A wealth of experience

Much of my writing lately has been more insightful and less about modeling. I have been bouncing around SE Asia for the past almost 6 months now and feel like sometimes its good to understand what’s going on in my crazy little head. Between the outrageous puddle building boxing sessions, my rants about models and everything else I hope to have provided some more insight into who I am. 

Last week I had the opportunity to live a life I otherwise would never live. I feel so incredibly blessed to have been raised the way I have and create a respect for money and avoiding the outrageous. Singapore is a country full of outrageous. Brazen spending is evident by the 5 Louis Vuitton store and 10 Coach handbag stores. Basic automobiles cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and real estate prices blow your mind.

Myself and a few other buddies attended an event in Sentosa Cove. The crème de la crème of Singapore residences located on the southern tip of Singapore. The ultra prices ranging in the 30 million range, create a very exclusive environment to call home. Not to be outdone driveways are filled with Ferrari and Bentley, with countertops christened by bottles of the finest single malts imported from Scotland. 

Can you feel me getting into character? Representing Zilli, a very high fashion brand from Italy, I became increasingly aware and concerned with having as James Earl Jones once put the best of the best. The softest silks, the most pristine leather, were essential for my taste. Of course a pallet designed elegant Macallan single malts never hurts as well.

3 others and myself mingled as though we were actually capable of affording said 30 million dollar house or thousands worth of clothing.  Personally I had a blast, and it rubbed off on the attendees of the event as well. Clinking glasses with CEOs, CFOs, CCOs and inevitably a UFO tossed in for good measure. My complaint of modeling sometimes is that I struggle to find interesting individuals that can carry an intellectual conversation; fortunately this wasn’t the case that evening.  It was also refreshing to see that the individuals I spoke with were all down to earth. Not one had the stereotypical arrogance associated with wealth.  Which goes to show, no matter where you sit on that food chain, humility can be found. 

Models are ugly people (may offend some models obviously)

There is the persona that female models are the most attractive people in the world.  While there are circumstances this could be true, I have found that for myself and the majority of guys I talk to female models are not pretty.  Numerous conversations lately with non-model friends I have received shock for this belief. Models are put on a pedestal, both male and female. Let’s break it down in no particular order of importance:

Attitude. I am speaking broadly here, but the majority of models I have met in the industry have a narcissist, pompous way they go about things.  That my shit don’t stink attitude, is certainly one that most people, myself included don’t understand.  Male models don’t get away from it either, but it is less common. This is probably due to the fact that men don't spend as much time in the limelight as ladies, coupled with the fact that rich men always linger for the attention of female models with bling in hand. 

Social skills. Many who have tried having a conversation with such models will reckon their social skills are that of a brown sloth or brick wall.  Everything goes in the same interview type style conversation that is really not a conversation. It goes like this:

What agency are you with? ________

Where are you from? ________

How long have you been here? _______

When do you leave? _______

Ok. Followed by awkward silence. And... Brick wall. 

Outside of discussing their latest pictures on pg xxx of Vogue, the conversation is pretty much dead in the water. No inquisition, or discussion of topics outside of the first few questions. Then again when everything is handed to you, what’s the point of learning to have intelligent conversation. Well that’s certainly attractive.

They are crazy. While this is obvious as all women are crazy in some capacity (a fellow female model that doesn’t comply to what I am talking about other than the crazy part told me this), there is more twitch in their patterns. Some of this relates back to the attitude part. The primadonna lifestyle gets to them. The ambient temperature outside becomes to hot/cold, not getting enough cigarette breaks, no free insert something that should be given to you just because you are beautiful. 

Sorry but I could snap her arm with a small breeze

Where do I start? Maybe with porridge for breakfast.

Lastly, physically a great majority aren't attractive.  There is no one to blame here, this is a personal opinion but I find many men that share this with me. The industry begs for women that are too skinny and have no shape.  Men beg for women with curves, an ass and maybe some breasts. That is part of it, but I always say the most attractive thing a woman can wear is a smile, smiles are seldom seen in the world of fashion.  Instead a plain as day face with maybe sharp jaw or cheekbones is considered the most attractive. Throw someone onto a pedestal again and before you know it they think they are Miley Cyrus before she became the stacy doll from rugrats.  For a great read on that here is a post I came across: Why fashion models are so skinny

So in honour of finding more beautiful models, “commencer une revolution”.  We need to change the fashion industries idea of what is beautiful. Here are some of my current favourites: Kate Upton above, Miranda Kerr, Salma Hayek, and Maggie Q. While they are all thin by North American standards they all evidently exercise (yes with weights) and still have fat on them. 

                       

I have tried to keep this short for you as I could go on for a days rant on this subject. With all the negatives I have put forth there are plenty diamond in the rough. True gems of beauty and personality are hard to come by. However when you do find these people embrace it, a friendship with friends like these comes naturally. Of course if you are one of those that dreams about dating one of those beautiful gems with a personality better start combing the desert because its not easy. 

I like to move it, move it!

To be quite honest I am not exactly sure how this popped up. Close to a month ago now I did a shoot with Mitsubishi Ralliart. Being a car nut, I was naturally excited about the product. I shot a catalog and web page for the Ralliart sportswear collection. While shooting they also created a fun little behind the scenes video.  

Interestingly enough this brought to my attention something that a lot of new models struggle with… movement.  For some movement in front of the lens comes easy, and others it’s like pulling teeth with a pair of vice grip pliers. As you start to work, you start to loosen up and get more comfortable. Simply put, the better you are at moving the happier the photographers are, the better the pictures are and in turn, less time wasted.  

What exactly is movement though? Simply put it’s your ability to change from picture to picture freely. Each click or flash you move. Sometimes its subtle like eyes, but more frequently its head position, or even full body. The purpose would be that if the photographer clicks that shutter 100 times, you get 100 different pictures. It sounds rather easy, by in my experience working with other models it can be more challenging than walking past Nana (in Bangkok) and not having a prostitute hit on you. 

Now I am not perfect either. When I first got to Bangkok this year I worked with the most difficult person I have ever had to deal with. Nothing is good enough, a true asshole of sorts, trashing my confidence and belittling. I came very close to walking off on the job. In my effort to remain professional I belittled him using complex English and just gritted my teeth.  With confidence shot, my mind drew blank and flow disappeared. It happens to the best of us at times. 

Anyway all that aside here are some more shots.

Step Back and Take a look around

A week maybe 2 ago, I posted a status on Facebook aimed directly at a former roommate of mine. His necessity for cleanliness seemed to only apply to us roommates and he had some sort of godlike exception. The status read “ I can’t stand hypocrisy, complain about a mess when you are the one leaving a snail trail.” I am not one to take this passive aggressive, but evidently being direct hadn’t worked and he is a Facebook whore for this kind of thing.

The arrogance and elitist attitude of this particular guy couldn’t handle a simple request of “ Hey man could you clean up after yourself” /ignore. A second attempt of “Hey Dude, I am not sure if you heard me earlier but you are leaving a mess all over the apartment” /ignore. My third request now came at midnight with requests being spaced by no less than 3 hours.  “ This is the third time I have asked today, clean up after yourself, you’re being a F’ing slob.” And to no surprise /ignore. I felt I would deal with this in the morning.

The morning started in a way I could never have expected. I was up relatively early for a casting with one of my other roommates. Who am I kidding it was hardly early it was 9:30 when shit went down. A hunt for coffee cups, led to the demise of respect for said individual early. A dark side appeared, an orange hurling, pillow tossing, raging pompous prick. 

When no coffee cups appeared in the kitchen, or either bedroom unfortunately the habituated themselves in the dark mysterious room of Princess (I use princess for just about every guy I know at some point but that’s how I will refer to him from hereon).  A few quick light knocks and no answer so my other roommate peaked his head in to the coffee cups on his bedroom. Quickly and quietly these dirty cups were plucked from the room and just as the door closed I could here, “Allo?”

Such a simple thing should be nothing to bad an eye at, unless of course you are the particular guy that aggression has been aimed at before. Luckily I am not the guy, but the other roommate sure as hell is. 3 or 4 minutes later a grape smuggling pumped up princesses comes out of his shadowy depths and throws an orange (yes an orange and for the record it was quite tasty) and a pillow. Ranting and snorting and raging princess screams about his territory.

I will help paint a better picture. Imagine a 6 ft. tall, 80 kg model, standing there in his nut huggers, veins coursing through his forehead, chest puffed threatening to beat up and even kill my other roommate. The other guy also 6 ft. tall as well but giving a 20 kg weight advantage to princess, sat on the couch in a docile surrendering position. In defense of the younger smaller guy I stand in the middle, preventing a confrontation that neither of them would win. 

Homophobic slurs are sent left right and centre of me, I personally took a stronger stance for as long as I could. My responses were mostly thank you, and is that how you really feel? My degree of calm only aggravated the beast more, it was time to give this bitch a reality check.

“Have you ever thought the world isn’t out to get you? Princess you are always playing the victim, yet you are the one attacking. If you don’t know who the asshole is, sad fact is that it’s probably you. Get your head on straight, you are the problem not the others.” That was my reality check for him. Shortly before saying this I was fed up with these antics and decided to get the owner of our agency on the same page as everyone else.  The owner scheduled a meeting with princess, to which I don’t know the outcome. Fortunately it was now time to disperse to my casting.

Wait! It gets better. In our contracts it explicitly says, no guests at any time.  There is a lot of trust in this aspect as we do not constantly have someone watching over us.  I have always treated this rule loosely as long as it doesn’t get in the way of my living. Well war was on between princess and the roomie who was threatened. 

This character from the most recent season of the ultimate fighter most closely resembles princesses attitude. 

The lack of foresight on princesses behalf shocks me. After the events of the morning he had the balls to bring his lady friend to the apartment that evening. The roomie was having none of it and immediately called the agency. More death threats ensued and a swore enemy was brought to attention. Followed by a literal evil laugh. Muahahahhahahaha. Muahahahahaha. Muahahahah, you’re going to die. Like I said no foresight for his words or actions. Fortunately the girl convinced him to go to her place. Disaster averted.

We all knew that princess was a little odd, but that just contributes to character. Beneath this evil beast he is a very nice guy. This same character made me breakfast my first morning in Korea, has no issues picking up a coffee for anyone or sharing in a bottle of soju. Negatives strike a longer lasting cord than positives, and for me this cord struck hard and boisterously. 

A few awkward days later, he departed. Things calmed down, underwear was no longer found on door handles, no more empty chocolate milk in the shower, and dishes/compost was kept up and clean.