gators and stompers

Got properly worn out yesterday. The bike ride to studio and back was only 16 miles, but much of it was uphill into wind.

Wound up not staying in studio anyhow – I was late, and all the regular tables and chairs were taken. I squeezed into a little space in the corner, but it was no go. The model was a skinny guy all covered with tattoos, and the tattoos were so dark and complicated I couldn't see where the shadow lines fell over his skin. So after one sketch I said the hell with it and biked out into Payne's Prairie a mile, where I found an excellent model, an alligator lounging in the sun.

An excellent model. Didn't move an inch. No attitude. A little too far away, but if I had gone closer it might have changed our relationship.






Then in the evening we went out to Melrose, the little artsy town, with Brandy and Christina. An interesting evening, first going from gallery to gallery looking at art and nibbling canapés, and then to the major Shake Rag gallery, with a main room that had been cleared for a dance floor. Bob McPeek led a retro 70's band called the Psychedelic Relics (in properly outrageous chrono-drag) and we listened to period music and danced – even I danced a half-dozen numbers, so was pretty done in by midnight. (Having gotten up at 4:30 a.m. to work.)

Good time had by all, though most of the music was totally incomprehensible to me -- I have to admit that even the Beatles are past my own time, since I stopped paying attention to popular music about then. Still, the standards for male dancing are so low that I could stand out there and move a random body part every now and then, and some of the girls were gorgeous to watch. (Girl = female under 50 in this context.) And the women weren't bad, either.

Joe