double Edge: BDSM and Transgender

From the man or woman who cross-dresses for the first time as part of a BDSM scene, to the transsexual who is trying to figure out which play parties they can attend, being transgendered in the BDSM scene is both a blessing and a challenge. At the same time, a remarkably high percentage of transgendered people identify with leathersex – why? We’ll discuss how BDSM roleplaying lends itself to gender play, struggle with the political implications of being gender transgressive perverts, talk about what happens to D/s roles when people change gender roles, and remind folks of what we have to teach the larger community. For transgendered folks of all stripes, their partners, friends and allies, and anyone who’s curious about the intersection of kink, power exchange, and the gender spectrum.

(Raven Kaldera is a queer FTM transgendered intersexual shaman. He is the author of too many books to list here, including “Dark Moon Rising: Pagan BDSM and the Ordeal Path”, and “Dear Raven and Joshua: Questions and Answers About Master/Slave Relationships”. He and his slaveboy Joshua have been teaching and presenting workshops regularly for 6 years, bringing BDSM to the Neo-Pagan, Sex/Spirituality, transgender, and other communities.)

This workshop will segue into The Threshold Society’s Transgender Fantasy Party, for those who want to stay and play. The workshop fee is $10 per person. For party fees and information, contact my hosts.

Information about The Threshold Society is here: http://threshold.org/

Please pass this around to anyone who might be interested!

Thank you,

Raven Kaldera www.ravenkaldera.org www.pagansbdsm.org

More Blonde Sandra

I’ll be posting another “white and peach” update late tonight with a set I did a few weeks ago at a friend’s house. I do like the all white and blond look though it can be tough to photograph if you’re not careful. All those highlights can burn out really easily. But my friend Chainguy did a nice job and cuffed me to a heavy fireplace stand and then brought out a tight black ballgag. Here are a few preview shots with me looking surprised.


New Ball Gag

Here’s a shot from a recent shoot with this new ball gag I got from Hottbonds, while hanging out at Bizarre Bazaar a few weeks ago. This thing is about 2 1/2 inches in diameter and I can just barely get it in my mouth. I like how it looks but it’s pushing even my level of strenuous so I’m not sure how much I’ll shoot with it. It was a fun shoot though, using some new leather straps with Gromets, and the full set will go up sometime in the new year.

F11 on IE

All right, a total geek post today. I admit my favorite browser is still Internet Explorer, even though I know how much grief Microsoft gets, and much of it warranted, though I’ve never been a big hater on them – I like having relatively inexpensive computers that work, uh, pretty well, uh, most of the time (how’s that for an endorsement ;-) And I sometimes use Firefox and even Opera but I always come back to IE, and of course always download the security patches for it and have the latest version, as its security issues are well known. Still I like it.

A couple neat tricks on IE: If you hit the F11 key it makes all the borders and stuff disappear on your browser so all you see is the webpage you’re on. Try it if you haven’t – it’s pretty neat, and is great if your looking at a full size image that’s just slightly too big for your browser window. Hit F11 and you can see it all, and hit it again to go back to normal. Another nice trick is using the Backspace key, which acts just like the “back” button up on top. Hit “Shift-Backspace” and it acts like the forward arrow to go forward to a page you’ve already visited. Sounds confusing but do some back and forth and then use the shortcuts and it’ll make sense.

Curb

A friend recently sent me the last couple seasons of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and I’m really enjoying it! I’d seen bits of the show before and don’t normally get to see much TV, and I’m always totally out of the loop on what’s current, but this one’s really hilarious. Larry David just makes you cringe. If you liked Seinfeld, it’s more of the same. In fact, they’ve been doing a Seinfeld reunion show this season, which I’m looking forward to seeing. There’s some clips on the link above if you haven’t seen it before, or don’t have HBO, like me.

The Decade Winds Down

I was reading an email where someone asked what have you accomplished in the last decade and how many more decades do you expect to have ahead of you? The latter is a particularly sobering question. I just talked to my Dad on the phone for his birthday, and although he’s doing okay, he’s old and I know that eventually I’ll get that inevitable phone call one of these days. For myself there are probably three, maybe four, decades left at best, though if I keep hiking and staying in shape I might be able to drag it out a bit longer. Of course, I won’t be modeling forever but do hope to keep taking bondage pictures of other girls for years to come. And as for what I’ve accomplished, probably the best thing I’ve done in my life so far is to start Trannies In Trouble back in 2003. I haven’t figured things out by any stretch, but it’s certainly the most successful thing I’ve done up to now and I’m very grateful for it and for the fans and customers who enjoy my pictures and videos.

For most of my life I’ve felt as if I’ve just been drifting along often lost and unsure, and I definitely still have those moments, but things have been more focused this decade than they ever were before. One thing that I’m still ambivalent about, though, is Los Angeles. I moved here in 2001 and may not have ever started my website if I hadn’t come here, so it was probably the right move. But on the other hand, L.A. can be such a grind to live in. It’s congested and dirty and there are so many people who are frustrated and angry and just getting by, so it can be a very tense and unpleasant place. Of course, if you were making a six figure income things could be a lot more comfortable, but at this point that ain’t me. I’ve been making contacts and spending more time in Denver this past year, though, and I suspect that I might be spending a lot more time there in the not too distant future. When I was there this summer, just the ease of driving and finding a parking space, having an apartment with some space to turn around in, and having smog-free skies with big puffy clouds was just wonderful, and I found a surprisingly active scene and some really nice clubs and a couple new models to shoot with in a relatively short time. After that I found myself asking what am I doing putting up with Southern California’s grind.

So all in all, the 00’s (what do they call this decade?) have been pretty good for me. I’ve had my lonely times and moments of doubt but compared to earlier decades this one has been pretty good. And I’m hopeful about the next one and where it will lead. We shall see.