Jodie Ponto Photography

The Broken Mirrors is a brand spankin’ new superband made up of handsome gents you probably know if you’ve ever spent any time in the musical corners of Vancouver.  Their recently recorded demo is a killer shade of rockin’ quirk and you’d best keep your eyes & ears open in the upcoming months for The Broken Mirrors to officially debut their sounds & show (www.thebrokenmirrors.com). In the meantime, here’s a sneak preview of the band.

Behind The Scenes

Noah demonstrating a classic light-testing face.

Inside The Broken Mirrors’ dressing room.

Nothing loosens you up to have your picture taken quite like a round of dirty jokes.

Nothing limbers you up to have your picture taken quite like a high kick.

Noah “This is my band, bitches!” Walker.

Michael Rush, the movie still character from another time.

Michael Simpsonelli, the brooding badass.

Tom Heuckendorff, who I’m suspicious secretly works as a male model to supplement his music career.

Nothing tells you someone is done having their picture taken quite like a cigarette shoved up their schnoz.

This is Michael Rush. Sometimes he looks like a movie still character from another time.

Once upon sometime last year I was feeling lazy on the photo front and posted a collection of received text messages I found hiding in the bowels of my cellphone’s inbox because when taken out of context they were straight up amusing and sometimes even downright dirty (See “I Ate an Entire Box of Kraft Dinner Because I was so Depressed You Didn’t Call” and Other Tales From the Text Box).  It’s time to do it again.

• “Love you, even with a moustache, pilot’s cap, and pounding on an organ.” – 7pm, August 27

• “So, I finally got the balls to look at my insurance … It ran out on the 11th … Oops.” – 10:01am, August 28

• “The Boner Brothers.” – 4:27pm, September 17

• “How are your leopard boobs?” – 2:21pm, September 30

• “You must’ve caught me in the shower (Insert your own graphic and/or erotic imagery).” – 8:15pm, October 14

• “Barring a horrible bus tragedy I’ll be there soon-ish” – 12:03pm, October 15

• “How goes the protest photoing? Any water hosing, excessive batonings, or tear gassing yet?” – 1:02pm, October 15

• “Damn you! I’m supposed to be indecisive and swayed by the majority!” – 7:46pm, October 15

• “Oh I can’t do Jackass. I didn’t even make it through the last 2 … They hurt the little bit of brain I have left.” – 8:00pm, October 16

• “Yep. Vomit and urine right in yer face.” – 8:10pm, October 16

• “Super dee duper, initiate pants sequence stat!” –10:46am, October 18

• “On my way. Take off your pants.” – 11:39am, October 24

• “Give him an ass cheek validation from me.” – 4:23pm, October 29

• “… And I have to poo.” – 5:40pm, October 30

• “I can’t believe your boobies are on the internet! Ahhhhh!” – 11:14pm, October 30

• “Ooo, I love hair panties.” – 12:54pm, November 14

• ” … I hate everything he does and his guitar playing makes me puke in my mouth.” – 9:55pm, November 17

• “[He] is violating the purples right now.” – 4:39pm, November 20

I have a good ol’ fashioned rock n’ roll photo surprise for you today.

If you’re familiar with Saskatoon’s The Sheepdogs and Vancouver’s Rickshaw Theatre you might think this post is a dirty pack of Photoshopped lies. I wasn’t even entirely convinced myself when I went to The Rickshaw last night to see Austin, Texas’ Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears that The Sheepdogs mentioned as special guests on the poster were the cover of The Rolling Stone Sheepdogs. But they were.

It’s been awhile since a show has blown my face back/pants off/brains out, but after seeing Petunia & The Vipers‘ LP Release show last night at the Ukrainian Orthodox Hall in Vancouver I would say there’s finally some new music I can holler a hearty “Holy mother of yes!” about.

Chances are you’ve caught Petunia swingin’ & yodelin’ solo cowboy style sometime during the past 10 years, but banded up with The Vipers has created something so smokin’ that tidy genres don’t do it justice (like “rockabilly & western swing” or “Tom Waits meets Elvis at Woody Guthrie’s hobo junction”). The fact is I would bring both my Grandfather and hard-to-please hipster sister to a Petunia & The Vipers show and I don’t know any other band that could bring out old folks & young folks to boogie down together on a community hall dance floor in the middle of a city on a Saturday night.

You can listen to the new Petunia & The Vipers album in its entirety online here. Go do it now!!

Dearest of Northern homelands,

I spent an entire November yesterday at the beach.
No toque or parka or long johns on.
Not building snowmen or ice fishing or polar bear swimming.

Love from the flaming underbelly of fall,

Jodie

(Photos from Wreck Beach in Vancouver, BC)

The shade shaking, lady slaying, trick turning (musically, that is) Mojo Factory Blues Revue at The Libra Room in Vancouver, BC.

One of my favorite things to do in the whole world wide interweb is to check the Google statistics for my website. The statistic that brings me the greatest pleasure is being able to see the specific Google searches that have led people to look at my website and photoblog. Sometimes the searches are generic, sometimes they are puzzling, sometimes they are hilarious, and sometimes they are downright dirty. I’ve decided to share a few of my favorites and to do a little digging. That is, find out how exactly these searches have led to my website by typing the words into Google and Google image search myself.

“ponto sex xxl”

One of the most frequent searches I’ve seen over the past couple years has been various variations of sex ponto, ponto sex, and ponto sex xxl. It turns out Ponto is Portuguese for Point or Spot and that Ponto Sex is a common name for Portuguese and Brazilian sex shops and websites (another fun related fact is that Ponto G is Portuguese for G Spot and I have finally found my rapper name). The post misdirecting so many sex shop seekers to my website is one of the first entries I ever made: Adventures of Paparazzi Ponto: Sex and The City Party.

Ponto Sex XXL herself as seen in the post in question.

“nude hot springs”

Another common search that sends people to my website is nude hot springs (or nude girls at hot springs, or more specifically hot nude girls at hot springs). The offending post is of course The $86 Fine in which a cohort and I were photographed engaging in prohibited activities at Lussier River Hot Springs.

“pussy pants”

I’m still trying to imagine what folks are actually looking for when they search pussy pants and instead end up on my post Filthy McNasty: Or, The Secret Lives of Road Clothes which showcases the glamour of the independent touring musician’s suitcase.

“describe what asexual looks like”

I never thought of myself as a poster girl for asexuality until I discovered people were Google searching describe what asexual looks like and ending up on a photo of me wearing a pair of pink silk long johns in a Yukon hunting camp from the entry 5 Things I Like Less Than Being in a Plane Crash.

“sex lesson”

I’m no Dr. Sue or Dan Savage, but I have been considering adding Sex Educator to my business card because I get an awful lot of traffic to my website from people searching for sex lessons, safe sex, or safe sex lessons. Unfortunately for the lesson seekers, I only have one on offer so far – Phallique’s Safe Sex Lesson.

“gun snuff”

Having never taken a photo depicting the real live death of someone, it both puzzled and disturbed me to discover that people were arriving at my website by Google searching gun snuff. I’m well aware of the fact that the internet filter at my mother’s workplace blocks my website as pornographic material for what I can only assume is the occasional nudity and curse-drop, but for it to be considered snuff is something else! In any case, a quick Google image search revealed the culprit – a photo taken once upon a Miss Quincy tour stop in a place called Snuffville, Ontario.

“jesus light of the world”

I don’t want to get crazy here and declare my blog bigger than Jesus, but it is quite an internet feat that Google searching a biblical phrase like jesus light of the world would lead people to stumble upon a picture of the Bornday cake I baked for ol’ Jesus this past Christmas in the post Happy Bornday Jesus: And Other Festive Baking Adventures.

(If you like this post check out “I Ate an Entire Box of Kraft Dinner Because I was so Depressed You Didn’t Call” and Other Tales From the Text Box)

Sometimes it happens that you find yourself ending the Halloweekend in Bellingham surrounded by man-kissing drunken sailors, a resurrected Jimi Hendrix, and a mass of Thriller dancing zombies and all you take a picture of is a generic boat.