Being Amber Rhea

Here’s the podcast of my appearance on the Cult of Gracie Radio Show on September 24.

You can also download the MP3 here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/swopeast/2008/09/25/Cult-of-Gracie-Radio-With-Amber-Rhea.mp3

Thanks again, Gracie!

• This Wednesday night, I’ll be on the Cult of Gracie radio show on XXBN. The show will be streaming live at either 9:00 or 10:00 - I’m waiting to hear back from Gracie on which it is, because her blog says one thing and the BlogTalkRadio page says another. I’ll update this post when I know. Update: It’s at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time! You can call in during the show… and I’d love for some people to call in, so I don’t feel like I’m just listening to myself bloviate the entire time.
• This Saturday, I’ll be at BlogOrlando, a social media unconference organized by Josh Hallett and now in its third year. I’ll be leading a session called Professionalism 2.0. I posted the description a few days ago, but here it is again:
  

  What does “professionalism” mean in the context of blogging? Is it a matter of the topics you write about, the language you use, the amount of research you put into a typical post - or all or none of the above? Social media tools offer us the opportunity to express our full humanity instead of compartmentalizing aspects of who we are. To what degree do we need to adjust our pre-conceived notions about what’s professional and what isn’t?

  I’m interested to see what direction the discussion takes.

• Sex, Wine and Chocolate 2008 is coming up on October 2, at the Park Tavern! Buy your tickets now (it’s only $20 this time around). And yes, the PoleLaTeaz ladies will be performing again!

I meant to post this a few days ago. After furiously typing these notes, I managed to call and leave a mostly-coherent voice mail.

I am now posting the rough-cut version as a total cop-out of a blog post. And I see now that there’s some ambiguity, but I’m not going to “correct” any of it. Fortunately it made sense to me at the time.

• Anti-sex work bias affects clients, too
• Letters From Johns shows they don’t have a vocabulary to talk about sex work outside of the stereotypes
• Stigma and shame around being a client when it comes to the individual, even though in general it’s accepted that it’s ok for men to be clients as long as they don’t talk about it - or as long as they don’t talk about it *seriously* or by invoking a power dynamic
• Review boards result in competition among escorts and gossiping and bad-mouthing - generally not a good thing
• I don’t think sex work thrives because of shame. I think it thrives in spite of shame. It shows just how powerful sexuality is. I think one thing that might change is there might be more male sex workers and female clients.
• Illegality of some types of sex work reinforces the lack of discourse about sex work by the people actually involved (workers and clients) and leads to the continuing trope of people talking ABOUT and FOR sex workers and clients.

Listen to Bedroom Radio episode 16.5 here, and call in with your own thoughts! (As a fellow podcaster I know how important voice mail is.)

I started a day late than I’d intended, but I am doing the 365 Days thing! If you’re so inclined, you can watch my progress in my Flickr set. The first three photos are there, with more to come… 362 more, to be exact!

Also, unrelated: the Frolicon podcast is now up.

And, we’ll be in NYC tomorrow!

A few weeks ago, Rusty and I tested out the female condom (yeah, that thing is still around) and recorded a podcast of this science experiment. Don’t worry, it’s not X-rated or anything, although we were tempted to record all the way through. But we figured some people might have delicate sensibilities, and we don’t want anyone to go apoplectic listening to one of our podcasts. Anyway. It was an interesting experiment all around; so listen to our findings!

Wow. What to say about this weekend?

I’m still recovering, since I’ve been going a mile a minute all day today with work stuff. But I need to try to put together some kind of wrap-up…

As mentioned previously, Friday night we hung out at the Hyatt with some fellow bloggers and their entertaining friends. A podcast resulted. (Sorry about the lackluster sound quality, but we were in a crowded, noisy bar; whaddaya want?) I’m pretty sure we were invited to an orgy. Well, it was either a thinly veiled invitation or just a statement of fact, though given the general environs I think the former is more likely.

Saturday morning I had to get up early to go get my bi-monthly haircut. After that, breakfast at Radial, and a quick trip to Junkman’s to get more appropriate attire, we were back at Dragon*Con. We participated in a panel entitled Interviews: Getting and Doing, which was part of the new podcasting track. And shockingly enough, a podcast of the panel is available by clicking the link on the panel name!

After that panel, Rusty headed home to watch football. I stayed and met up with Leann of Tag in the Seam and Laura of The Coffee and Tea Show and The Rocky Horror Podshow. They both are awesome, amazing, and hilarious, and I’m really glad we finally got to meet IRL! I also ran into Sam of The Bear’s Grove, another kick-ass GAPN affiliate.

Later that afternoon, I participated in the Women in Podcasting panel, the podcast of which should be available tonight is now available. Leann tried to persuade me to stay around for some more events and general debauchery after that, but I was so wiped out that I went home and went straight to bed.

Sunday morning we got up early and set out for Augusta, on a mission to photograph the locations of a bunch of former nightclubs from 35+ years ago. These were all clubs advertised in the 1971 magazine, “The Scene in Greater Augusta” (see Flickr set or listen to the podcast). We managed to track down most of the places we were looking for - although a few of the locations are in dispute from people who would know better than me, since they were actually alive at the time. Anyhow, it was a lot of fun, and you can see the photos here. On the way home that night, a long discussion ensued about how we love history, architecture, and especially when the two come together and include people’s personal memories and anecdotes.

Monday? Back to Dragon*Con to participate in one more panel: Podcasting Directories. The recording of that one should be up within the next few days.

Overall, the weekend was a blast. I had way more fun at Dragon*Con than I’d expected. Next year, we want to plan ahead and really do it up. (And who knows, maybe we’ll be big hotshot podcasters by then! Eh, probably not; but we’ll still throw a good hotel room party.)

Anyway… It was great to meet so many fellow podcasters this weekend. I would try to list them all, but I know I’d forget someone and then feel like an ass - so I’ll just say, you all know who you are! I would, however, like to give a special shout-out to Swoopy and Derek of Skepticality and thank them for putting together the podcsating track. I can hardly wait for next year!

Now… maybe eventually I’ll get caught up on blogging, blog-reading, etc., amid dealing with the obligations of my day job and trying to get some sleep!

Remember the podcast Rusty and I did a few weeks ago, about Augusta nightlife in the seventies? (If you don’t remember, you’d better git yer ass over to the Georgia Podcast Network and listen to it.) Well, I finally got around to scanning some of the pages of one of the magazines we read from, so you can see the hilarity for yourself. Also, Rusty and I have plans to go to Augusta next Sunday and go around photographing the locations of the former clubs mentioned therein. Should be very interesting (to us, anyway; we’re dorks like that).

There’s a cool new podcast at the Georgia Podcast Network. It’s called Politics is Vocal, and it’s the brainchild of Nikki and Thomas. The first episode went up tonight; Thomas and Nikki interviewed Michael Bodker, Chairman of the Committee for John’s Creek. Thomas has a big round-up of John’s Creek info on his blog. I think it’s awesome that they’re doing this; the John’s Creek issue sure hasn’t received much coverage from the local mainstream media.

Be sure to listen to the wtfBBQ podcast this week. This time it’s a music-laden episode, and pretty cool if I do say so myself - and not just because Jen and I are featured within the first 2 minutes, giving a shout-out (of sorts) to Tony Simon. There’s also some mild political ranting.

And that’s it, folks. I got nothing tonight. Work kicked my ass.

So englighten me as to more of my super powers, because I’m self-absorbed. (There it is again! That not-really-inside joke!) Or talk some more about the judicial system.

Hey! Check it out, people - I’m on a podcast. Jen, Mae, Megan, and I brought a special little sumthin’ to the wtfBBQ this week. So go download it! Listen to me and other self-absorbed bloggers talk about privacy on the internet! Make Shel The Misogynistic Podcaster happy by showing up in his IP logs!