I'm envious of people who can lead a structured life and be fine with a set routine from day to day. Same alarm for the same job, the same rigmarole for getting the kids ready for school five days a week, and even having the same missionary sex on Saturday night because that's just the way it is, is wholly depressing to me to seriously contemplate.
It's cool to have a system in place, don't get me wrong. I have my ridiculously OCD routine getting the cameras ready for work so deeply embedded in my brain I do things automatically before a shoot now. Clients do find the reciting of Peter Gabriel songs a little strange. Given enough time though, they eventually agree with me he was much better solo then in Genesis. But that still allows for turmoil to not bother me in the slightest when things routinely blow up without warning. 'Hey, can you get a shot of him doing a line of coke off of the bare ass of this chic dressed as a Smurf in a bikini instead?' ... Absolutely.
After a while, it even bums me out if goofy or unconnected events don't show up to ambush me from out of the blue. I guess Mustaine isn't the only one addicted to chaos. Sorry, I'll keep the music references to a minimum. Good for you though if you didn't have to Google it. (Laughing) A good case to highlight this is my third and likely last group shoot at the IAC. The hosting was fabulous in the previous times I had gone and I really enjoyed some of the models I shot, some I've even stayed in touch with over the years. But I had started to feel this well was almost dry artistically speaking. You can only shoot the same stairwell so many times with different people and substitute out the pretty outfits before it gets old.
If it really was the last one, I wasn't going to go boring and bland on the way out the door. I decided to go a little more, risque with ideas, at least more so since moving out to my new adopted home town. I had a creative block and was unsure what it was going to be just yet. I knew who I longed to have involved in my suave schemes as the crowning jewel. It just wasn't clear at the moment what I was going to concoct to get her in front of my camera. The devil is in the details as we all know. In the middle of planning my fiendish little adventure, my phone rang. It was Kelsey Ann from the MediaLab Studios. She wanted to see me at 7:00 p.m. to discuss a proposition.
***
For my great sense of timing, I was running late after getting caught in rubber necking drivers peeking on an accident on I-70 and pulled into the parking lot around back of the building about fifteen minutes behind schedule. MediaLab was a small visual arts media company run, owned, and mostly operated by one woman. The level of professionalism she showed on a project a buddy of mine had hired her for was top notch.
After he royally botched pretty much every bit of a promotional video for the AAA Indians minor league team he worked for, Kelsey Ann made it phenomenal. She not only saved his ass from being demoted to popcorn boy, she got him a damn promotion to whatever the hell his made up title became. She knew her stuff and got paid quite well to make the magic happen for her clients. She battled her way against the bigger boys in her field with amazing results and I admired her for her moxy. She possessed a force of will that couldn't go unnoticed from the very first handshake at hello.
When I met her the initial time, the furthest thing on my mind was anything remotely sexual. Business is business and when you meet someone you absolutely
can count on in my world, you don't mix in pleasure. She was dependable and her routines were predictable. I knew where she would be waiting for me at already. Any time you'd walk into the main editing suite she could always be found with her hair in a messy bun, glasses down her nose, and inevitably cursing a cameraman or photographer's lineage out under her breath for being born such a talentless jackass.
The fact I heard music playing from up ahead instead of a potty mouthed sailor on shore leave echoing down the hallway was my first indicator that things were amiss. The song had that sweet Motown sound to it that makes it hard to not to think a person is trying to set a certain, inviting, mood. The second indication was the normally brightly lit room seemed dark with flickering lights chasing the shadows coming through the doorway.
That unmistakable smell of expensive, but light, perfume drifting in the air gave that simple doorway the enchanting power to be a portal to another dimension. It also represented a ethical dilemma. The situation I found myself in was like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters. I hate being indecisive about things especially when it boils down to an either or choice like now. Do you stay a professional or do you let your cock think for you? Either bust through there like the Kool-aid Man or hope she hadn't noticed me yet and make a strategic withdrawal plan.
Mike Tyson is attributed as to having said that everyone has a plan until you get hit in the mouth. I couldn't even scratch out the rough draft of a cowardly retreat in my head when I was hit in the middle of a place more painful then my mouth, my pride as a man.