Monday, April 27, 2009

So what the hell have I been working on for the Seattle Erotic Art Festival?

Here is a little taste:


The Bindings Project - Teaser from Aaron Nanto on Vimeo.

Come see it in person.

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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Laptop Update
I twittered this last night, but here is the skinny, Tambo's car was broken into last night while we were grabbing a bite at one of our favorite local spots. The car was packed in a busy, well lit lot. The bad news is that my laptop, my constant companion of many years and holder of all my thoughts, words, photography and projects, is now gone. While I have backups, I've learned from years of IT work that no backup is ever, truly complete and there will always be things that can never be restored or recreated. Yeah I'm pretty pissed off and feeling a bit violated by it.

The good news is that while this sucks ass through a bent straw, it is in the end just a thing. Things can (and will) be replaced.

The REALLY good news is that while the laptop was an important part of my life and business, THERE WAS NO CUSTOMER DATA ON THE DRIVE. We strive to protect our customer's privacy as well as comply with all the security and privacy regulations handed down by our merchant bank. All customer data is held in a secure, encrypted location and was not subject to this theft. All orders placed before the theft are in our work queue and your data is safe and secured.

Thanks for the support.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

monitors monitors


monitors monitors
Originally uploaded by Mr Monk

and why is monk painting all these monitors "baboon's ass red"? I guess you will just have to come to SEAF and find out.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Setbacks...
Looking at my SEAF calendar it tells me that we are planning to install the art piece next Monday. This means I have now 7 days to pull together the last of the technical aspects of the installation, wrap rehearsals, film the last of the documentary and somewhere in there sleep and run a company.

While we are *mostly* on track, there are still some long nights ahead of myself and my tech crew before we can feel really good about what we have created. Things are looking very, very sexy. The performance pieces we have are varied and all very beautiful, encompassing what I hope will be the diverse and varied ways that rope connects people together.

There is one small setback, my goal is to create something that crosses genders, colors and sexual identies. I feel very confident and proud of the wide and diverse representation that we have so far, but there is one key element missing that I thought I had nailed down but now must scramble to find again.

I twittered last week that I wanted to create a "What if Tom of Finland did Japansese inspired rope bondage?" pipece and I thought I had just the canidate, but alas circumstance has removed him from the project and now I must scramble to find another leatherman who wants to take part. Why is this important to me? My goal throughout the entire project is to dispell rope myths, myths about what it means to enjoy bondage and who can (or can't) take part in it. One of those myths is that gy men, specifically the leatheman, with their inherent masculine sexuality are not "too macho" to enjoy rope as well, or that rope bondage is something only the straight kids enjoy.

So yes, I now have a gap in my argument and need to find a bottom fast. Someone who *gets* what it is to be a masculine, powerful gay man and wants to convey that to others through rope.

Enough rambling, back to work Monk....

Friday, April 17, 2009

I fear that a kink blogger arms race may have just been sparked as last night I took revenge on my darling lover, Matisse, but shooting a clip of her new shower... while she was in it clad only in a towel. I'm worried what will happen next week when it is late, late at night and we are cavorting about the house half naked armed with instant communication devices...

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Hemp Shortage? What hemp shortage?

I'm getting a lot of emails regarding a "world wide hemp shortage" and if we at Twisted Monk are going to be impacted by it? Now what I know is that yes, the largest domestic importer of raw hemp products closed their doors this year. Whether or not this is due to a "shortage" or the current economic situation we are all experiencing I have no idea. What I do know is that we made a point to work directly with growers in Europe and the rest of the world to secure not only the best possible stock, but also to ensure that the stock is organic and fair trade.

Yesterday I posted a clip of me sniffing the first coils of rope from the new spring harvest and they look wonderful. I've sunk every dine I have into ensuring that we will get every ounce of hemp from this harvest. We have literally tons of the stuff en route from Europe.

So order with confidence, Monk is working around the clock to ensure that you all will have plenty of rope.

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Monday, April 13, 2009

Stuff I need your help with.

1) Matisse and I will be returning to the studio to record another set of podcasts, due to the huge response this last block has received we are thinking of making this a more regular thing. So what I need from you are questions, topics that you might like to hear us share our thoughts on, and since this will mark our 30th podcast together anything we covered in past podcasts that you want us to revisit? Disagree with something we snarked about and want us to address it again? Shoot me or her an email today and we will see what we can do.

2) I need your help with SEAF. As you know, the Seattle Erotic Aft Festival is just a few weeks away and I've been working like mad to assemble all the components for our installation piece. A lot of really awesome people have donated both time and hardware in order to make this vision a reality, but there are still a few things I need your help with. I need to obtain 10 working, old style computer monitors. 17 inch, in good shape. We will recycle them when we are done, but rather than me plunking down even more cash for gear, if you have an old one that need to be recycled, donate it to me and we will se too it that it is used for art and then proplerly recycled.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Awful quiet around here, but not for lack of things to say

As I roll up on 5 years of writing here, I must confess that I really enjoy this blog. The words on this page have brought me so much, both the good and the bad. Some days the words come freely, often urge to share the story outpacing my need to use proper grammar and spelling, other times the words are harder to find, like when I am ass deep in a deadline and all I can seem to talk about is how much coffee I consume.

Then, then there would be this week, when the words just stopped.

It was not because I had nothing to share, a rare uneventful week in the life of Monk? Hardly, rather it was all just too much. See, seven days ago I lost a family member in a sudden and tragic accident. Long time readers will note that the relationship with my bio-family can be best described as "complex" and this sudden loss did nothing to help matters. Bring back old issues and long, bitter divides.

Caught up in the whirlwind of emotions, I've opted to channel my grief into my creativity. Pouring the anger and unsaid words into my installation for SEAF in the hopes of transforming sadness into beauty and my loss into something graceful and moving.

So to you, dear readers, this is all I'm going to say on the matter. I'm here, I'm ok and while sad at the loss, I'm surrounded by partners and loved ones who have been nothing short of amazing to me. My company, steered briliantly by my crew this week, contiunes to steam along at an ever growing pace and my loves are... well my loves are the kind of people that make me strive to be all that I am and more. They inspire me, enrourage me and when I am terrified, hold me close and let me hide in thier warm embrace.

Next week your bacon obsessed pervert will return with tales of rope and miscief, but for today I shall take my lingering sorrow and make art, make love and do my part to change the world, a bedroom at a time.

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Tuesday, April 07, 2009

skeleton man!


skeleton man!
Originally uploaded by Mr Monk

the costumes for seaf are starting to arrive this week. my fav so far are the skeletons.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

scary bathroom


scary bathroom
Originally uploaded by Mr Monk

the mens room at the warehouse where the abby lives is a great spot to shoot A gay porno or a sequel to one of the Saw movies.

Thursday, April 02, 2009

YouTube Issues

This morning, as I plotted out what would be another long and crazy day, Tambo informed me that there was something "strange" with our youtube channel. Strange being, it was gone. No warnings, no contact, just an empty space where all that video content used to live.

I suppose I should be freaked out, pissed off and demanding some kind of retribution for what has to be a serious oversight, but truth be told I've been in this game long enough to know better. In the last 5 years I've seen it all. Class action lawsuits against merchant banks, having the entire company website wiped out while I'm out of town at a weding when my webhost was hacked, audits from the EPA/OSHA/Fire Department, nearly loosing the Abbey to arson, and the list goes on and on.

Call me jaded, but now I just call my lawyer, aka the phriana.

(Speaking of which if you need an AMAZING small buisness lawyer, contact me. Mine is awesome. )

So while she does her magic, fear not. Since day one I've planned for this. All our how-to content is all hosted on our servers as well. Just hop over to the company site. I'll make sure we have the new "volume 2" stuff up this weekend just in case it takes us a while to iron things out with the youtube folks.

Now I suppose this would make me sound like a crumudgen, but there will always be something to go wrong. If I've learned anything growing a business from my garage to the jugnernaut that is TwistedMonk, it is that this is all part of the adventure. I could get mad, or depressed or ask "why me", but no. This is what you sign on for when you step out, off the beaten path, and try to do something nobody has ever done.

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Wednesday, April 01, 2009

From stick figures to reality, continued….

I posted a while ago a snapshot from one of my sketch books, crudely drawn stick figures in what I had in my mind’s eye for one of the performance pieces I am building for SEAF. Now my goal, as I attempt to take these ideas from sketch book to reality is to create things that I have never seen before, things that make experienced riggers pause and ask, “Can this even be done?

Ambitious? Who me?

While ambitious, I’m not going to be foolish and do things that can’t be done or worse might work, but only at great risk to my bottoms. Rather, I have taken these performances in small bites, from sketch to prototype to mock up to eventually live persons in rope. Last night, after weeks of testing out hardware, trials with various ties and finally assembling the performance truss, the sketch.. the idea that took shape in my deviant brain one night while laying naked next to my lover and admiring the supple curve of her hip… became real.

At first I was not sure, the hardware still needs a few tweaks, but damn if the two lovely ladies who volunteered to be in the piece were not the best gals you could ask for. Working with me, providing feedback as we tweaked the ropes and placement of things then… then as things began to gel, they began to flow with the rigging, gracefully bending and twisting as the experimental hardware I designed for the piece proved itself more than capable of the job. Then, then dear readers it happened, one of the girls gracefully swept herself into an inverted position, hands and hair flowing as she spun in a graceful, slow arc.

It worked; the bad stick figures were now two lovely and talented girls gliding by in what I could only describe as painfully elegant.

This is going to be amazing.

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