Grrrrrrrr.  I feel like blogging,  but I’m so pissed off, it’ll only come out ugly.  Can’t really tell you what’s bugging me either…I’ll probably be thru with it before I finish typing…lol.  These blogs are a good way for me to get out stress, strife and anger.  When I bang on the keyboard, it’s almost like I’m banging my hand against a wall, getting rid of the stress.  A bit of a release, if you will.

And if I can throw out an “if you will”, I’m better now…thanks for being there, my blogger readers.  😀  Ah, that’s a relief.

Just finished editing some Stacie Snow vids…gonna send them off after I finish typing this.  Maybe I’ll start working on the “Behind the Scenes” stuff for Stiletto…or maybe watch wrestling.  “Raw” is on tonight…great stress reliever, and some “Diva” action would be nice as well…lol.

incidentally, I just downloaded “Safari” for my Windows PC (yes, the “Mac” browser is now set up for the regular PC as well)…kinda nice.  It might just replace the browser I’m currently using…the fucker’s acting weird right now anyway…probably be best to just purge the thing from my computer.

K…enough wannabe rant for now…yak at ya later, gang!

Tolstoy

Sorry I haven’t been writing much.  Generally speaking, when these little “lulls” hit and spaces occur between postings, it’s because life is beginning to suck.  Writing these blogs comes from the joyous part of me…I try not to do too much when I’m down.  Taints the work and makes me come across as cross. 

And that’s severly not me.

Meh…the “day” job is becoming as bitch, and money’s tight, so I’m worried about that…other things are going on, but I’m not gonna bore you all here.  I’ll be fine, tho…life goes on!

The producing side is all peaches and cream…the C4S store is doing fine, the site is doing great, and I just did a great shoot with Stacie Snow recently.  I’m still coming down off the excitement of the shoot…we kicked major ASS this time…just WAIT until you see the results.

It’s 1 am as I type this and I have a shoot to assist on at noon tomorrow…off to bed!

Later!

“Tolstoy”

Since we opened the blog to anonymous postings, we’ve gotten some spammers who tried to put their crap on my pages…just wanted to say “hi” to them…”HIYA!!”

It’s really useless to try and spam me, guys…each and every comment gets moderated before it goes up.

The three page long expose on dildos was very interesting reading, tho…I had no reason to approve the post, but as a fellow “Tolstoy”, I just had to say how much I appreciated the many hours you must’ve put into writing that, not to mention all the reasearch you did into the topic.

Or did you write that from personal experience?  😉

Amused,

Tolstoy

Let’s talk about my “signature”…that stuff we all know as “The Pink Rope”.

It all started with this pic…

“Should We Call The Police?”

 In 2006 when I was just starting out, I uploaded that baby to a photographer/model networking site called ModelMayhem.  All was fine for a while until some guy who did mainly landscape photography left a comment on the pic that sent a shiver up my spine…”Should we call the Police?”  Dunno why that terrified me so…but just after I saw that, I had visions of the owners of Mayhem calling the local cops and sirens flashing, guns drawn as the local police broke down my door…

Then I woke up and sent him a nasty reply.

Basically, I asked where the fuck he was coming from with that crap, and why he would DARE to say something like that.  CLEARLY, he didn’t understand what “Damsel In Distress” (“DiD” in this article from here on out) photography was about…and he admitted to that in his reply.  He said that if I wanted any respectability in the community of photographers that was ModelMayhem (“MM” in this article from here on out), I should try to work with better lighting, rent myself a studio…and perhaps use colored ropes.

Fuck that noise, thought I.

I don’t need to impress any fuckwads at a photography website…I was there to “network” (meaning make contact) with models who also had portfolios there.  Still, the colored rope idea was intriguing…I figured I’d try it on a lark and see what came of it.  I went thru a LOT of color experimentations and have a bag of failures to prove it…the one that stuck with me, however, was pink.

Dunno why, really…but something about pink rope set against a black dress background appeals to the “artist” within me, even today.  Here’s a recent pink rope/black dress shot with CJ from under a year ago…

Pink “Shibari” CJ

Her hands are actually tied behind her head, believe it or not…lol.  That’s a “shibari” (Japanese ropework) tie called a “rope dress”…I actually still like the look of it.

Anyway, for the sake of adding a picture (lol), I’m getting ahead of myself.   Time passes, and I do a LOT of pink rope ties; to the point where it becomes a recognizable thing for TucsonTied to do this sort of work.   Other colors as well, but mostly pink.  I like the work a LOT…

…but apparently not a lot of fans do, as my sales slump.   It was HARD motivating myself to edit pics in those days…nobody seemed to be interested in the work.  In the background, my buddy Jerry, over at NaughtyTies (among others), kept telling me that I ought to change things up a bit…make myself stand apart from the pack of other photographers in the DiD field…and dump the pink rope, already!!   I, on the other hand, thought I was doing great stuff, but apparently I was the only one thinking that.

Time again passes, and Pantera introduces me to Dave Annis.  He immediately joins the “dump the pink rope” crowd, also adding that I should make the ties different as well.  “Well,”  thought I, “it certainly couldn’t HURT…”  That’s when I met Andrea and did her up right and proper…

Andrea…sheesh!!

A little sloppy by today’s standard, but still kick ass, no?   What was best for me tho was it was a little black dress…and no pink rope.  What was Nicholson’s line from the first “Batman” movie…, “Wait’ll they get a load of me…”  😉   When I sent him a preview pic or two, Jerry didn’t know what to make of it (“Did YOU rig this?”  LOL…understandable; it’s a HUGE turn in my work), but loved it.  I had arrived again.

I felt reborn…and fans noticed.  I’m getting a lot more people coming aboard now that I’m really kicking it up a notch with stuff like this…

Sasha Fae…my all-time best arm tie 😀

Let’s face facts:  whatever the colors are, the colored ropes just SCREAM “photoshoot”:

Pink rope Bondage on Pantera Noelle

While the white just screams, “kidnapped” :

White rope Bondage on Pantera Noelle

Which is totally the desired effect.   She looks LOVELY, no?  😀

Since I’ve made these changes, I’m getting recognition from all around…heck, I’m even having models practically beating down my door to work with me now…not for the money, but for the challenge that the work brings.  One gal sought me out BECAUSE I’m doing the tighter ties…money just seemed like a secondary thing.

People like the work more since I’ve changed things up…and I’m more motivated than ever before to produce it for you.  The “TucsonTied Empire”  (lol) has expanded to include a better tokens page than we had before, video, and, most exciting for me, the recent addition of a Clips4Sale page, a cornerstone in today’s bondage website marketplace.

My fans love the work (they tell me so almost every day), I love DOING it, and, as a side bonus, the money coming in ain’t exactly pocket change anymore (lol).  I have to wonder what would’ve happened if I had told that landscape photographer to fuck off in bolder language and I had listened to folks who told me to tighten up the ropework sooner…..

Make no mistake…the pink rope days are over.  You’ve spoken with your praise and I’m listening…you want the tightest, cleanest ropework you can find out there, along with gorgeous women modeling it.

I got your back. 😉

Tolstoy

Remember my post a bit back when I mentioned that I was pissed at my keyboard because it was allergic to capital letters and things like that?

It died tonight.  (bows head in silent rememberance…)

Lord only knows what happened…one minute I was typing an update to the Yahoo Group, the next, I couldn’t type anything.  I was hitting the keys, but nothing was showing up on the page.  “Tolstoy” was suddenly silent…I had plenty to say, but nothing could come out of my keyboard…it was scary, let me tell you (lol). 

So…I’m suddenly faced with the prospect of not being able to update anything for a while (at least until I can buy a new keyboard)…when I remember something.  I still have a wired keyboard…shortly after I got my computer, I decided I didn’t like the wired keyboard it came with and bought a wireless one.  I still had that original wired one!  YES!!!

The next part of the fun was bringing the wire around the back of my computer desk and up to my computer…problem solved…with rope.  So ingenious on my part…I ran the wire thru to the back of my station and let it rest on the ground, then sent a rope down from the front of the desk, thru a hole in the back, down to the floor.  Tied it off to the keyboard wire and pulled it off of the floor and up to the hole thru which it would eventually meet up with my computer.

Ain’t it funny how I solve so many of my life’s little problems with a little rope?   Guess it just comes with the territory….

So, in closing, I find it ironic that I now am using the keyboard that originally came with my computer rather than the fancy-schmancy wireless one I bought and it’s working fine…but still feel for the loss of the old one.  That keyboard and I surfed thru many a site and had many an adventure together.    We typed in anger and in joy.  We banged out many a “Tolstoy” together…and it will be missed.  Goodbye old friend…*sob*   (And if you missed the intentional sarcasm in that, kindly repeat your class in “Sarcasm 101” for a refresher…lol.)

RIP, Microsoft Wireless Keyboard, May 2006-July 10, 2009

“Tolstoy” 😉