Don’t Need No Stinkin’ YouTube

Experiments In Flash Video

I uploaded a video of me driving my van the first day I got it, and want to find out if it’s working right in all browsers. All I need now is the proper embed code that adds the control bar at the bottom of the screen.

So, anyways… Check THIS PAGE out or CLICK HERE to see in full screen(?).

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Note to self: Here’s the code, but of course omit the * …
< * object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="550" height="416" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"> < * embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="550" height="416" src="http://reviewermagazine.com/video/flash/new.van.ride.swf">

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http://reviewermagazine.com/video/flash/new.van.ride.swf

[Bio]

We All Want Something

Scion of a family whose vast fortune was acquired by my late grandfather’s industrious hard work, good luck and timing, I am the beneficiary of a trust that was endowed after my father’s death in the family business due to a tragic accident on company grounds shortly before my birth. Mother soon remarried and grandfather placed a large sum away to be made available to me upon reaching a certain age of maturity.

In the late-1980’s I was liasoning between the Afghanistan mujahideen’s poppy growers and their buyers in Western Europe. Temporarily seeking the anonymity of less glamorous work I eventually navigated to the Far East where I ran a karaoke nightclub and worked the mail order bride scene in Thailand until that country began changing its pesky laws.

After the horrendous events of 9-11, 2001, it was back to the states where I marketed surveillance systems to local law enforcement agencies that were disguised as such innocuous objects as outdoor ashtrays, soda machines and bathroom tampon/condom dispensers.

Alligator wrestling in Florida, stock speculating, snowboarding the Himalayas, nude skydiving in the Australian Outback, real estate flipping, African big game hunting, skip tracing, running with the bulls… I’ve discovered that I get bored easily.

I pay tribute to the greats throughout the ages although I have been around in spirit forever. I pleaded with my friend Robert Capa to shoot more art and less war before that fateful afternoon in May, 1955. I told Ansel Adams he should climb the back of Half Dome for a better view with his large format box. My faithful doppelganger was the one who suggested to Louis Daguerre that he should name his silver-coated copper plates after himself.

Now living a life of creativity and leisure, I travel the globe as an artist and bon vivant. When not raising money for the homeless I can be sometimes found partying on Avenida Revolucion or elsewhere associating with other industry malcontents and enjoying the hyperbolic puffery.

Well…

It’s 12:30 a.m. and the model pictured in this photo left a little while ago so now I have time to do some editing.

The Day I Met Phil Spector

The strangest thing about that mugshot is not that he’s so bald but that I didn’t know ol’ Phil Spector was 5-3. Perhaps he was wearing platforms when I met him that night in 2003 at the Hollywood Wamu ATM soon after his arraignment. It was early in the evening on the weekend and he was all dressed up like he was out on the town, nattily attired in a dark jacket, his shirt’s big frilly white cuffs sticking out to complete his sartorial splendor. I thought he looked nearly as tall as me, and I’m 5-7. Maybe it was his hairdo which now appears was a high wig, not in a huge fro like that famous courtroom photo but still rather curly and teased up tall.

Looking Good In Cuffs

We didn’t exchange a word. Phil was at the ATM and we were a good 12-feet apart. I didn’t even know it was him at the time, only realizing it much later when numerous photos and video of him began flooding the news as his case began to unfold. There were some black dudes, urban warrior/gangsta-rap types, standing over by some parked cars and playing rap on their car stereos in the lot 30-feet away. I had walked up the sidewalk past him to wait my turn and was looking at him with the black guys at a 45-degree angle to my left. I was thinking this guy looks more than a little bit like a dandy.

Then maybe Phil realized I was inspecting his appearance and curious get-up because he stopped what he was doing at the machine and stood up to his full posture, dropped his hand down to his side and looked at a point that was between us, not making eye contact.

At that moment one guy in the group of black dudes said loudly in our direction what I remember to be like ‘Awww, there ya go!’ – something to the effect of what to me sounded like a warning, and I got this inexplicable and sudden sense of dread. It was a feeling that at the time didn’t seem justified by what I knew.

Phil Specter, producer for Ike and Tina Turner, John Lennon, George Harrison and the Ramones, Rock And Roll Hall Of Famer and creator of the “Wall Of Sound” – or, weird looking little old guy – finished his business at the ATM. So I stepped up to make my withdrawal. That was all.

“Cover Safe”

The text below had been on my modelmayhem profile for quite some time. Thought it was time to change it but I wanted to post it somewhere else. The photos are from a recent art shoot I did last month. Click the pics for the larger versions. ~Rob

*ABOUT ART PHOTOGRAPHY*
I should include a few words here about implied nudes versus real nudes. Many people believe that a nude can be a photo where the model isn’t fully revealed. Now, there’s two schools of thought on that. Here’s my position. An implied nude is a photo where a nude model demures from actually showing her private parts, perhaps by crossing her legs or covering up with her hands or turning aways from the direct gaze of the camera. She’s nude but the photo is still “cover safe.” A real nude, arty or otherwise, shows everything. There’s nothing left to the imagination. That doesn’t mean the model has to be so exposed that one is able to gaze into the inner sanctum (like a doctor’s office visit) but you have to be at least able to identify that yes, there is her female sex and she is indeed a woman. To summarize, a nude does not need to be a spread shot but it should be a true nude that shows all. I have no problem with either though, as they’re both valid artistic sexpressions. But if I tell you that I want to shoot you nude, well then, you know what I mean. O-kie dokie?