Egyptian-Nude

The week began with a green screen (think weather man) shoot where I played the role of an egyptian soldier. The movie was being shot for a bar mitzvah (spelling: I'm not a Jew!). Clearly another way for a rich family to show off how much money they've got to friends and families, how sweet. The only bright side I saw was the birthday boy who was thrilled to be in the studio being featured in his own movie. I was not a lone soldier though, I had 4 fellow soldiers.

2 of them were the producers friends and they did not know each other, a short nonstop talking Canadian, and then one tall guy from france-Random. I was first in the studio and the other soldiers slowly came in. The first one was a tennis player looking guy who made his introduction and settled into the couch. Second was a short fat dude who smelled like a skunk. Third was the tall frenchy and lastly was the short Canadian.

There were a few other Jew characters for the film and surprisingly they were actually Jewish! I told one of them (the one that looked like frodo just with a few dozen more donuts in the belly) that there was a potent scent in the air and he told me to follow my nose and I may find the pot at the end of the rainbow. As the sentence was being completed one of the producers friends whom was to play the soldier role walks in stankin like dankin with a full plate of danish, muffins, and pastry (Quality). I look at him and smile, "those are some good lookin munchies" - yeah you want some munchies - "sure".

Cheech the Jew ended up getting dismissed due to his trip to his mothers minivan (parked out of the studio on the street with his brothers handicap rearview mirror decoration permitting the spot) every 10 minutes. The boys father who was funding this whole operation was not appreciative of that vibe around his son. I'm not gonna lie it added some humor to the hours of eventless waiting but with the youngin round thurr it shouldve been more quietly executed.

The short Canadian guy was the epitome of what the dalai llama writes about in regards to looking at annoying people positively and dubbing them great exercise of your patience. He just kept talking and talking. I told him about model mayhem and that he could find photographers who would work for free. He was pretty clueless on working the site so I filled him in but he just kept talking and talking while we kept waiting and waiting to be used.

This was a video shoot so needless to say the food table was full of danish, pastries, and bagels/muffins. Then what do you know, for lunch they bought 5 pizzas-all cheese. Alright, I know cheese is a safe bet but damn GET ONE PIZZA WITH A VARIETY OF TOPPINGS! I ate to quench my hunger and then my boredom.

After 6 hours of waiting we were called to action. Headbands, weapons, full costumer, and of course the make up making me look egyptian. We walked into the studio, pretended to be fierce warriors then fierce warriors walking down a road, then got let go. We waited 6 hours for 20 minutes of shooting. Story of my life.

After the shoot I traveled to a new part of Brooklyn (to myself). I was to dabble with something I had yet to do in the fine city of New York; pose nude for an art class. My history has plenty of experience in posing nude for artists so it wasn't a huge deal but after not doing it for quite some time I wasn't feeling enthusiastic about it. Money is Money and its not like I work for free so after I departed the train I explored the new area a bit then went to the artists studio.

There were about 15 artists in the room. Painters, drawers, charcoalers, all sorts of methods to capture my figure. The man organizing the class informed me of the location for me to change into my robe. I told him I didn't have a robe and he had a puzzled look on his face. He said usually models bring their own robes, I can look for one around here though. I replied, aren't I going to be naked on the stage? "Yes" then I'll just take my clothes off and go on stage, not a big deal. The class started out with my posing for 30 seconds and then changing the pose.

Most of the artists had a folding chair for themselves and then a second chair facing them to rest their canvas or other materials on. With the chairs in a horse shoe shape I was on a 5X5 stage with two holes in the base to hold a bar with two poles as the base and one going across them perpendicular up top, this was my leaning bar. The space was not air conditioned so there were numerous fans humming in the background and the only other sound was the timing beeping after the allotted time for a pose had concluded and the occasional pencil or paper dropping. The lighting was scattered around the room though the attention was certainly on me.

My poses at first were simple. After a few the boss of the operation spoke up and told me to do some more high fashion poses (arms at angles, leaning, basically any pose that looks and feels uncomfortable). As the pose durations extended I was comforted and guided more and more from the "students" of the class on my posing. The most helpful advice was to pretend I was in battle. They want to see my muscle in active positions so I pretended to be throwing a spear or reaching down to pick someone up or dance like a ballerina...void the third pose, I just did that in my head.

Poses went from 30 seconds and ended with one 25 minute pose. As the timer signaled the end of the session I felt like collapsing, curling up into a little ball, and sleeping like a baby, I resisted the urge. I dressed, collected my money, and departed quickly. A feeling I had not felt in a while flooded my body: exhaustion. I needed to sleep and prepare for the next days shoot.

Sleep came and went and I found myself in the basement of a vampire/goth store waiting for the photographer to get this catalog shoot started. I'm not going to get into details but to sum this shoot up; tons of gothy clothes, lots of pizza (yeah, they didn't get the model memo), and a long day with cash money in hand at the end of the day. Living in NYC exposes me to a variety of encounters, encounters I will look back on while in my 30's-40's and say wow...but for now I just say-Damn, I'm tired.