Ah, my first proper Sundance post… with many more to come…

My friend Joe Swanberg is a great director. I have talked about this on DBB a number of times. He emailed me the other day to ask if I was going to be at Sundance. I was, so he invited me to a breakfast/ panel he was on with Steven Soderbergh. They were announcing IFC On Demand’s new Festival Direct. Festival Direct is on demand movies that come out at the same time that they premiere at a film festival. The first 5 films are premiering this March at the SXSW Film Festival. One of those movies is Joe’s new film, Alexander The Last. When it opens at SXSW it is going to be on IFC at the same time. Janet Pierson, the producer of SXSW Film, was there to explain her decision to work with IFC On Demand as was Jonathan Sehring of IFC. Pierson is the wife of John Pierson who along with making Spike Lee and Kevin Smith famous, was one of my little brothers favorite college professors. Joe was at the event to talk about why he decided to forgo a festival run for on demand and Soderbergh was there to talk about releasing a big budget movie like Che On Demand while it was still in it’s original theatrical run.

To read more about the press conference click here, but to se my photos of the event, click over here.

I have been so insanely busy at Sundance that I haven’t had time to shower much less update, but I had to give a shout out to my main man Barack on his big day.  I am getting on a plane in a few hours and headed to DC.  I was going for the inauguration but I won’t make it in time.  It’s okay, it will still be great to be in DC and hopefully I can party with some people. I am staying with my parents for a day and hopefully will have time to get a good update together.  In the mean time, read my original endorsement of Obama from way back in February and watch this clip of the speech that got the ball rolling just over 4 years ago.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3mOyuJvX8U[/youtube]

So day 3. I laid down for about an hour before I checked out, but I didn’t sleep. I packed all my shit up and walked over to the AEE. It was pretty dead because most people had left town after the Awards. This made for the best photos. I could get stars attention better, and there were less photographers to get in my way. I just walked around and talked to people I knew. I bonded with Satine Phoenix and I think I started to bug Stoya. I met this girl from my dads home town who gave me a blow job in a can. It is like a Flesh Light but disposable. She said it was better than a Flesh Light. I haven’t tried it yet. I might, but I am sort of terrified of the idea. An older lady who was working the concession stand flirted with me and gave me a free water because she liked my belt buckle. She was kinda a MILF. Also, I actually waited in a line to meet a porn star. Nina Hartely was signing autographs and giving hugs. I really wanted a hug from a legend and her line was short. She hugged me and asked me about things and told me to make sure to wear gloves and a warm coat during Sundance which is something that my mom has been telling me every day this week. She is the perfect MILF. (Nina, not my mom you asshole.) After the AEE was over, I said my goodbyes and drove off into the sunset. Headed west to Los Angeles and a new adventure…

Check the photos from Sunday. These photos actually have some nudity in them. It was the last day and no one cared if they got kicked out for showing too much skin. So I finally got to shoot a photo of Dana DeArmond’s boobs. Amazing.

Okay.  So here we go.  Day one of my Vegas trip.

I woke up sick 5 minutes after I wanted to leave my apartment to go to the airport.  This was not a good start to my 2 week adventure.  Luckily I had packed the night before and I was out the door in under 15 minutes.  I made the plane before they even boarded.  5.5 hours later I landed in Las Vegas with about 5 emails, 2 voice mails and several texts about my attempted trip to Sundance.  I was waiting on one big gig, so I had not confirmed the two smaller ones that I was stupidly counting on.  By the time I landed one of the two had pulled out, and the other needed confirmation in the next 30 minutes.  I called the bigger gig and it did not look good.  So I had to cancel. So with that, my Sundance plans were shot within a half hour of landing.  So I got my shit together and headed over to the rental car place, who charged me over $100 more for their car than they promised via internets. And then they told me if I wanted to return the car a day early, they were going to have to charge me even more money. The guy was a total prick.  When I told him that it was insane to charge me more money to return the car early, he looked completely confused.

So then I get to my hotel… “Hi Mr. Smith.  So you are checking out Sunday and you wanted double beds smoking?” “Um, I wanted one bed non-smoking.”  “Oh, I am sorry, we can do that for an extra $70 a night.”   Jesus.  I get to the room and I start coughing at once.  It is the most horrible smoke filled room I have ever encountered.  After sleeping there one night, I woke up with my eyes burning red and I had lost my voice.  And the sheets were not made, the shower and the bath run at the same time and the room was very small.  And I had paid $10 extra a night for a better room.  I can’t imagine how bad the cheaper room was.  So, fuck the Imperial Palace.  Don’t stay there. Ever.

So I finally get my shit together, do the press check in and get on the floor of the Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE).  This is just a huge room filled with booth after booth of sex related things.  Mostly porn companies in the front, but towards the back there are booths for hookers, strippers, sex toys and a lot of ugly clothes that only the biggest manor of scum bag would wear. (Discounting the rad kids at the I <3 Vagina booth).   Kid Rock was there and he spent the whole time taking picture after picture with porn fans.  It was sort of impressive how much shit he put up with.  I met a bunch of people and saw a lot of friends.  One of the girls I met was a stripper from Vegas who was pretty rad and we snuck off to my hotel and took some dirty photos.  They will be up one of these days.

As far as the photos go, a few notes.  I edit my photos normally on my PC.  I have a program set up to do a batch thing that does a few things to the images to make them look nicer.  I attempted to do the same thing on this laptop and they did not come out very well. Combine that with the fact that don’t really know how to use my new flash as well as I should and the photos are a bit on the shitty side.  Still, they are pretty fucking nuts, so at least you got that.  There is technically no nudity on the floor, but these shots are still pretty blatantly NSFW.

Click for photos.

So I said yesterday that I was going to get these photos up today, and by god I will. Unfortunately I spent ALL DAY figuring out my Sundance plans. I had to find a place to stay (it is going to cost me $700 to be there for 5 days!) and figure out my flights and all that stuff. Then I shot Burning Angel’s own Envy (Amore on Gods Girls) in the insanely creepy Motel I am staying at. The light was not quite good enough to shoot without flash, so I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, but there are probably some good shots.

Anyway, the Burning Angel party was at Beauty Bar in LA. I like the space, but not as much as the one in NYC. They also played a lot of aggressive house there which would make BB’s NYC Michael Stewart start punching people. The party was fun, not much nudity, but a bit… so NSFW. This French Canadian porn star told me I was beautiful* and a local girl got insanely drunk and pretty much decided I was the best thing ever. Luckily her friend helped her get her shit together and my guess is she made it home alive. They were rad kids. She wants to be a Suicide Girl… I told her to talk to Joanna instead. Speaking of SG, Zui Suicide was there and we bonded. She’s from VA and evidently she is on some reality show featuring Paris Hilton that I have never heard of, but I am sure I should have. After the party, I went to the Circle Bar and didn’t talk to Regan Reece even though I am sort of in love with her. Okay, I have really shitty internet and lots of things to do, so check out the pictures and I will get back to you as soon as I can with the write ups from the rest of the Vegas trip.

Oh yeah, special shout out to the local Vegas version of DBB, IndieKrush.

I’ve been in an internet cafe in LA for over 3 hours now and it is dark out and I need to leave. So I am just going to give you one update with all of the AEE pictures. I am going to expand this soon. Hopefully tonight. Then tomorrow I will try to get up the Burning Angel After party pictures and then I have 3 sets of naked girls for you too. They will go up later. Not sure when…. I should be shooting some girls in LA but my Sundance plans may come through after all and I may have to leave LA earlier than I thought. I guess we will just have to see what happens. I have 3-5 shoots planned. Let’s hope I get some of them done. This is a porn convention, so clearly these photos are not exactly family friendly.

Update: The photos are all up in separate updates now.  These links below I am going to keep up, but they now link to the posts and not the galleries.

AEE Friday Photos

AEE Saturday Photos

AEE Sunday Photos

I am kinda sick, and have had a rough couple of days.  My Sundance plans are all but ruined.  There is only about 4% chance that I make it to Park City at this point.  My rental car ended up costing way more than I thought it would and the desert air is brutal on my skin and newly chapped lips.  I am super busy and exhausted and have not shot anything TOO exciting.  A few boobs, Kid Rock and the guy is on the HBO show about a whore house.  I have a long drive to LA tomorrow and I am not sure when I will have internet, but hopefully I will get some shots up sooner rather than later.  I gotta go out now.  Hopefully something nuts will happen tonight.  You never know… Oh, did I mention my shitty hotel room that smells like cigarettes and makes me cough ever 5 seconds and because of it I lost my voice?  Oh yeah, that is awesome.  Grrr…

So yesterday was total bullshit.  I waited for an hour in a line for the second day at a row at the post office to be once again told that they couldn’t find my package.  Then my insurance company decided not to cover my sleeping pills for some reason this month.  And then I went to Cain and right as I was about to leave this drunk girl told me I was her boyfriend and started making out with me.  When I told her I had to leave she got kinda annoyed.  I turned to my friend and kissed her on the cheek goodbye and the girl fucking lost her shit and started screaming at me.  She slapped me like 4 times.  I sort of thought she was joking and kept telling her it was nice to meet her, but she just kept yelling about how she was going to ruin me and how much hotter she was than that girl and how she was going to smash my camera and bring a law suit against me.  When I turned to leave she stuck her finger in my ear.  I also took a nap yesterday, evidently in the middle of eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because I woke up with jelly all over my pillow.  Fucking classic.

Anyway, I am leaving town on this crazy trip in a few hours and I need to sleep, so dig on these photos from Cain last night and try not to mind the lack of updates over the next while.  I might not post as often, but the posts should be fucking awesome.  There are a lot of hot girls in Vegas and LA.  Sundance should be cool too.  Okay.  See you soon.  I’ll be updating Twitter often.  Follow me. Oh, just an FYI these photos run a bit dark because I was experimenting with a new flash.  It is what it is.

So the main reason I was hired to cover this event in Texas was to get pictures of bands and notable people standing in front of a wall. These are called product walls or “step and repeat” walls. These photos are then sent to the sponsors for marketing purposes and such.  I did this at Sundance and I am doing it again in Miami.  It is not the most creative photography, but it is actually pretty fun.

Anyway, there are roughly 10,000 bands in these photos and you can figure out who they are for yourself.