I heard this today on NPR and it’s pretty amusing. This guy was at the BBC to interview for an IT job (elsewhere reported as being a cabbie) and was mistaken for an expert on internet music downloading. Next thing he knows he’s on air being interviewed. His reaction is priceless.
Webcam Exhaustion Sunday Night
Last night’s webcam self-bondage session was a big challenge. I stayed tied up for over 3 1/2 hours, using rope and shiny electrical tape for a gag. For my wrists I used handcuffs with the usual ice cube trick, using 26 cubes this time. That sounds like a lot, but I’ve found that once you reach a certain number it doesn’t seem to add that much more time. The difference between, say, one cube and three cubes is huge, but when you start using more there’s less impact per cube. Last time, when I used ten ice cubes it took about three hours to melt, and now this time with 26 cubes, it only took 3 1/2 hours. Of course, I’m sure the room was a bit warmer, what with summer being right around the corner. To really make it last longer, I’d have to use larger ice cubes, say, a small dixie cup or something like that frozen solid.
Okay, enough geeky talk about ice cubes. The session itself was really tough to endure. After about an hour into it I was thinking, Oh my, this is a bitch. Here are some pictures:
Julie Simone and Saturday Party
It was pretty cool seeing Julie Simone up at Threshold over the weekend. I’ve been a big fan for years and she put on a nice bondage demo. I find her pretty intimidating but finally worked up the courage to go talk to her afterwards and she was really nice. She has a real quiet and mysterious manner about her, which just adds to her appeal for me.
Later that night, I stayed for the party at Threshold and had a fun time tying up some friends. There were a lot of familiar faces. Kelli and I tied up Beverly in a nice chair tie. She looked fabulous in her 1950s-style wool suit. And then we all went to work on a really sweet and cute Asian girl named Wendy (whom I’d been emailing the last week or so). She looked so cute all tied up with hemp rope and a leather blindfold and gag. I was beat at the end of the evening, but in a good way.
Webcam Fun Sunday
It’s been a busy few days here with no blogging at all. But I’ve been dreaming about doing another long-term self bondage session and it looks like I finally have some time late Sunday afternoon, after all the Hallmark Holiday stuff (that’s kind of creepy, isn’t it?)
Anyway, I’ll be starting around 5:00 PM Pacific Time and I’ll post some links on the site once I get going.
Julie Simone at Hollywoodland Studios
I just found out that the amazing Julie Simone is going to be giving a bondage presentation this Saturday, May 13 at the Hollywoodland Studios in the San Fernando Valley. If you’re even remotely into bondage and are in the Los Angeles area, you’ve got to come see this. She is amazing. The first time I saw her tying someone on a DVD I was blown away. She’s so fast, precise, in control, and with zero hestitation. And she’s totally hot too. I’m really looking forward to this one.
Here’s some details re-posted from a Yahoo Group:
NEXT Saturday, May 13
SM101: Julie Simone shows Carlos the Ropes
Saturday, May 13 at 5 p.m.
Hollywoodland Studios
11300 Hartland St.
North Hollywood, CAAdmission: $5 for members; $10 for guests
Friday, Friends, and Hemp Rope
My friend Miki and I had been occasionally emailing each other for the last year or two and we finally had the chance to meet and had a great time.
Sometimes when you do a lot of bondage, taking pictures and so on, it can become kind of routine. But it was really nice getting tied up with Miki. We switched back and forth and she started out getting me tied up on her bed. For some reason, everything just came together and the feel of her touch was like electricity, sending me deep down into my happy place. I’d been feeling a bit bummed out the last day or two and really needed that.
Later in the week, last night, we went to Mistress Cyan’s dungeon in the San Fernando Valley. I hadn’t been there in several years, so it was really nice to see some familiar faces again after all this time. I’m such a shameless exhibitionist and had a really fun time tying Miki up over and over again with this great new hemp rope I recently got from Twisted Monk.
Lovely Pet
In the “wasting time on the internet” category, this picture from Flurl totally freaked me out.
OMG
I saw this picture on someone’s blog the other evening. (Sorry, I forget whose exactly.) But oh my Gawd, these are sexy!
More from My Husband Betty
I just finished My Husband Betty the other night, and it’s excellent – I would say probably the best and most honest discussion of crossdressing that I’ve read so far. But some of it made me depressed as hell.
The author, Helen Boyd, was talking about how the sex lives of crossdressers and TVs are often one of the least understood areas of their lives. She talked about three common issues that she’s often heard about from couples where the husband is a TV. I’m single and haven’t dated a genetic woman in several years, but I saw a lot of myself in her comments: 1, a lot of TVs want to be seduced or submissive in bed; 2, some TVs develop more of an interest in masturbation than in sex with a partner; and 3, some TVs become asexual with their partners, especially if married, and shy away from sex altogether.
She also touched on the fear of women that some TVs have and how masturbation may feel safer than the risk of being rejected by a woman for being a “pervert.” I can relate in varying degrees to all those things. I’m definitely a masturbator and live out my sex life through my fantasies. I figure that’s why I like to take bondage pictures so much. It plays right into my sexual “thing.” And I’ve often had that feeling that it’s too much of a hassle to try to date “real” women. There’s that voice in my head that says, “Well, they’re either not going to want me because I’m a tranny, or if they do want me, they’ll smother me and demand so much time and attention that finally I’ll get tired of it and leave.” I’m such a loner and have spent so much time looking at bondage pictures, and though there’s nothing wrong with that, I sometimes get a feeling of, “Gee, is my obsession with bondage taking me away from a real relationship with another person – male or female?”
I meet a fair number of people in the L.A. kink community and get to play quite a bit. But it’s been a while since I can say I’ve had a really close girlfriend or boyfriend. Do I go out with men and other TVs because I’m too scared of real women? I wonder. Reading this book I got to thinking about such things and started getting into a groove of doubt and self pity. I have friends and family and people in my life who love me, but then I’ll get to feeling sorry for myself and that old, “Oh, I’m-all-alone” routine will come up in my head. Usually I snap out of it pretty quickly. But this book raised some interesting and troubling questions – questions that I could probably never completely answer but worth looking at. Highly recommended.
BEK
I love checking out the Bruce Eric Kaplan comic in the L.A. weekly every Friday. Actually I enjoy the whole paper way more than I should. It’s really not that great but the comics are awesome.
Book Signing Last Night
Last night I went out to Threshold for a talk / book signing with Joan Kelly, whose book, “The Pleasure’s All Mine” just came out. It’s about her experiences working as a professional submissive in the bdsm scene. It was a really great evening. At first the turnout was very small but it picked up as it went on. Joan was thoughtful, charming and funny. I had to buy a copy and just started it, and it’s really good.
I could relate to a lot of what she says about the difficulties in finding a kinky relationship that works for her, and some of her discomfort with “The Scene” in general – for example, guys who wanted her to address them as “Master” and how it made her feel silly. Or trying to find a relationship that would leave her satisfied but not feeling personally abused or diminished as a person. She’s a really good writer too and it’s a fast and enjoyable read. I’d highly recommend it for anyone with any interest in alternative sexuality.
I saw some familiar faces and had a nice time, and I wore my tight red spandex jeans that always make me feel sexy.
Hostel
I’d heard that this movie was really intense and horrifying, so I figured it was my kind of thing. Unfortunately I wasn’t that impressed by it. It is indeed terribly gory, really a vile movie, but it’s actually so explicit that for me it finally lost it’s impact and was, well, kind of boring.
The idea is promising: Two young American dudes (who are total jerks) go backpacking in Europe and end up in this hostel where some really bad stuff happens. There’s some pretty obvious political irony to it that’s kind of amusing. With the United States being so unpopular in much of the world right now, it’s kind of like every American’s worst nightmare of visiting Europe – ending up in a torture chamber and being tormented by vicious Euro-sadists.
But as a horror movie, I couldn’t recommend this one. It’s of the “more is more” camp of horror movies. Nothing’s left to the imagination and finally it becomes kind of numbing and not much fun and never particularly scary, just gross.
The “making of” feature on the DVD wasn’t too good either. It didn’t look like the cast and crew were having a very good time on it, just another miserable film shoot with long days and little sleep.
National Honesty Day
It looks like one of my favorite holidays, National Honesty Day, is close approaching. No, to be honest it’s not a favorite holiday but still a pretty cool concept. I’m sometimes struck by all those hundreds of white lies that we all tell through the course of the day, such as “How are you?” “Oh, I’m fine,” when I’d really like to cry or scream real loud.
Then there’s all the sexual lies and withholding that come with being a transvestite and a bondage fetishist. The crappy thing about being sexually different is that it teaches you to lie from such an early age and it becomes such second nature. I find even now that most everyone in my life knows that I’m a TV, I’ll still keep things secret that I don’t even have to anymore. It just comes so easily.
Or those times when someone asks a perfectly innocuous question, like I’ll be at a club and someone asks, “How long have you been coming here.” And for some unknown reason I’ll have this impulse that saying the truth, (say, two years), is somehow dangerous, and without even knowing why I’ll find myself myself saying, “Oh, about eight month.” Why did I even do that? It doesn’t even matter, but I lie and don’t know why I’m doing it.
So honesty is sometimes on my mind, though I fall short all the time. But maybe April 30th will be a good day to practice. Self help guy Brad Blanton, who wrote the Radical Honesty books, makes the nice point that in the short run honesty often does make things worse – more difficult and complicated – but in the long run it makes things easier. It allows you to deal with reality and the “way things are.” A tough philosophy to pull off.
More Rope Demo
Last night’s bondage demo turned out to be really cool and the traffic wasn’t so bad after all. It was held at a place in Orange County called the Palatial Mansion and the lovely Emma Hui gave a great talk and demonstration on her love of rope bondage. Delilah made it too so we got to tie each other up and later tour the place, which was new to both of us. Emma was really skilled and a lot of fun, and there was some talk that the OCLA they might do a monthly bondage class. A fun evening.
Rope Demo
It looks like it’s off to Orange County tonight. There’s a group called the Orange Coast Leather Assembly that’s doing some kind of rope bondage demo / class tonight, so I figure I better go and see if I can pick up some pointers. I’ve never been to this group before, mainly because of the traffic. Crawling down the 5 at this hour will probably be pretty bad. We shall see.
The Lodge – Yet Again
Since the Lodge in N. Hollywood (which hosts the weekend “Club Girl Talk” nights) is closing soon, my good friend Kim and I went out Saturday. I’ve always had really mixed feelings about the place. I’ve met some really great friends there (including Kim) and have had some pretty good times. But I’ve also had many dreadful evenings too – feeling lonely and out of touch, getting felt up and creepily hit on, and damaging my ears to the overly-loud music on the dance floor. I really can’t stand clubs but have been out so many times. And once the TG crowd finds a new Saturday night place I’ll likely be there too, and most likely will still be asking, “Why?”
PostSecret
The lovely Kath Everson (whose blog I really enjoy), recently commented on the wonderful PostSecret site. If you haven’t seen it already, it’s fabulous.
Webcam with Domina Delilah
I’ve been so busy lately, but finally have the chance to post some pictures from the webcam chat the other night. I started out with some fairly elaborate self bondage, which was interrupted by my good friend Domina Delilah. As the night went on I later had the chance to turn the tables on her. Her treatment must have brought out the aggressive bitch in me, as I roughly handled her and tied her up extra tight. She even commented on it later.
Webcam Tonight
I’ve got most the day off, so tonight I’m going to be on the webcam having some bondage fun. Later a good friend should be stopping by to up the ante. I’ll be on Wednesday, April 12th, at 6:00 PM Pacific and I’ll put up some links on my site just before I get going. I’d better go shave.
More on Meeting People
Another thing about meeting people, I’ve often found that if they live nearby and it’s possible to do it AND they seem to be someone you might like to know better, it’s usually best to meet soon after you start emailing each other. Otherwise it’s so easy to fall into the habit of carrying on an email relationship that can go on for years and years. I always find that the longer I wait to meet someone it always seems to be harder to get together. And I know I’m not very good at keeping up with email.
Recently I had the experience of talking to someone through email and within a week we were down at the Pico Blvd. Baskin Robbins enjoying a nice Jamoca / Coffee refreshment. It was really nice. And we weren’t meeting to jump in the sack or anything, but just to see if we had anything at all in common in terms of our personalities and our crossdressing and/or bondage interests. If we don’t, that’s cool and if we do, that’s fabulous. As some character said in one of those Muppet movies, “People’s peoples.”