View allAll Photos Tagged TENACIOUSD
my hands are tied... i'm reading a book... so could you pick it for me please?
awww....
that's gross.
it was almost midnight. i was almost outta time for a 365 and THIS is what i came up with. i'm a fricking 'awesome' is what i am. :D
Shopping for Jeans should be a type of community service.
It’s worst of all when you have, in your youth, already owned the Holy Grail of jeans - a pair that made your bum look the best it could ever look and your legs as long as a foal’s. The jeans were legendary in your head, but the minute you bought them you were anxious. Anxious about what would happen in the future when those jeans wore out and you could find no pair to fit as beautifully around your derriere. Each wearing of them, although wondrous, was tinged with fear of the future, you couldn’t even enjoy the time you had with them, and instead you anticipated the immense loss.
“Wow, your arse looks incredible in those jeans!”
“Thank you, but make the most of it. When these wear out I will no longer have an incredible denim arse, it will all be over for me. You might want to take a photo, or make a rubbing.”
I think that this is how it must feel for beautiful women – at some point as a teenager, they realise they are beautiful from the reactions they get from scaffolders and their friends’ dads. From the moment they realise this though they are petrified of the day when their beautiful exterior wanes and they no longer receive such awestruck receptions.
My Holy Grail jeans were found in the basement of a really seedy second-hand Levis shop in Camden. I think I must have bought them on my very first visit to the shop, for I would never have gone back otherwise. The fear started there. From then onwards I would revisit Camden on a monthly basis to try to find a duplicate pair. Many pairs were bought, but none were quite as spectacular. They were 501s – it was the late 90’s – and they made one’s bum look wonderfully succulent. Two tightly confined buttocks, with a seam lodged suggestively right up in-between. A little crease under each cheek, highlighted the flesh, the meat, the living body, moving about in there. Walking behind a woman in well fitting 501s was hypnotic, like walking behind a racehorse, the undulating, swaying buttocks, muscular, powerful, inviting. Yes, horses arses are inviting - just ask flies.
And then fashion goes and ruins everything. The cut of jeans changes so regularly, that one minute your jeans are in, then they are so horrifically out that you must beg the charity shop to take them.
“Didn’t you see the sign? I’m afraid we don’t take anything with a high waist and a straight leg, goodness, even the rag man won’t take THOSE!”
Five years later they are back in again. Whenever I hear Passenger’s song ‘You let her go’ I think of my ex jeans. I am of the school of thought that once you find the cut that gives you the best possible arse and legs that your arse and legs are capable of then you should stick with it, regardless of fashion, because fashion gets led in strange directions by fickle, strangely proportioned people who have no bums, who therefore want everyone else to wear jeans that take away their bums too.
I foolishly thought that if I could find one pair of jeans that looked right, then there would, in the future be others, that my bum could move with the decades, but no, it was only ever really happy in that one pair of vintage 501s from the 90’s.
Nowadays I put off shopping for jeans for as long as possible. There is never a day when I feel strong enough. If I could afford one of those Vitamin IVs that millionaire businessmen have before long flights or marathon sex sessions with high-class hookers then I would have nine of those.
Each denim brand has about twenty different varieties of shape and cut, so for each brand you have to try on at least five styles (this during the first wave of trying on, and the waves are many because they only let you take six at a time to the fitting room), and then at least three different sizes in each of the five styles. Brands, cuts, styles and sizes, how many were going to St Ives’s?!
While you are trying on a mountain of denim you still have, in the back of your mind, the legendary jeans. Is this really the best I can expect my bum will look now? Do I have to accept no bum and comically tapered, stumpy legs? Surely someone somewhere makes the right cut for my crack? It’s incredible the difference the cut of jeans can make to your shape. Just a slight difference in waist height, pocket positioning, crotch depth can make you look horrendous or really horrendous. There are so many considerations that a mental ‘fit checklist’ is required when trying on each ‘jean’:
How would my bum look if I was standing with my legs together at a bar ordering martinis, and my date was sitting down looking at me from about ten metres away?
How would my bum look if I was being frisked by the police, at night, legs akimbo?
How would my legs look if I was riding a horse, side-saddle, wearing orthopaedic shoes?
What would happen to my tummy if I crouch down to rescue a bald fledgling that has fallen from its nest? Fleshy overhang?! Multiple creases like a roast belly of pork?
How would my arse look if I was walking through Paris in 9-inch heeled over-knee suede boots, an oversized camel jumper and walking a pair of haughty Borsoi?
How would my arse look if I was fighting off a mugger on a tube train? Or if I came out of a public toilet without realising I had toilet paper trailing from my foot?
How would they look if I was bending over and turning to look behind me in a mirror in a jeans shop?
My bloke always had his own very specific way of trying on clothing. He would stand in front of the mirror looking as though he was warming up for a run. He would shake his arms out, kick out each leg in turn, tweak his neck left and right, rotate his shoulders vigorously. Eventually he would actually go inside the changing room and put on the garment. When he emerged he would spend ten minutes fiddling with the cuffs and sleeves, buttoning his jacket right up to the neck. He was trying on trousers. Finally he would look in the mirror and stand in positions that I had NEVER seen him stand in, except in front of a mirror, in a shop. My favourite was the legs wide apart, leaning forward like Michael Jackson in the Smooth criminal video, arms about to grab two imaginary Smith and Wessons from an invisible holster stance. It looked as though he was letting some pee dribble down the inside of his leg and out of the bottom of the trousers without it touching the fabric. If he looked good in that position then he felt they were worth purchasing, makes sense now I think about it.
I have to go through all of my own position scenarios for each pair I try on. I get to the fitting room; the assistant opens the black lead-weighted x-ray curtain for me. I walk in. Where are the mirrors? Where is A mirror? Where is the light? In G Star Raw you have to come out onto the shop floor to look at yourself. In front of everyone in the store, and an irritated, disdainful assistant, you have to go through the above described ‘fit checklist’ – and you can still NEVER see your own arse properly. I have to do the ‘turning away from the mirror and suddenly looking back to catch my arse by surprise’ stance, over and over again. I never sweat as much as I do when trying clothes on - my whole face goes red and shiny (I lie, its almost constantly like that) my boob cleavage starts to drip (actually it does that too, quite often) the slimy backs of my knees cling to the denim (that is definitely only when I’m jeans shopping) It is one of the most arduous, self confidence annihilating activities, and you have to deal with your disappointment at the sight of your bottom in public.
“No NO! NO! I KNOW it has looked better than this. I KNOW how it SHOULD look, I once had the perfect fitting jeans, strangers said nice (but filthy) things to me in the street when I wore them. No-one would say a word to me in these horrors!! “
“Is it nothing to do with the fact that you are at least 15 years older now madam?”
“How DARE you?! My face has certainly wizened over time, but somehow I have maintained much of my arse turgidity. I put it down to continually clenched buttocks due to IBS.”
I have photos of me in my perfect arse jeans, but never a photo of me from behind – Why? Why? Why?! Idiot – that would be the picture I would take around to the shops and say “Have you got anything that can do THIS?” I would want that photo sitting on my casket at my funeral; I would show it to my grandchildren (before I’m in the casket) who would develop immediate respect for me.
“Oh Grandmamma, please will you read me the story about the girl with the perfect arse jeans?”
“Oh, alright then my darling. Once upon a time there was a girl who dearly wanted a pair of jeans that would make her arse look incredible. She set off one Saturday morning to the enchanted mall (just off the magic wishing M25) She tried on pair, after pair, after pair, but nothing was quite right.
The skinny jeans with stretch in them crept down her bum and left her with a saggy crotch - like a little girl’s tights. They flattened her pert little bottom and made it look like a suburban road-wide speed bump. As she stared at her reflection in the mirror she looked as though she had scopic hips, fat thighs and short, bowed legs. ‘If my hips were too narrow, I had emaciated thighs, a great shelf of an arse and knock knees then these jeans would be great. But I don’t!’ So she flung them out of the fitting room in a temper.
The boot cut jeans made her legs look long and athletic but she immediately felt as though she were a foreign exchange student, or an American country singer - she started to crave a rucksack to put on both shoulders and some cowboy boots. She pulled the jeans off before all of her style drained away out of the legs.
The low-waisted jeans were the pair that she was most hopeful about. The girl pulled on the jeans, they clung beautifully around her bum but in order to stay up they had to hug her hips so tightly that all of her flesh was pushed upwards where it squeezed out between the waistband of the jeans and the hem of her t-shirt like butter cream. She was not a chubby girl but as she bent over in the mirror she was horrified to see a vast slab of back flesh looking grey and clammy behind and several inches of stomach overhanging at the front. She stood up straight very quickly and removed the jeans with her eyes closed, whilst holding her breath.
When she pulled on the ‘boyfriend’ jeans (without even undoing the flies) she felt wonderfully skinny, her stomach looked as flat as a flat thing as it disappeared into the pubic-bone-skimming waistband. She was delighted to look so emaciated and knew that it was very good to get lots of air to one’s nether regions in the eternal battle against thrush, but her bum had entirely vanished and she could sense that the low crotch would start to chaff her inner thighs as she walked.
By this time she was tired and in a foul mood so she hurried home to shout at her boyfriend, that always cheered her up.
On Sunday the girl woke up with renewed vigour, having taken her bad Saturday out on her boyfriend, and went out shopping again, this time to the big City of Londinium where the streets were paved with chewing gum. But her search was just as futile, she tried on dozens more jeans and got so frustrated that she shouted at someone else’s boyfriend.
She was just about to give up and buy some jeggings when she stumbled upon a dingy little shop in the base of an old Oak tree in Camden. As she went downstairs, six foreign shop assistant squirrels asked her, one after the other, if she needed any help. She hadn’t even got down the stairs yet.
“I’m fine thanks, just browsing.”
The squirrels went back to hovering around the rails of jeans, nervously chewing on hazelnut husks.
The girl honed in on a rail of jeans that looked like her size, she skimmed through them and one pair stood out – they looked as though a very nice, toned bottom had already worn them in and enjoyed some very nice compliments whilst inside. She asked to try them on. The six squirrels squabbled over who would put the pair of jeans in the changing room for her. The six squirrels then waited outside anxiously. The girl slipped on the jeans, turned to look at her bum in the mirror, which glowed, and she felt as happy as any girl could feel. She bought the jeans (the squirrel with the longest, sharpest claws got the commission) and the girl left the oak tree feeling happy.
As soon as she got outside though she felt instant panic. ‘No jeans will ever be as good as these jeans.’ She thought. ‘I have found my perfect jeans, but I am so young, they cannot possibly last me til I die, what will I do when they wear out?!’ She tried to put these thoughts aside and she began to wear the jeans, though only on special occasions or hot dates. Whenever she wore them she felt as though her arse was a glowing beacon of pertness, she felt good, but scared of the inevitable day when the jeans would die.
Soon enough, when she wore the jeans she began to avoid sitting down, or leaning against anything, or walking too briskly, in case she wore out the denim too quickly. Eventually she became so fearful of the end of her perfect arse era that she decided not to go out at all. She couldn’t wear the jeans, and she wouldn’t go out in anything less flattering so she stayed at home, pleased to think that the only memory that would remain of her would be a few sightings when she had possessed what appeared to be the most perfect bottom in the world.
The girl grew old and died a recluse. One man who went to her funeral remembered that she had possessed the greatest arse he had ever seen, but no one else remembered anything about her. The jeans were bagged up and sent to a charity shop. They were bought by a shrunken old man who wanted some trousers to wear whilst digging his vegetable patch. He tried them on without even looking in the mirror. The other old geezers at the allotment thought that he had the best arse of anyone at the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners Ltd. When he eventually wore them out he dressed his scarecrow in them. Some weeks later his scarecrow was sexually assaulted and the jeans were bagged up and given to the police for forensic evidence.
The End.”
“Oh grandmamma, will I ever find the perfect pair of jeans?”
“But darling, don’t you see, the girl who found those jeans was not happy. Because of those jeans she felt that the only good thing about her was her arse, and only if it was in those jeans. She wasted her life and only one person remembered her by the end.”
“Yes but he thought she had the best arse in the world. That’s all I want.”
“Well you are a shallow little whore and let me tell you this young lady, I once had a splendid arse. But now, now it is wrinkled and droopy and old but it is still better than your arse will ever look because you have your father’s fat arse genes. So there. Now sleep tight you little Lolita whore, we can go and feed the ducks tomorrow.”
Tenacious D @ Ricoh Coliseum, Nov. 27, 2006.
My review on Torontoist: www.torontoist.com/archives/2006/11/tenacious_d_is.php
Tenacious D @ Ricoh Coliseum, Nov. 27, 2006.
My review on Torontoist: www.torontoist.com/archives/2006/11/tenacious_d_is.php
Tenacious D took the stage at LA Comic Con. I didn't have my 70-200mm lens and had to shoot around photographers
Made this wallpaper one day after downloading a bunch of CD covers for my itunes. Then made it bigger.
Kyle Gass & Jack Black
The Aragon Ballroom
Chicago, IL
7-8-2012
All photos © Joshua Mellin per the guidelines listed under "Owner settings" to the right.
Jack Black's band played at the Gwinnett Arena on December 5th. I got a photo pass from The Sunday Paper and shot the first three songs in the pit. The show was incredible.
Jack Black
American comedy rock duo Tenacious D brought their stripped-back acoustic show to West London's Shepherd's Bush Empire in support of their third studio album Rize of the Fenix for the first of two nights at the venue. The pair, made up of comedy actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass, made their way through a collection of songs from across their three studio releases, including hits Kickapoo, Kielbasa and Tribute, as well as throwing in the odd lines from Led Zeppelin songs Rock and Roll and Ramble On.
Lots of my shots from this show, including this one, were taken with the fab little Fuji X20.
Night folks!
The Kyle Gass Band and Jack Black performed Viva Las Vegas during the Lebowski Fest in Los Angeles. This was at the movie party at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, CA.
It all started from this space, #bad4good #massmental #suicideltendencies #thevandals #badreligion #avrillavigne #korn #tenaciousd #avengendsevenfold #practice #drummer #discipline
i saw him riding down congress - then saw his bike locked up in front of the tenacious D screening of the pick of destiny. you need riot gear to hold 'em back.
Tenacious D blasted the Santa Barbara Bowl last night. Great show to kick off their tour! Here are Jack Black and Kyle Gass - pre-show - always funny!
Get a chance to play poker with them both on Oct. 6, 2012 - "All In To Win for Hope" Celebrity Poker Tournament www.rsnhope.org/celebrity-poker-tourney/
This is one of my fave photos of Jack Black at the Kidney Teen Prom. I took it while he and Kyle were warming up to perform for the kids.
I ordered hats for him and Kyle with the help of Eric of the Zappos.com Customer Service team - he helped me pick them out and had them delievred overnight! Isn't it nice when someone delivers on their promise!? Thanks Eric.
And of course a big thank you to Jack and Kyle and the Renal Support Network -- it was an awesome night once again!
Renal Support Network's 4th Annual Celebrity Poker
Texas Hold-Em Tournament
Saturday, November 2nd, 2013
Proceeds will be used to help Renal Support Network carry out its mission of helping people who have kidney disease through education, advocacy, and support
Made this wallpaper one day after downloading a bunch of CD covers for my itunes. Then made it bigger.
The Kyle Gass Band and Jack Black performed Viva Las Vegas during the Lebowski Fest in Los Angeles. This was at the movie party at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills, CA.
Kyle Gass & Jack Black of Tenacious D donated their time to rock the prom for young
people with kidney disease.
Tenacious D @ Ricoh Coliseum, Nov. 27, 2006.
My review on Torontoist: www.torontoist.com/archives/2006/11/tenacious_d_is.php