• Ed Simmons: They Got Theirs

    Jobs With justice

    Posted By Ed Simmons
    Photos By Harvey Finkle

    ……….They really don’t give a damn about anyone else. They all lack empathy for the people whom they represent. Christ, the whole damn bunch of them took two summer holidays, leaving millions hungry. I went hungry, the bastards had me cut down to one meal a day. I’m down to 173 pounds and at 6′3″, I need to be somewhere near 195 to do my job in construction. Oh yea, I got a job today. Not that things are turning around out here in Los Angeles, I was just very lucky. The job situation out here is still ugly! This attitude of, I got mine, can be contagious. They split us up, the unemployed, left the 99ers behind, the American Workers who are most needy of a hand up!

    Poverty Kills

    In my work, if we’re not getting our job done, the entire crew is subject to being run off. Should our Congress not be held to this same standard? Now some of these slugs want to continue the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, the top 2%. This top 2% needs to accept some responsibility for bringing our economy down. They need to be throwing down some scratch, help our nation up out of this hole, not bury the 99ers in the ditch. Why is it in Congress, there is so much concern over Corporate America at the expense of the American Worker? All these corporations are doing fine. They all have plenty of money to hoard with manufacturing moved off shore, most of the money they make, doesn’t make its way back around into the hands of our citizens. It just pads the pockets of the privileged. Its skimmed off the top!

    Union

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it once more, we as a Nation united need to run ALL these bums out. Put in people who will honor their oath of office, people determined to get their jobs done. Its hard for me to comprehend how a bill in Congress can run thousands of pages, yet our Constitution is only four. The only conclusion I can come to is our Government has gotten out of hand. Like a fright train rolling down a mountain side, crushing everything and everyone in its path! Our Government has been hijacked. It is no more a Government of the people, by the people, for the people. Today our Government has become an unyielding beast. I say let’s slay this beast and bring back our American Dreams! I’m sick and tired of this smoke and mirror Government, I’m fed up, the people of Bell got fed up too. The people of Bell, the first to step up, all across our Nation. Our Citizens need to follow their lead, enough is enough, they’ve all shown their stripes, We The People, need to take our power back!

    Unite

    Our highest court has sided with the powerful. No longer do they defend the rights of the common man. Their rulings on campaign funding spit in the face of the people their supposed to defend. Corporations are not people. We Are The People! Its ever more clear we are out here on our own, all alone! Absolute power, corrupts absolutely, the citizens in this country, need to follow the lead, set in place by the hoodwinked people of Bell! I can’t forget, I won’t forget about the 99ers plight, I will not let this go.

    A Shelter Is Not A Home

    Mom told me way back when; “Edmund remember always, but for the grace of God, there you go!”. I’m tired of this congressional conspiracy set on sabotaging our American Dreams! I’m embarrassed, I’m ashamed, there are broken down families, families that have been broken up, living as refugees, living in tent cities, all just cast aside! We can’t let this stand. We all need to see to it, that the disenfranchised American unemployed, get theirs back. Common men and women in our nation have to motivate, to get out and vote, and on the day after November 2nd, say to all of Congress voted out of office; hey pal,”You Got Yours!”

    End Poverty Now

    To read more of Ed Simmon’s blogs, log on to www.yeeha.org/art


  • Ed Simmons: Commentary

    Blackberry Self Portrait

    Posted By Ed Simmons

    Pride. Swallow It

    That’s what its there for. I spent the morning, and some of my afternoon, standing in the welfare line. Thank you Senators, for your job well done! A lot of men like me, standing in those lines are not broken men, just angry men. I heard a lot of rude statements about illegal immigrants. Our Government got a lot of people scared of the Sewer Gators, I know illegal immigration is not our problem, we are a Nation of immigrants. What we need, what we want right now, is work! Its important to say, the people working in this welfare office, are wonderful people, they get it. They know the people they’re seeing these days, are only the effect, the cause, a dysfunctional Congress! It takes more than talk, to make something happen. Where have all those shovel ready jobs gone anyhow, its ugly out on the streets out here in LA. Not much going on, nothing much will get going on, until the banksters cut loose with some cash. Why in the hell would they, they make so much more money moving it around markets, they’re still playing both sides of the fence, for them. This is a thing of beauty, the perfect storm!

    40% of this Country’s GNP is all about nothing, they aren’t producing product, they just continue the poor business practices that got us into this mess in the first place. WE THE PEOPLE, bailed them out once, don’t be fooled, all this crap is still going on! We need to clean house in this Country, I’m not talking about the immigrants. Who I’m speaking of, are the bastards, and the bastardetts, wasting space in the Congressional Hallways of Washington. I remember hearing more than once, first we’ll kill all the lawyers, we desperately need a cross section of the fabric of America, occupying the seats of Congress, people in touch with the Citizens they represent, the Common People of America, taxi cab drivers, carpenters, janitors, and cooks, our labor force and librarians, our fishermen and our farmers, people not beholden to the corporate scum! In their quest for unbridled profits, these corporations have sabotaged our once Great Nation, just think about this situation for a minute, tent cities, sprouting up, all across our Country.

    I’m sure Congress would truly feel shame, if only they cleaned their Capitol Office windows. You know, this assumption I make, hinges on believing they have a conscience, with all we’ve witnessed through these troubled times, we all know they don’t! Christ, all I hear from them, is more tax cuts for the rich, I’m not the sharpest tack in the pack but I know, with the tax base eroded as it is today, any solution other than an increase in tax, is insane.

    If I could just get a job, I would be more than happy paying double the tax, I know, I’d be bitching and moaning, in lock step with everyone else. However, as a result of these misdirected polices, firemen, police men, and our teachers in our communities now are loosing their jobs! These are the jobs that grow our society, the professionals that keep our communities safe! So I am going to reread the Secret again this weekend. I’m wearing out the pages in this book. I’m just a little worried the pages may turn to dust before this awful economy turns around! Here is the hope I can believe in, the November Elections are coming and all these clowns in Congress who’s seats are up for election will leave!


  • Alejandra Guerrero: Glitter Covers Tears, On The Loss Of Peter Steele

    Type O Negative Fan

    Posted by Alejandra Guerrero

    ……….TW I didn’t tell you the OTHER part of why I took these pics, besides that I was feeling all pretty, the reality of things…. I was very sad that day because I woke up to find out that Peter Steele, singer of one of my fave bands, Type O Negative had died the night before of heart failure.

    He Even Gave Me A Kiss

    I’ve been a Type O Negative fan since I was 15 and I had a personal fascination for Pete, maybe it was because I found him so frightening that I thought he was sexy. He was tall, his long black hair, deep green eyes, kind of Vampire looking, very masculine and seeing photos of him in Playgirl magazine at the end of the 90s, he was proportional to his height, he was 6′7” ! He had been in my fantasies for a long time… I often Googled, looking for stuff on him.

    Better yet, I met him twice 10 years ago. The first time he even gave me a kiss! He was very nice and had this awesome dark sense of humor. I took some photos but they were ruined by accident processing the film. The ones with me… I thought then, I’ll see him again, take other ones, never did… 

    RIP Pete, you are going to be very missed.

    To learn more about Alejandra Guerrero’s work log on to www.Alt-Er-Ego.com.


  • Alejandra Guerrero: Series Of The Day

    Play With Light 1

    ……….Our cover subject for the month of April, Alejandra Guerrero is a very talented model as well as accomplished photographer. Ms. Guerrero recently sent this series of pictures to the studio, as she was excited to play with “florescent” light. The result’s from her self-portrait session’s are always quite remarkable.

    Play With Light 2

    Play With Light 3

    Play With Light 4

    To learn more about Alejandra Guerrero’s work log on to www.alt-er-ego.com.


  • COVER SHOOT: MONTH OF APRIL

    Alejandra Guerrero


  • Black Lips Are In: Alejandra Guerrero

    Selfy

    Selfy


  • Picture Of The Day: Alejandra Guerrero

    Selfy

    Selfy

    Posted By Alejandra Guerrero

    I have this series I’ve been producing for a while called “Dressing Rooms.” Basically, I am trying on clothes and taking photos while doing so, in all sorts of different stores and dressing rooms, in various cities where I travel. The idea came to me in 2004, when I saw this gorgeous Valentino dress at a Filene’s Basement in Chicago. Even though it was a discount store it was still 2000 dollars!

    I was carrying my first digital camera, and it occurred to me to take a photo wearing the dress. I showed the picture to a friend who lived close by, a make-up artist with Nars, and I thought about re-doing the shot but a little bit more glamorous. So he did my hair and make up and  I returned to the store and told the lady at the dressing room to let me take some photos, so that my boyfriend would see how great it looked, so he would buy it for me.

    Some time later my passion for shopping and taking photos blended together as I kept doing the same type of guerrilla shots, of course not telling anyone I was doing so, trying clothes on, being seductive, provocative, funny, ironic  or whatever mood I felt and trying of course not to get caught. In my mind I thought if I couldn’t have the clothes, I can at least have a photo of me wearing them. Sometimes I have tried clothes I’d never wear or I would love to wear, ranging from lingerie, trashy, couture and ready to wear fashion.


  • Picture Of The Day

    Self Portrait By Alejandra Guerrero

    Self Portrait By Alejandra Guerrero

    …..The studio is happy to announce that Alejandra Guerrero, a photographer we have recently featured, has been invited to participate in the publication of The Mammoth Book of Erotic Photography, Carlton Books, London in 2010. We have asked guest blogger Mikel Elam to comment about her self portrait or “selfy” entitled, “Faded”, Los Angeles, 2006……

    Mikel Elam; “There is an other worldly quality to the self portrait of Alejandra Guerrero. A woman caught between two dimensions. The transference of energy has resulted in an interesting aura of colors intermixed with mist like shadows. As she stares into the camera, the self portrait is very telling of a woman confronting something or someone.”

    www.Alt-Er-Ego.com

    www.Alt-Er-Ego.com


  • Alejandra Guerrero

    Selfy's

    Selfy's

    ……When the email arrived with an attached photo of an attractive woman holding a book entitled Orgasm, it certainly got a lot of attention at the studio. An assistant commented “she must be a fan”. The planning, the execution of the picture was clever, striking and the model was exotic looking. The book that she was holding was published in the year 2000 by yours truly. It was quite a compliment.

    We learned that the picture was a self-portrait or “self’y” as Alejandra Guerrero affectionately describes her passion for often making herself a subject. It has been exciting to watch the talented Columbian born, 30 year old, rise to the rank of international photographer.

    Alejandra calls Chicago her home and is currently where she resides. However, she also shoots in LA and is currently abroad working on various projects in Scotland and England at the present time. It is our pleasure to offer you a sampling of the ambitious work of this talented young photogrpaher. To learn more about Alejandra’s work, log on to www.alt-er-ego.com. …………

    Kissing A Fool

    Kissing A Fool


    www.alt-er-ego.com

    www.alt-er-ego.com

    www.alt-er-ego.com

    www.alt-er-ego.com

    www.alt-er-ego.com

    www.alt-er-ego.com

    www.alt-er-ego.com

    www.alt-er-ego.com