April 15th, Honolulu: I wake up around 11:30am, totally refreshed after a night of the most pleasant sleep. A glass of wine and a three milligram pill of melatonin (an over the counter sleep medication) put me out beautifully last night and I’d quickly drifted off a little before 2am. Before I shower or bother to do much of anything I go on a 15 minute run around Cade’s neighborhood in preparation for what promises to be an interesting day. Cade and Kari are off on a morning modeling shoot, an activity they’ll repeat later this afternoon, except with me in front of the camera and Kari behind it.

Kari has been involved in the modeling industry on both sides of the camera for a few years now. A couple days back she suggested I do some photos for her, and when she brought up the idea of getting female models involved in the act my response was somewhere in the area of “Fuck yea I’ll do that shit” (which upon further consideration, was likely my word for word response.) On top of modeling and photography Kari is also heavily involved in art creation including jewelry making and she intends to use the shoot as a way to showcase her works. She got Cade involved not long ago, who is simultaneously blessed with the handsome exotic looks of a half Asian and the roughly 6’1” height of a half white guy, though he maintains that we are both 6’2”, as we are the same height.

Cade and Kari arrive back at the house around 1pm. I’m scrambling to make sure everything is in order for my departure later this evening, but eventually we run out of time and have to depart to pick up one of the other models.

We leave the house around 1:45pm to pick up Chantelle, a pretty blonde with crystal blue eyes who looks to be in her early to mid 20’s and has a Marine for a husband. She and Kari quickly launch into a conversation about which photographers they’ve worked with, and Kari educates Chantelle as to which are actually professional and which are borderline perverts. Kari tells us that the modeling industry has a term for ‘wanna-be’ male photographers with no actual skill that are likely just looking for a way to get hot women naked; ‘guys with cameras’. From their conversations it sounds like a high percentage of male photographers are either weirdo’s or have enormous attitude problems, though they do discuss a few that are on the normal and professional side of things.

We take 20 minute drive out towards our destination; Makapu beach, where I nearly got my stupid ass drowned yesterday. Across the street there’s some kind of marine wildlife center that we park the car in and meet two of the other models for the shoot; Angelina and Rachel. Rachel is tall and classically pretty with an Anglo look and thin frame, Angelina is shorter and curvier with a flawless face and appears to be have some kind of mixed dark haired-tan skinned background, though I have no idea as to what.

We walk over to a secluded area of Makapu beach that has many black rocks and wave pools. We’re soon joined by Kari’s good friend Vika, a tall blonde Russian girl who seems strangely distant today, particularly after Kari spoke about her personality like it might explode at any moment. I spend quite a bit of time chatting to the other three girls, who all seem very nice and not at all in the stereotype of stuck up, materialistic models. They all have a good sense of humor about my quips, such as when I tell them “I’m totally uncomfortable going topless.”

Kari begins by taking pictures of the girls alone while Cade and I sit around shooting the shit. He’s rather tired and decides to just plunk down on the sand and stares at the sky while wearing my aviators, which are too big for him. Eventually Kari calls me over to begin my shoot with Chantelle and instructs me to lose my shirt. When she asks Chantelle if she’s comfortable going topless she doesn’t hesitate for a moment to whip off her bikini top and then jumps up on the rocks next to me. It was a smart decision to take care of myself last night.

I want nothing more than for the girls to feel comfortable and for Kari to get the photos she wants, so I behave professionally and do exactly as told. Kari instructs me to loop my thumbs within Chantelle’s jeans belt loops, and then reminds me to relax my hands. Kari gives us direction as to where to turn our heads and look, and Chantelle is very fun and easy going throughout it all. Meanwhile, I do my best not to think of Derek Zoolander making his ‘blue magnum’ face, then internally debate attempting to replicate it.

After we finish Cade and Angelina take their turn on the rocks doing a set of photos together, as their dark features match well. I feel jealous watching him because I love short, dark haired women and Angelina is just gorgeous in my opinion.

Next comes my turn with Rachel on the rocks. She and Kari discuss her going topless, and I tell her either way I’ll just be staring off into the distance. During one photo Kari asks us to interact and make eye contact, and when I look into Rachel’s eyes I nearly blurt “Whoa” like Keanu Reeves in ‘The Matrix’, though mine would likely have been with more emphasis than his cold delivery. Her eyes are deep brown with a hint of gold, incredibly wide and completely flawless. It’s a cliché thing to complement a woman on her eyes, but hers nearly knocked mine out.

When we finish Kari takes a few more shots of the girls individually, and then has us take a few group photos for the blog. Everyone seems very happy with the way things went, and overall it was quite a fun experience. From the way the girls spoke about their previous experiences in modeling it seems like a lot of shoots are either very professional and formal or the photographer is bordering on creepy, so I guess it was something slightly different to have such a young photographer and a group that simply hung out casually (but perhaps not, I haven’t done anything like it before.)

After the shoot we drop Chantelle off and go for dinner. Cade continually brings up that he had a new pair of nipples pressed against him today, and after each time Kari asks me “How cool of a girlfriend am I?” Clearly the answer is ‘very’. At some point during dinner I randomly announce “Christ, I need to get a new girlfriend of some kind, this shit is driving me nuts” which I guess is what happens to you when you go from consistent sex to zero then spend a day surrounded by models in minimum clothing. I bet it’d help me sleep better.

We leave the restaurant and return to Cade’s house where I quickly pack my things in an extremely haphazard manner. They’ll probably be fine. We leave for the airport allowing me a considerable amount of time to get there, and we arrive quite early. I hug Cade and Kari goodbye, thank them for everything, and then go over to the check in. When I booked my flights with the agency they informed me that “unfortunately” they’d have to put me in first class for my US domestic flights instead of business like I was traveling internationally
“My God, this is a complete outrage! How dare you inconvenience me in this manner!?” I yelled at the travel agent over the phone, who giggled and played along by saying “I know you must be really unhappy about this.”
Unfortunately my ticket doesn’t gain me access to any kind of lounge as it seems I have to be a member of some club, and the woman at the counter is cold and disinterested, totally invulnerable to any kind of smooth talk. After I check in my bags I go through security and look for a place to kill the 90 minutes before my flight. As I walk down the terminal I walk past what appears to be a sports bar and restaurant, and although I’ve been good about not drinking lately I decide I have nothing better to do tonight.

I enter the restaurant and take a seat at the bar a few chairs over from a pretty blonde woman who looks about 30 and appears to be alone, then order a beer. I wait a few minutes to see if any husband or boyfriend comes back from the toilet, and when neither does I turn to her and ask
“So where are you off to tonight?”
“I’m doing good, how are you?”
She has apparently misunderstood my opener, but I just run with it
“I’m doing quite well myself, a rather interesting day really. Where are you headed tonight?”
“Montana, going to visit home.”
“Ah, I’m a Midwest man myself, going to visit there soon too.”
We enter into a fairly lengthy discussion about the Midwest, why six months of winter is totally intolerable, how that’s one of the reasons she moved to Hawaii, and that before she did she worked in the laser industry
“Cool! Did you work for a Bond villain?” I quip.

Our chat lasts for maybe 15 minutes before she finishes her martini, wishes me a nice flight, and walks off to go board her plane. The moment she’s out the door a guy in his mid 20’s a couple seats on my right turns to me and says
“That looked like it was going pretty good dude!”
“Yea I guess so, never know if it turns out she plans on visiting Vegas in the near future or something, worth a shot. So how’s your night going man?”
I enter into a lengthy discussion with Jason, who is a med student in Hawaii and going to visit Austin Texas. He seems really chilled out and tells me about his time living in Hawaii and in the health industry. I demand that he tell me a good story from his time in medicine. He launches into a story about a professor he had whose entire job it was for 17 years was to study ‘the gooch’, or a ‘goochologist’ as he elects to put it. He finds this epic and hilarious. I find it moderately amusing, but humor him that it’s really awesome.

At some point during our conversation on sports we discuss how it’s okay for the Brewers to suck, but that the Red Sox and Cubs sucking for so long with the ability to spend so much money on their team is unacceptable. This brings an interruption from two thick blonde women in their late 20’s sitting on my left, who demand to know what we said about those teams. I repeat myself, and they are faux offended that I would have the audacity to insult their team, though they don’t make it clear which they support. When Jason eventually leaves for his flight I turn back to them and ask “So was it Boston or Chicago you root for?” It turns out the answer is Chicago, and I tell them “Man, fuck Chicago…cause it’s way cooler than Milwaukee.” This opens them up and I spend another 15 minutes chatting to them about Vegas and how I winded up as a professional poker player living in Australia. Normal people always find that story amusing, or at least pretend to. I leave them halfway through the giant second beer the bartender has given me and find my way to the gate for my flight to LA.

After we depart I sit on the plane reading ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ for a couple of hours while downing numerous glasses of complimentary red wine. Eventually I put the book away, set my pillow against the window, and try to fall asleep. I spend 20 or so minutes attempting this, and it obviously doesn’t work. I give up, take out my laptop, and start writing.

Now that I’ve finished I’m going to reread the entry and see if writing half drunk has lead to more grammatical errors than usual.

Authors note: Yep, it read like it was written by a ten year old with a copy of ‘Playboy’. Fixed now though.

Second authors note: So I just got to LAX and I haven’t slept. I’m sitting in the admirals club, which is a really shitty version of the Qantas Club in Australia, but at least I have internet. Kari sent me three of the pictures, so I’ll post this entry and them, and add more later when I get them. These ones are with Rachel and the group shot.

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