The Daily Muse

Here is Heidi’s daughter Hannah and her friend Tory being photographed by one of our student photographers in Deep Ellum around midnight. The young wannabe models had a blast. It was real dark in this area but for a few mercury vapor streetlights so I shot at around 800ISO which revealed the graffiti mural. It dawned on me that if you get several photographers together with tripods and models you can go anywhere, anytime without being questioned by the authorities.

The capers of Roto Bro, Photographer/Private Eye                                                    

The Case of the Merry Widow

Who is this chick anyway? That’s what I wanted to know in the worst way when I first laid eyes on Ginger. When I found out all I was going to about her it really was in the worst way. If I had been thinking with the right head I would have treated her like the flies I was swatting. That’s what I was doing when I heard her knock on the studio door, swatting flies and waiting for the phone to ring with the possibility of work. Any kind of work. It had been a slow summer and I was seriously thinking of packing up my gear for the last time when I heard the clickity clack of her stiletto high heels strutting down the hall and then the shave and a haircut knock that I hoped was opportunity. “Come on in, door’s open.” I looked up and inadvertently let out a gasp as I caught my breath and lost my heart. I also lost the fly and tossed the swatter under my desk with a quick flick of the wrist. Whoever this goddess of Gotham was I didn’t want her first impression of me to be of some loser who had to swat his own flies. This mouth watering dish stood silhouetted in the doorway in a skintight fuchsia suit she had poured her voluptuous body into. She sashayed forward allowing me to fully take in this paragon of feminine pulchritude. I wished she was the one fully taking me in. Maybe five foot two, five eight in the strappy black, open toed high heels, gamma ray blue eyes and long flowing red tresses that I knew right away didn’t come from a bottle. Oh to be one of those lucky pearls on the long strand that fell haphazardly into her plunging peaches and cream cleavage. With the delicate auburn eyebrows and pale translucent skin that graces the best real redheads I was fairly certain that her drapes matched her carpet if you know what I mean. I sure wanted to find out first hand. It’s a weird thing about red haired dames. They are either trailer park butt ugly or stunning knockouts, there’s no middle ground. This one was definitely the latter not the former but a gal like her was sure to have had quite a few formers. She had legs that went from her tiny pink toenailed feet all the way up to her ample inviting derriere that wiggled when she walked like two hyperactive young shoats in a lavender silk rucksack. Making a conscious effort to close my slack jawed gape I stuttered for her to have a seat. Her seat was what I wanted to have. To have and to hold, till orgasm do us part. When she crossed her million dollar stockinged legs the slit in her skirt revealed the fact that this urban aphrodite was a little old fashioned, at least when it came to her underwear. Undawear that’s funtawear I like to call ‘em. In short, she had a figure that would have made the Pope himself renounce celebacy and morph into a drooling sex addict. I asked her name and how I could help her today adding that I was not hiring any professional models this week. “I’m Roto Bro”, I stammered taking her silky soft, long nailed hand and giving it a meaningful little squeeze. “ A pleasure I’m sure, Mr. Bro” she purred, “ My name is Ginger Blevins Cloward Wigglesworth, and I want to pay YOU to take my picture. “Please, call me Roto”, I managed, “and it would be My pleasure Miss Wigglesworth.” Wigglesworth, Jesus, I bet you really got your wiggles worth from her. “That’s Mrs. Wigglesworth” she replied and I could almost hear the deflation of my formerly swelling aspirations and other parts. Trying to make small talk I asked her how she came to have so many last names. She said, “Well, I kept all of my former husband’s last names. I’m a three-time widow. Hah! A three time loser!” She laughed in a strange sad way. “I guess I just have lousy luck. That’s why I need a new picture.” I was thinking that this broad made her own luck and that she sure didn’t look like a loser to me but I took her bait. “OK, so why the new picture?” “Oh,” she breathed, “for my new post on my Internet dating site, Snatch.com.” I might be able to save her the bother, I thought, the wind coming back into my sails. “I suppose you want to know what happened to all of my husbands, everyone wants to know all the gory details, it’s OK, I’m used to it.” I began to wonder how gory these details were but just said, “Well I wouldn’t want to pry but if you feel like telling me I’m all ears.” By this time I had already Googled all three names, making like I was just absently doing some idle office work on my sticky old laptop. Turns out Blevins, Cloward and Wigglesworth had a couple of things in common besides just going apeshit over Ginger, you’d be hard pressed to find a man with a pulse who wouldn’t do that unless they were a little light in their loafers. All three of these poor saps were remarkably unattractive specimens of manhood and all of the dear departed had recently won a rather tidy lottery prize just prior to hooking up with the lovely yet evidently rather calculating Miss Ginger. Still she had aroused more than my curiosity but I was having some grave concerns about the health consequences of getting in too deep with this particular frail so I bided my time and casually said, “OK honey, tell Roto all about it, take your time, I just cleared my afternoon schedule.” Fingering the laptop. “Well lets see,” starts Ginger, her delicate pink fingers absently toying with her flaming curls, “There was the first one, Bill Blevens, blood poisoning after a minor mishap.” “Minor mishap?” I replied, trying hard to keep any hint of sarcasm out of my voice. “Yeah, Bill and I were on holiday in Biloxi, the beach, he was whipping up some Belinis in the blender and the blender blades cut his finger. He blew it off but two weeks later he died of blood poisoning. A freak accident really.” “So Bill Blevins got bad blood when the blades of the blender cut him while making Belinis on the beach in Biloxi?” “Yeah, it was bad. I was real blue about it so I went online again and met Clyde, Clyde Cloward.” “And what happened to Clyde?” I responded, getting more intrigued. “Clyde? Oh poor Clyde got caught in the clothes dryer.” “The clothes dryer?” This I had to hear. “Yeah, I got real close with Clyde, we moved to Cleveland and the next thing I knew I found him in the dryer. It was the new kind that only turns itself off when all the moisture is gone so Clyde was kind of dehydrated when I found him, you know, like beef jerky.” I gave a nervous laugh, beef jerky, jeeze. “So Clyde Cloward caught it by climbing into the clothes dryer in Cleveland? Another freak accident? How, er, why was Clyde in the clothes dryer?” “I dunno”, she shrugged too casually, “Clyde was just real curious, it was a calamity. I had the dryer set on permanent pressed, I thought I would be permanently DEpressed until I started e-mailing Wayne, that was the third one, Wayne Wigglesworth.” “And how, pray tell did poor Wayne meet his untimely demise?” I intoned, becoming increasing less sympathetic toward the grieving widow by the minute. “Wayne? Oh yes, Wayne, that was the worst. After Clyde, Wayne was willing and had the wherewithal so off we went to Wisconsin. We hadn’t been wed but a few weeks when Wayne was wrecked with the weed whacker. Wayne was wallowing in the waist high weeds when I was weed whacking and the wire went well into his aorta. Again, I was a widow. What a waste, Wayne was a wild, whimsical, wonderful guy.” “So now you’re here, needing a photo to advertise for husband number four, is that it?” “Well, that’s right. That is until someone better comes along in the meanwhile, say you’re single aren’t you Mr. Roto Bro?” she whispered, batting her baby blues and leaning real close letting her perfume addle my fevered brain and not so accidentally brushing my shoulder with the full softness of her ample bosom. “Suppose you bolt the door, put up the closed sign and let’s you and me go back to the darkroom and see what develops? You might enjoy taking my picture, I know it’s a turn on for me,” she cooed, “Here’s my red bustier, I call this one the Red Baron! It makes guys really big before they’re ready to blow! ” she laughed as she ripped it from her bag. “So Roto Bro, are you really bad? It’s a right bet you could rock me better than those other rat bags. You know I always thought rotund boys were a real blast. Before we get started though, could you run to the bistro round the block? Pick up some rubbers, I like blue ribbed ones. The blue matches my eyes and the ribs, well, I hope your studio is soundproofed. Yeah, and some rubber bands, don’t ask, I want it to be a surprise, and one more thing, some Blue Ribbon beer, I know, I can afford real beer but it reminds me of bygone days.” She didn’t have to ask me twice, I was thinking “Romance baby!” I mean hell, I knew she was a real bitch but I wanted her really bad. I nearly tore the sleeves off my red blazer racing to the door when I heard her call out, “Oh yeah, why don’t you pick up some lottery tickets? The payout is real boffo tonight. I think you’re about to get lucky, Roto Bro.”              (to be continued……. next week, “Alliteration Obliteration.” or “RayBans and Roller Blades don’t mix.”)

“Blimey! Are you blokes crackers? Wha’d you expect, feathers!?”

Although perhaps not as sexy as the last shot posted by Corndoggie to some of his like minded fellow musers, (Heaaay), I thought some others might enjoy this shot taken around midnight last eve of my favorite pin-up girl Ginger. We garnered much unwanted attention from cab drivers and horny dudes snapping away with their cell phone cameras. I’ll post more of these later.

Is this lady destined to be our first female president? Do any of the “Musers” live in Minnysoda and have any first hand knowledge about her?

My friend Heidi wanted to have her picture taken with one of my “photo bunnies”. I keep the bunnies for a short time each year to do cute shots with little children. After they have done their work I give them back to the bunny lady. The bunny lady runs a mobile petting zoo for kid’s parties. Her ramshackle property is covered with critters, goats, donkeys, chickens, turkeys, emu, giant tortoises etc. all wandering around together. I always get two of the bunnies to keep each other company and the bunny lady makes sure they are both females so that they won’t do what bunnies do. The one in the picture didn’t get the memo because it is constantly humping the other one. I always name them “Stewart Little” and “Gloves Moran”, “Stew” and “Gloves” for short. When the client asks me what I do with the rabbits after I’m done with them I just say “Stew” and “Gloves” !

This photo was taken several years ago at the “Goats do Roam” winery near Johannesburg South Africa. The name is a play on the famous “Cotes du Rhone” appellation. Goats really do roam there and they built this tower that the animals climb by walking on the spindly rail outer staircase. The wine is really good, affordable and available at your finer grocery stores.