Don´t Go There

My friends Zigadena Gabardini and Emarald Harvey have picked up an interesting video with recommendations on where NOT to go this summer or ever. See the video and the recommendation on their blog ZE Design SL.

Hey, why should we gays, or our straight allies, support undemocratic bigots with our tourist money anyway? If they do not want us, stuff them! There are so very many other locations to visit for a vacation.

In my mind, it is always good to do a bit of research before making travel plans, and not only on hotels and travel costs but also on political matters. Tourism is a huge industry and by spending our holiday money consciously and wisely we can make a significant difference in bringing about change.

RELATED and BACKGROUND

The Citrus Party

The lovely, crazy and beautiful people at Club OrmDricka threw a party with a citrus theme in honor of my post A Little First Life Drama. Of course I had to drop in before crawling to bed.

There was some talk about my buddy Emarald Harvey´s balls when he first met the lovely Zigadena Gabardini in first life.

Apparently the meeting took place in the lovely city of Barcelona, Spain, a few years ago. Em claimed he had actually gotten a hernia from behaving as a perfect Dutch gentleman around Ziga. Well, I had to set him straight of course, so I informed him that what he had was clearly a bad case of blue balls and no hernia at all.

Zigadena Hits First Life Media

Zigadena Gabardini photographed by Emarald Harvey

As you may remember a comment of mine was used in an article on CTV News.ca, see my previous post Bock Is Quoted in First Life Media. Well my dear friends Zigadena Gabardini and Emarald Harvey have now outdone me completely.

The wonderful Zigadena was contacted by the Swedish magazine "Camino" for an interview on shopping and design in SecondLife and she got an entire spread in the magazine, both the paper and online issue (pages 12-13).

Zigadena and her husband Emarald are both wonderfully imaginative, talented and creative designers in SecondLife with both a shop inworld and on Marketplace (you can always find the SLurl to their Main Store inworld and the url to their products on Marketplace on their blog ZE designs SL

My buddy Bara Jonson was in a television documentary, my other buddy Eddi Haskell has done radio and television shows, Ziga and Em in a magazine interview with picture, I will have to make a film directed by Martin Scorsese to match up to them...

RL Photo Exhibition & A Colorful Rezday

On Thursday I was invited by tthe gallery owner Aake Roffo to a exhibition opening at his gallery at Yadkin. The exhibition was called "Houses in RL" and featured the first life photography of Kaja Lurra, well known sim landscaper in SecondLife.

I liked the pictures a lot and even bought a beautiful one showing some old beautiful blue tapestry. As I am mostly a people person here are some pictures of the visitors at the exhibition.

My buddy Emarald Harvey and his sweet avantgarde wife Zigadena Gabardini

Party people

Beautiful Svessa Hax  flanked by Aake Roffo and NE0 Timeless

After the gallery opening I had originally planned to retire because I had a early morning meeting in first life on Friday, but Kandinsky Beaumont and Apmel Goosson convinced me I would have time to drop in at a rezday party.

The rezday party was for SaveMe Oh, famous and/or notorious performance artist in SecondLife. She has made her whole public existence inworld into art by behaving rudely and by being obnoxious and cantankerous. Sometimes I find it amusing and am wholeheartedly entertained, at other times not so much.

Apmel and Kandi had been appointed as my caretakers by my little sister Millimina Salamander when she went off on a first life adventure for a couple of days. When I learned this I could not refuse them any more so I crashed the rezday party.

Luckily Apmel had warned me beforehand that it would be colorful, but what I saw when I was teleported in was the most amazingly bright cacophony of colors in all imaginable shapes and forms. It was a veritable bombardment of the visual preceptors (i.e my eyes). Occasionally we would also have shoals of sharks attacking us. I presume the shark is her totem-animal, but I am not sure.

I enjoyed the experience thoroughly but after about half an hour my sight was suffering from an overdose and it was time for me to sneak of to bed.

The rezday girl SaveMe Oh

Lucky Woman & Luckier Man - UPDATED

Emarald Harvey

Look at that beautiful man in his humorous picture! It is my buddy Emarald Harvey.in one of his contributions to this blogs series "Nakna avatarer i SL" (Nude Avatars in SL)

Would you believe that this boyish, charming and talented man with a wonderful sense of humor could capture and hold the heart of one of the most kind, caring, talented and beautiful women in SecondLife for four years? Four years in SecondLife, that must be something like 25 years in first life, even for a straight couple.

Well, I know both Emarald and his wonderful wife Zigadena Gabardini and today they are celebrating their fourth anniversary, and let me tell you I am not in the least surprised. They complete each other in all the ways a long-lasting couple should.

Ziga attacking my buddy Em

Today my two lovely friends are celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary at one of the friendliest places in SecondLife Club Ormdricka and of course everyone is invited.

The party starts at 12.30 PM SLT. I for one am going to be there! Club Ormdricka (SLurl).

UPDATE: Ughhh terrible! First I overslept until 1.38 PM SLT and when I finally logged in I could not teleport anywhere. I managed to get hold of my buddy Em but the sweet Ziga had already retired. Hugsand kisses my darlings, I am so sorry about this mess, talk to you tomorrow!

Russia to Silence All LGBT People

Homophobic Russian twat Vladimir Putin

All Out today informs us that

"The party led by Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin is pushing discriminatory legislation against lesbian, bi, gay and trans people that could eliminate their freedom to speak publicly and assemble.

Russia is a signatory to numerous international human rights treaties - including the European Convention on Human Rights. We call on you to urgently speak out and hold Russia accountable to its treaty obligations - and stand with LGBT Russians whose ability to speak for themselves is under attack."

Lawmakers in Saint Petersburg could pass a bill tomorrow that will crush freedom of expression for Russians and make LGBT people invisible. But leaders around the world can help stop it.

Sign the petition here!

If this bill passes Russia will clearly demonstrate how far behind they are when it comes to human rights and democracy! I hold Vladimir Putin personally responsible for this and I hope the leaders of the democratic countries see him for the antidemocratic dictator that he is.

Thanks to my dear friend Zigadena Gabardini for pointing this out to me.

UPDATE (from All Out) "February 8th: This morning, St. Petersburg legislators passed the 2nd reading of the outrageous "propaganda" bill that will silence millions of Russian LGBT voices. Our friend Polina reports that we still have time to call our world leaders -- the final vote will come next week. Call your foreign affairs office now, and spread the word HERE."

Russia to Silence All LGBT People

Homophobic Russian twat Vladimir Putin

All Out today informs us that

"The party led by Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin is pushing discriminatory legislation against lesbian, bi, gay and trans people that could eliminate their freedom to speak publicly and assemble.

Russia is a signatory to numerous international human rights treaties - including the European Convention on Human Rights. We call on you to urgently speak out and hold Russia accountable to its treaty obligations - and stand with LGBT Russians whose ability to speak for themselves is under attack."

Lawmakers in Saint Petersburg could pass a bill tomorrow that will crush freedom of expression for Russians and make LGBT people invisible. But leaders around the world can help stop it.

Sign the petition here!

If this bill passes Russia will clearly demonstrate how far behind they are when it comes to human rights and democracy! I hold Vladimir Putin personally responsible for this and I hope the leaders of the democratic countries see him for the antidemocratic dictator that he is.

Thanks to my dear friend Zigadena Gabardini for pointing this out to me.

UPDATE (from All Out) "February 8th: This morning, St. Petersburg legislators passed the 2nd reading of the outrageous "propaganda" bill that will silence millions of Russian LGBT voices. Our friend Polina reports that we still have time to call our world leaders -- the final vote will come next week. Call your foreign affairs office now, and spread the word HERE."

Tableaux Vivants, Lag & Sim Crashes

"Lag is a state of mind" a wise, semi-old but still extremely hot and sexy avatar once said, who´s name escapes me at the moment.

That is of course very true but sometimes SecondLife tries it´s very best to destroy a good party. Terrible lag, a sim crash and a sim restart almost succeeded at Kandinsky Beaumont´s and Apmel Goosson´s party at Solace Island yesterday. Luckily most of us who were there were old troopers at dealing with such misfortunes and we came back as soon as it was possible every time.

Tableaux vivants means "living pictures". The term describes a group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models carefully posed and often theatrically lit. Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move. The approach thus marries the art forms of the stage with those of painting/photography. (Wikipedia).

"The Extraordinary Adventures of Kikas and Marmaduke" give SecondLife a humorous and modern day interpretation of this 19th century art form. No show is ever the same because of the interaction with the audience at each performance.

Due to the delay caused by the misfortunes I unfortunately could not stay through the whole show and the party afterwards but had to log off at midnight, but as long as I was there I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Without further ado, here are some pictures from the show. Please note that I am only showing a few of the pictures and not in the order the tableaux were presented.

Enthralled audience; Bock, Emarald, Mid, Ziga, Blanche, Kandi & Apmel

Besides myself, the sim was full of all the avantgarde art elite in SecondLife. Here are a few more shots of the audience.

SaveMe Oh trying to catch the eye of some rough trade

DJ Eifach

SEMA 2011 - Oh What A Party

Finally the long awaited evening arrived. As an old hand in SecondLife I arrived early at the venue, The Fallen Gods Club at Yadkin. I have missed to many events before by not getting my ass on the sim in time.

The laird resting before the party stasrts

Once I was safely there I could take a smoke, eat a little and prepare for the party to start.

Oh what a great party it was! All the men were stunningly beautiful and the women looked reasonably OK too, even if some of them were showing a lot of their legs and boo.. uhmmm lets say chests.

Apollon Allen, DJ and one of the organizers

Emarald Harvey (in the background) with his partner Zigadena Gabardini 

Iendi Laville

Svessa Hax

My Sergeant at Arms sirhc DeSantis-McMillan

Vira Broome, one of the organizers

Blanche Argus, cbreak, Apmel Ibbetson and Kandinsky Beaumont

Chaplin Early and his partner Stella Guardian, Aake Roffo in the background

Some cute stranger

NE0 Timeless, one of the organizers

I had a wonderful evening and an unexpectedly great time, most people actually spoke with me. It was good to be able to in some little way show my appreciation of the hard work the event makers do for us. All in all I had a splendid time with no bad lag surprisingly because avatars were crashing left and right.

I would like to finish by once again thanking Apollon Allen, Vira Broome and NE0 Timeless for giving me this opportunity to extend my thanks to the event makers. I know I didn´t get all of them on my camera, for which I especially apologize to Vampi Twine-DeSantis-McMillan-McMillan (honorary and through handfasting), Midnattsdotter Fride and Gittrika Mint. All three of you looked wonderful, but my pictures of you were ugly and not publishable,

I just noticed that my bosom buddy Apmel Goosson has also been working hard and has already published his great pictures from the event here (url).

Even more pictures from the event at Blanche Argus blog now (url) and on Ewa Aska´s blog.

UPDATE:
Oh, I forgot, the evening actually ended very well when Blanche Argus finally found the humongous and  enormous tip jar for the event makers.

I understand her completely because I have been there myself countless times! Sometimes tip jars are just too big to notice, one cams above, around, behind and under them... I cannot remember all the times that Guyke, Ars or some other friendly soul has had to drag me in front of them for me to see them.

My Busy Saturday

In hindsight it was a great Saturday evening and Sunday morning, even with all my crashes and the strange weekend shit happening. So what was it I did, lets see if I can recall it all...?

First I went to look at some new hair to party in. My brother in-law D R E Y (a.k.a BIL) had dropped a landmark on me last we spoke. It was a beautiful shop with some great hair, I will look up the name when I get back in SecondLife and add it here. B-something that rhymes with barley if I remember correctly...Aah got it! Burley (SLurl) was the name! (No picture yet!)

With my new hair down I went back home to pack a gift for Eddi Haskell for his fifth rezday. What does one give to a man who has been around forever and probably has everything he ever wanted to have? 

Well I think I finally found a good gift when I decided to give him one of the beautiful jars made by Second Renoir, the Swedish first and second life artist. I love those jars, and have almost all of them myself.

While I was gift wrapping the jar I talked a little with my in-house (or on-sim) brother in-law Dejerrity. It is always good to check in with him. he makes me feel warm, safe and happy.

Happy with having the gift decided and packed I dropped in at Mid´s Super Fride Party with DJ Gwenni. The set looked really true to the original, but after a while it got to be a bit too overwhelming and it was quite difficult to make out the other avatars among everything that was going on there.

Super Fride

While i was listening to the great selection of music played for us by the amazing DJ Gwenni, who was a new acquaintance for me, I got a surprise call from my darling brother Martial.Eisenhart, who had been missing for awhile. It was so good talking with him again! As always we talked about everything between heaven and earth and all at the same time. His mind works nearly as mine, but he is a sweeter, kinder and much less judgmental version of myself. 

When Martial had dozed off I got the call that Eddi´s party at Tadd's Cabaret had started, so I quickly changed into something stylish to fit in with the crowd at one of Eddi´s parties. (Black suit with a black t-shirt showing off my chest hair.) The place was full when I got there and filled up even more while I was there. 

Somewhere in between this I got the chance to stand up for my dear friend Zigadena Gabardini, who was - for no rational reason at all - being clobbered at by the extraterrestrial hag from InWorldz in the comments on another blog.

I found a safe spot close to the hunky host Scott and started flirting wildly with him, although I don´t think he noticed much. The only man that ever understood when I was flirting was my Ars. He told me once, that I should drop all the subtleties because people are so busy with everything else going on. To which I answered, "Do you  suggest I tell them in local chat that we should leave and go fuck?". He laughed when I promptly sent him an IM saying exactly that. But what the hell, all my flirting is only for fun still, I have no intentions whatsoever of following up on them, perhaps the guys sense that somehow.

While I was busy with that, lo and behold, I suddenly saw my name called in local chat. It was my buddy, the studly Ziggy Starsmith that had arrived to the party. He looked grey, sultry and sexy as all the others at the party, except for the hunky Scott. 

I tried all my tricks to get the world to rez, pulling down draw distance and changing the group tag, but nothing worked. And then SecondLife kicked me out.

When I tried to log back in I almost made it three times but was kicked out again with the message "The system has logged you out because you are trying to log in from another location"? Interesting message and it was the first time ever I got it - after five years in SecondLife. I don´t understand what it means though.

Finally I gave up going back to the party and went back home instead, which worked fine. Soon after I got back on I got an IM from Ziggy asking if he could come over for a visit and take a look at Southern Charm. I was absolutely delighted to invite him over.

Ziggy came over and looked excellent this time. I gave him the grand tour of the sim - both the house and the grounds - and we had a good time talking about ourselves and our lives (both of them). After about an hour Ziggy´s new man, Holter, logged in when he got home from work in first life and was called over. At that point my darn computer and SecondLife started screwing with me again and kicked me out and started giving me the same strange messages when I attempted to log in again.

When I at last succeeded to get inworld again it was 7 am in my first life and I was starting to fall asleep over my key board so I had to make my excuses soon afterwards to go to bed and catch some sleep..

The Swedish Embassy Lucia 2011

The Swedish Embassy Lucia pageant made its traditional walk over the Swedish Embassy sims in SecondLife this year also, in spite of last minute arrangements.

Three avatars, who have been a part of the Swedish Lucia pageant in SecondLife since the start 2006 where there again and therefor deserve special mention, Taco Rubio (these days mostly referred to as King Bieber I), the kings consort Alexa Linden and of course PetGirl Bergman, the janitor/concierge of the embassy sims. 

Besides these three I should think we were in total about 25 people, Swedes and Internationals, to celebrate the occasion. Everyone was exceptionally beautiful in their Lucia outfits, except for Taco and I. The two of us looked as we always do, i.e. absolutely stunning!

Special thanks to Tienkie for stepping up and singing for us - when I could not get my voice to work - and to Adrina Welders for giving us another (traditional for the SecondLife pageants) burning of the Yule Bock. I would also like to thank all of those who were actually there and all of those who have told me they wished they could have been there with us. Maybe next time!

PetGirl has now promised that there will be a Swedish Embassy Lucia next year, I will hold her to her word.

As I was busy ordering people about and walking-the-walk I wasn´t able to take that many pictures, but I had the chance to get some at least. Enjoy!

Alexa Linden in white to the left, Tienkie in Lucia crown to the right

His majesty King Bieber I (Taco Rubio)

Zigadena Gabardini in the center watches the Yule bock burn

Sexy Horre with entourage

The Yule bock in ashes