Do you know what it's like to be twenty-seven in Eugene, Oregon? How boring it can be at times, when the most entertaining part of your month is the weekend spent at Klamath Falls Airport, drilling with the 173rd Fighter Wing? How boring it can be, especially when the M.B.A. you're working on at the University of Oregon essentially restricts you to your apartment -- or the library -- almost ALL the time?
Seriously. I can only write so many papers on how Foucault applies to modern business practice. Eventually, I'm going to snap and go all "Discipline and Punish" on a professor. When they take me away to the cuckoo's nest and ask me why I did it, I'll tell them it was my rendition of post-modern thought.
And yes, I know that "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is set in Oregon. That is perhaps the point of the reference, ja?
But that's not the point of this story. Oh, no. The point of this story is what happens when that boredom gets just a LITTLE bit unchecked.
You see, I have this group of friends with whom I hang out a little and drink a lot. They're a bit of a motley crew -- professionals in various fields, other Oregon grad students, even a couple of veterans. There's two of them with whom I have grown particularly close -- Kelvin, who sort of surpasses description -- although, the best description I've ever heard of him was a self-professed one -- a "gay Conan O'Brien", because, really, that's -- physically, at least -- a damn accurate description.
Also, his name isn't REALLY Kelvin. His parents named him Calvin McNeese, but last spring, after seeing the new Star Trek movie and deciding that Chris Hemsworth -- James T. Kirk's dead daddy -- was particularly hot, Calvin started spelling his name Kelvin -- the way the name of the ship on which dead Kirk daddy died was spelled. But whatever. I still pronounce it Calvin, and I give him merciless shit for having had a stuffed tiger when he was a kid.
And then there's Angela. Oh, Angela. She and Kelvin are best friends. They knew each other long before I moved to Eugene and (I suspect) will know each other long after I'm gone.
Now, the thing you have to understand about Angela Richardson is that after God had so graciously bestowed her upon this planet, He threw the mold onto the floor and smashed it into powder with a divine sledgehammer. Angela is unquestionably one-of-a-kind. She's five-four, dirty blond hair, incredibly bright green eyes, a REALLY cute face -- think Rachel McAdams -- fantastic boobs, an ass you could bounce a quarter off of, and a body that is not too skinny, not too big -- as Goldilocks might've said, she's JUST RIGHT.
Here's what you have to understand about my relationship with Angela, though -- it had never gone anywhere beyond friendship, and up until the episode you're about to hear about, I never figured it would. Kelvin had repeatedly encouraged me to try to do something with her, but you know, I'm just another Air National Guard schmuck working toward an M.B.A., and she's God's gift to men. Not a chance in hell.
So now that you have that background information...
Let's go back, to January of this year. Right after MLK Day. I had been back in Eugene for a couple of weeks, after spending the holidays with my family in Cedar Rapids, when I got a call out of the blue one day from Kelvin, asking me if I could join him and Angela for lunch. I figured, what the hell, why not. Got nothing better to do than write another paper on Foucault and how his philosophies should be applied to AIG.
Actually, wait a second. That's not a half bad idea. Discipline and punish those bastards?
But I digress.
Anyway, just after one o'clock, I met Kelvin and Angela over at Oregon Electric Station. The crab and artichoke dip there? Killer. Steaks too. But again, I digress.
So there we are, indulging in our various liquid lunch habits -- Angela and I both opted for the wondrousness that is New Belgium's Fat Tire lager, while Kelvin decided to do what he ALWAYS does, play RIGHT into the hands of stereotypes the world over, and get himself a Cosmo -- when Kelvin dropped this completely unexpected bomb on me and Angela.
"I've got this friend down in San Francisco named Tyler," Kelvin told us. "He's a photographer, a really good one, and he's had a couple of shows at galleries in Castro. Well, a dozen or so. And he's a REAL photographer, too -- he still uses black and white film in an old Pentax ZX-7 -"
And really, at that point, Kelvin had me intrigued. There are a number of things with regard to which I call myself a purist (but other people just call me old), and the two primary among those are vinyl LPs and 35mm film cameras. So, as soon as the phrase "Pentax ZX-7" came out of Kelvin's mouth, he basically had me hooked on whatever bill of goods he was about to sell me.
"- and sure, he does a lot of digital work as well -- because these days, if you want film to turn out right, you have to develop it yourself, and that's just a stone cold bitch -- but he is SO good. And there's this one project that he's been wanting to do for a really, REALLY long time."
Oh please oh please oh please tell me he wants to photograph classic muscle cars, I thought, completely irrationally. My pride and joy is my 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302. It was a complete wreck when I bought it back in 1998 -- my junior year of high school -- but over the next five years, I had turned it into any gearhead's dream. And I had always wanted to have it professionally photographed, but it just seemed like such an unnecessary expense -- even after more than eleven years of driving her around the United States.
"What's the project about?" Angela asked, interrupting me from my Detroit reverie.
Kelvin grinned, and leaned in close to the both of us. Speaking in a conspiratorial tone, he quietly said, "The human body."
Ummm... what? The human body? I mean, sure, Angela's got a great body. She'd be a GREAT subject for something like that. But me? Sure, it's kept in fairly decent condition by being in the National Guard, but at that time of year, it was white enough to blind people, not to mention which I was sporting three weeks worth of post-drill beard growth. I wasn't exactly a great subject -- and I said as much to Kelvin.
"Oh, honey, you do NOT give yourself enough credit," he replied. "Yeah, maybe you could work on your skin tone a little bit, but you've got a FANTASTIC body."
I looked over at Angela, hoping for a little support, but all she did was grin and say, "I'm with Kelvin on this one."
Well, crap. Two against one, that's not v-
WAIT JUST A GODDAMN SECOND.
Did Angela Richardson just say that she thought I had a fantastic body?
While inwardly doing backflips, I did my best to maintain my outward calm. As I always do in such situations, I raised my right eyebrow, a la Leonard Nimoy, and fixed my gaze upon Kelvin. "Tell me more."
**********
As it turned out, this project that Kelvin's friend Tyler wanted to do did indeed involve the human body. In fact, it involved the entire human body. Naked. Nude.
I was well into my fifth Fat Tire before I finally agreed to do it. I mean, that should tell you something about how I feel about being naked around other people -- despite the fact that Angela thought I had a good body, despite the fact that I would GET TO SEE HER NAKED -- I still had to get drunk enough that by the time I finally stumbled back to my apartment, the only thing I had to say to my paper was, "Fuck Michel Foucault," and then dropkick "Discipline and Punish" off my balcony.
Somehow, the damn thing wound up in my mailbox.
Anyway, a week and a half later, on Saturday morning, I showed up at this photography studio nice and early. Apparently, Tyler had rented the entire place out for the day, which made sense -- after all, if he was going to be photographing people in the buff, he certainly didn't want to have other people around.
