Saturday, February 07, 2009

From panties to practice

21:00 Hanky Panky Panty Party


Morgan Lindsey models at Club Absinthe

It was a pretty crazy busy photo weekend in Hamilton these last few days. All starting with the Hanky Panky Panty Party (say that five times fast) at Club Absinthe. The Hamilton fashion designers of Blackbird studios created a nice collection of evening wear, ranging from sailor themed outfits, bikinis with leopard print, to baby doll outfits.

What makes the clothing line from Blackbird studios unique is their custom silk screen prints. Targeting the punk music and alternative scene there's images of skulls with sailor hats, burlesque dancers, air bombs, and cat women to name a few. For more of their current collection and information on the designers themselves go to www.blackbirdstudios.ca.

There were also three bands that played that night. The Orphans (with Ginger St. James), The Lorrainas, and Poisoned Aeros. I only stayed for the first two bands and missed the Poisoned Aeros. I had to leave before midnight in order to get to the Plucker for Gillian's (Trevor's sister) birthday. Also, truth be told, I wanted to get to the plucker before the kitchen closed. I was starving. Shooting girls in panties does that to us photographers.


Scora Luchadora and Judge Jody man the panty table


Lasha singer of the Lorrainas does the hair whip thing.


The Lorrainas

00:00 Gillians birthday at the Pheasant Plucker

As luck would have it by the time got to the restaurant, ordered my meal, ate my bison burger, and socialized downstairs, then made my way upstairs of the Pheasant Plucker, I found that I had arrived just in time for cake. Lydia's chocolate Guinness super moist cake.


Gillian and Trevor

The socializing didn't last long as my ride to where I was going to crash was leaving. I was there for about two hours but it seemed to quickly rush by. A bunch of hurried good byes and I was off to Mel's place.

02:00 Mel's place

At first it seemed like I was going to fall to sleep straight away but around 4:00 found myself getting up for water. I had wobbled into the kitchen to land smack in the middle of some conversation between Rebecca and Noel. Something to do with Police and parking tickets or maybe it was speeding tickets. It's all a big blur. The conversation drifted, Rebecca managed to sneak out of the room, and conversation I had with Noel incorporated the subject of crows, the universe, and we humans not being that perfect or intelligent or something to that effect.

Just when I thought I was getting back to sleep I heard someone wondering around. It was Steve who while looking for his shoes. White shoes. He woke up Meg. From 9:00 to 11:30 my sleep was disrupted by Meg blabbing about getting a grilled cheese sandwich. There were other voices that were added to the din of her cheese sandwich mantra mostly for her to be quiet and go back t o sleep. In the end the grilled cheese won.

11:30 Cat's cast off


Mel's cat in the process of getting it's cast removed

At 11:30 everyone in the house was awake or at least groggy enough to feel awake. We watched, while I photographed, Noel taking the cat's cast off while Melanie held the cat in place. The procedure took 15 minutes. Noel was gingerly taking his time as he didn't want to freak the cat out more than he had to, that or cut the cat's foot off by accident. By the end of the procedure the cat seemed okay and started licking his foot.


Rebecca uses the cat hair band-aid as a moustache

13:00 the Pheasant Plucker


The Humongous breakfast at the Pheasant Plucker

By 13:00 we had made our way to the plucker where we ordered breakfast. I had the Humongous breakfast (that's what it's called). It had eggs, bacon, some kind of pancake thing, rye bread, a roasted tomato half, fried potato cubes, refried beans, something that looked burnt (was it blood pudding?) and haggis. Yes haggis! It's the reason I ordered the humongous breakfast.

For those that don't know haggis really isn't that exotic (at least not in this day in age). It actually tastes like liver pate. At least that's how it's prepared at the Plucker. It's quite yummy on bread. The black burnt thing was another story. It was very dry. I mixed it in with the beans to get it down. Otherwise I recommend a tall glass of water.

By 14:30 we had finished eating and Melanie and the rest left to go back home to go to sleep or to the bus station to go back to Toronto or Burlington. I stayed behind. After all in two hours I was going to be picked up by Mean Little Mama to go to Mainway at 16:30.

I was tired and time seemed to pass really slow. I caught myself napping with a hot chocolate in front of me. It seems I was just awake enough to order one every now and then. There was some TV show on bald people or hair on the CBC. There was no sound or sub titles so I could only guess what was going on. Then Jeopardy. With no sound I couldn't take part and could only read the questions. The same with Wheel of Fortune. I couldn't believe that show still airs.

16:45 Mainway - Deathrow Dames Meeting at 17:00

We arrived at Mainway early. Little Mean Mama bought some food and before long the rest of the Deathrow Dames showed up moving the meeting into a less noisy room. A cold but less noisy room.


Miss Carriage tells the other Dames that clawing the opponents face is bad.

Hah! Actually I don't know what Miss Carriage was talking about. I think they were talking about shirt design or something. At that point I had been going in and out of consciousness.

19:00 Practice at Mainway


Super Dave over sees the skate drills

Practice started at 7pm, taking up the Gardens and the Forum areas. The Gardens had the Death Row Dames where as the Forum was being used by the Hamilton Harlots. At 8pm the drills were consolidated into the Forum where the travel team was doing the drills.


Dicey does some jumping

I shot a few hundred random photos of the girls skating jumping and what not and before long it was 9pm. I hitched a ride back to Hamilton with Dave and Amanda and made it in time for the 22:00 GO bus.

22:00 GO bus

It was there I bumped into Rebecca who by coincidence was taking the same bus ride back to Toronto. She was armed with a coke and two bags of chips. I rememeber helping her eat some of the chips and fell asleep for most of the ride back.


Rebecca and I on the GO bus back to Toronto

I got home just before midnight. Because of the nap I had on the bus I spent the next four hours sifting through photos.

No comments: