LAURA in LA JOLLA photographed by Ben DeCamp
11.20 CANDLE WAX
10.15 COLD WAR
KSENIA FROM RUSSIA photographed by Ben DeCamp
10.9 GIDDY UP GIDEON
I’ll be completely honest. My name isn’t Ben, it’s George. It just sounds so tacky: George Bush, King George, George Foreman grill, Curious George. It was one of those legacy names that was tagged onto what my parents really wanted to call me as if I ever met my great-great-grandfather and that naming me as such should remind me of what standing in a bread line was like during the Great Depression. Fuck that. As soon as I tell girls that Ben is my middle name, they say, “So you’re name is Ben Ben DeCamp?” No you fuckwit, unlike yours, my mother wasn’t on meth when I shot out into the delivery room while my irresponsible father nursed a hangover and avoided the gaze of anyone resembling a police officer.
I thought I was in the clear with Benjamin, a pretty standard and respectable name by anyone’s standards. I was raped over and over throughout grade school; that’s a pretty strong metaphor, but really my ass got kicked so many times it felt like sodomy. Benjamin Franklin, Ben Dover, Bengay…the names didn’t stop. It’s one thing to be made fun of for having the same name as a notable historical figure, but any likeness to a pain relieving ointment is the epitome of potential ridicule. This irrelevant photo of a gigantic fucking sandwich is a reminder to never eat at Route 66 roadside delis, otherwise known as lessons in food poisoning.
On weekends, I volunteered at the local soup kitchen downtown. It wasn’t an attempt to clear my conscience of all the fucked up revenge ideas I had for those bullies. I had 100 mandatory hours to fulfill in order to get confirmed by my local church; something I was forced to do by my parents or else they’d revoke any money put towards the college fund. I obliged, mumbled a bunch of bullshit songs and ate some stale crackers while avoiding the pneumonia-laden boxed wine during the holidays. The soup kitchen was full of homeless and other unfortunate souls like myself serving their time. Sometimes I’d suck on a beef barley cube and listen to the stories of those passing through, or merely trying to avoid the blizzard conditions of another harsh Northeast winter.
He knew a victim when he saw one… “Benjamin…ahh…a strong biblical name. Have you read Psalms 35:16? Well it all starts…” I wanted to shank Brother Joseph with that golden crucifix dangling from his scrawny neck. He knew I had to listen to his gospel and make pleasant conversation; an easy target. He wasn’t homeless. He was one of those fucking Gideons that places free bibles in Vegas hotel rooms; the last place I want to think about anything holy while digging around for a condom at 4am, when there’s a girl in black lingerie sprawled across my bed and confusing the sheets for a Halloween ghost costume.
ROLLOVER MINUTES
I was sitting in my underwear checking emails when my cell phone erupted into a vibrating seizure. This was supposed to be a relaxing end to an evening, but I had a gut feeling that this was going to be one of those Tuesdays where it gets really fucking crazy/borderline sadistic. Considering it was 4am, and an unknown caller; the prospects seemed entertaining. I answered. Turned out to be a girl I had met three weeks ago. She called off her wedding and wanted to shoot some photos ASAP, probably to drive the nail deeper into her ex-fiancé’s heart. The day after tomorrow sounded good, but she seemed flakey with her busy schedule. I wrote her off; I can’t stand thinking about girls more than 48 hours in advance. Ten minutes later she’s on the phone saying she packed an overnight bag and is on the highway driving down from LA. I started frantically looking for my roommate’s bottle of rum and fresh rolls of film. Slapped a little cologne on and met her in the parking lot of a downtown motel. She was smoking Virginia Slims, which should’ve been the tip-off that she was horny, but I was young and naive.
So we went through a procession of outfits, and each time she would change in the bathroom as if I hadn’t seen a naked woman before. Then she admitted she was 35, and then that she had a kid, which translates to early 40’s and several kids. That was bizarre enough for me; I did the hyena/gazelle maneuver: grabbed her by the back of her hair and latched onto her neck… She wouldn’t put out.
“What the fuck!?! You drove all the way from LA to suck on my roommate’s bottle of Captain and…”
“I’m dating someone,” she said.
“He’s a multi-millionaire. We’re flying to his house in Paris this weekend and I’m going to get my breasts done.”
Well obviously I couldn’t compete with that. She’s not even dating one millionaire, she’ll drive to LA and set up numerous dates throughout the day, but she doesn’t sleep with any of the guys. I’d soon learn that she just prefers young cock like mine. Not only did she bring two suitcases full of crap, she brought all kinds of other emotional baggage.
“When we broke up he took the TiVo box, all I wanted was to lay around and watch Sopranos re-runs. Do we have HBO here? Actually I’m tired, let’s just go to sleep.”
So I woke up in the morning and was fed up with the whole situation so I started finger-banging her for good measures, or retribution for the bullshit I had to put up with. I mean what kind of self-respecting hotel puts the ice machine on the sidewalk and doesn’t serve breakfast? She didn’t stop me; I saw it on the Internet once, so I maneuvered her into some awkward position and waited for a reaction. She freaked out, but just wanted me to put on a condom. Smart girl, she already made that mistake several times; one of her kids was the same age as me. I hope it all comes full circle and I take a picture of him dancing in a seedy night club. We’ll talk about how I slept with some older woman and laugh unknowingly about it over glasses of aged cognac. Anyways, I’m getting side tracked. So Mrs. Robinson and I did it in a smorgasbord of positions until the hotel maid started pounding on the door and demanding something in Spanish. I speak Spanish pretty well, but not through ten inches of drywall. I rolled over in a tangled mess of sweaty sheets and derelict clothing. The numbers glowed back in red: checkout was 4 hours ago.
A couple months went by and I hadn’t heard from her. Can’t blame her; I mean if I was a heavy drinker and a girl brought over a near empty bottle of shitty rum, I’d be pissed too. This old guy I occasionally hang out with once told me, “It’s not how many girls you sleep with, it’s how many invite you over for a 2nd time.” The phone rang…… These days unknown callers get my heart racing, it could be a variety of possibilities from death threats, pleading drug addicts, to jury duty. How do these fucks get my #? Regardless, it was her again…my stomach dropped. “Want to go to Vegas at the end of the month? My treat!”
ARIZONA ZONING
I called her from Southern Mexico with stolen phone cards that the locals jacked off tourists who left their bags unattended on the beach. She sounded like she really wanted it bad. Airplane tickets just went on sale; Phoenix here we come. Was I desperate? Yes. For the past couple weeks I was surrounded by poverty and disease-ridden girls; ones that I wouldn’t go within 3 feet of with two condoms on. Soon a small cut developed into a staph infection in my foot so I headed to the town’s only emergency room.
The place was overflowing with drop-dead gorgeous Latinas and not a guy in sight. Something was wrong; why were all these hot chicks here? Only the rich families could afford a doctor, and then I realized this emergency room doubled as the local gynecologist’s clinic. Every one of those bitches was either pregnant or had a wart covered snatch. Flies swirling, not a latex glove in sight, this place was dirtier than the river I stepped in. Not even sure they used a new needle, but give me that shot of antibiotics in the ass; I have a flight to catch! I was bound for strip malls and cookie cutter neighborhoods dominated by saguaro cacti lawn ornaments. It was too hot outside for the kids to play so the city erected a gigantic tent over the playground. When their skin singed into third degree burns from the scalding yellow slide, no one could sue.
I hadn’t had sex in weeks, but I figured a little foreplay entertainment might be proper, so we went to three different strip malls, two movie theaters, a Halloween store, and then she sucked on a $7 drink from Starbucks. Fucking Christ, this place was an air-conditioned wasteland. After several days of this repetitive riff-raff she wouldn’t put out. In total I spent $400 in airline tickets and lodging to go to the mall, which I could’ve done back in California and bought 6 nights of hookers in a row. Maybe even 4 nights in a row of 3-somes; I’m an optimist. I was beyond frustrated so later that night I shared my sorrows with a balding Middle Eastern 7-11 clerk trying to pawn off 8-hour old taquitos. He told me to go to the nearby strip club. Fuck you. I don’t go to those places, it’s just a bunch of coked out whores; I’m not that kind of guy! So I went over.
But before I even made it in the door I met a stripper, named Kool-Aid, in the parking lot. When she saw my camera her eyes lit up; I thought she was going to steal it to trade for crystal meth but she just wanted to be a photo slut.
“Let’s go take some pictures at your hotel, I hate working here.”
Sounded like the best motherfucking thing I heard all weekend. So I’ve still never been inside a strip club, but for some reason I was sitting with a rural Arizona stripper on my bed in a shitty hotel room from some package deal on Travelocity. She told me about how she goes to Mexico and buys Oxycontin to sell to all the girls at the club for $10 a pill. Her boyfriend, the local drug peddler, taught her all she knew. I thought the going rate was $5…inflation I suppose. She had the bright idea of going on a vacation to Mexico.
“We should drive across the border and stock up on meds!”
No fucking way, I was just down there in that hell…. Wait! You’re pretty cute, how many guys have you slept with? Have you ever been tested? I know this guy down there, he’s really good…trust me.
HOMELESS
I’m really worried right now. I got a letter this morning, which is probably the 8th or 9th one from the leasing office. “”Between the hours of 3-7am security reported significant stomping and screaming coming from your unit. This is a lease violation, and grounds for eviction.” I might be roaming the streets of Southern California sooner than I thought. Not that I don’t already do that, but on a much more permanent basis with a rattling tin cup full of passersby pennies. I was kinda worried my credit was going to be proverbially “fucked” (for lack of a better word) for the rest of my life. That was until I remembered I only deal in cash. So I went down to the leasing office to confront the Russian feminist ringleader. She seemed so uncomfortable about the whole situation. I mean I could’ve lied that I was holding youth soccer tryouts and that the kids got a little rambunctious near sunrise, but I didn’t think that would fly. I was not about to sleep with that witch, just the thought made my penis do an impression of a turtle going into hibernation. So I pulled the quickest thing out of my ass I could think of,
“Oh a bag of navel oranges fell off the refrigerator.”
“For four hours?!”
“There were a lot of oranges.”
RIO DE JANEIRO RETROSPECTACLE
I recently traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. If you wanna get laid you can’t spell it with a “z.” I’ve never seen so much g-string ass in my life. 10/10 models everywhere I looked. The two Australians I was with would lurk outside the smoothie shop to scout the local wildlife. It was strategically located between two gigantic gyms and we would have a count down to see how long it would take before we could spot a knockout. All the women do is leg exercises, ass size and tan lines are directly equivalent to social status. I was feeling feisty, so in a bold act of bravado, I sported my Speedo inside the grocery store. No one blinked. So I frolicked and pranced in the vegetable aisle and still no one cared.
I then sat down next to beautiful brunettes on the beach and offered freshly hacked coconuts w/straws and used two words in English (What’s up?) to lure unsuspecting girls back to my hotel room. So this is what sexual tourism is all about. I heard of guys who went to Thailand to find underage girls, but let’s be honest Thailand has shitty waves and we’re supposed to be on an all-expense paid surf trip scoring photos for an international magazine spread. Right. We’d stumble out of the clubs at 6am and see the orange haze starting to glint on the tin roofs of the hillside shanty towns. The waves were amazing; we’d look at each other and say fuck it, time to go surfing!
Even women in their 40’s were hot and this was before I started wearing sunglasses at night. We met some prominent actress at Club Melt, to be honest I had never heard of her and judging by my Australian friend’s groping maneuvers he wasn’t as interested in her acting career or the armored car we were riding in. The rig was bulletproof, guess that’s a good precaution for the daily drug wars with the police and that asshole with the grenade launcher. It was like the 4th of July every night, flares would soar over the city alerting the drug cartels that the Brazilian DEA equivalent was about to unleash a machine gun fest on the favelas. One brave meth head ( with the grenade launcher) kept most of the fuck wads at bay until a few more deals went down. They’re just trying to make a living y’all; I think that’s pretty respectable. So anyways, my Aussie wingman was screwing this local celebrity in her armored car while the bellhop, or livery, whatever you call that idiot driving the car lurked around and tried to pretend like he wasn’t sitting in the front seat. I was upset she didn’t have a girlfriend for me; I mean what kind of self-respecting girl goes to a dance club by herself? Well I guess she was with the bellhop… I wandered solo down the streets of Ipanema at 6 am. A large glowing sign broke up the monotony of the slums. “H.E.L.P.” Not sure what it stood for, but a shitload of $25 Adriana Lima hookers were milling about outside the club. Visions of 3-somes, no fuck that…at that price 8-somes danced through my head. Things looked promising.
R2D2 & MY GIRLFRIEND
This party was like that moment in the Star Wars when OB1 Kenobi gives Luke Skywalker his first light saber (way before he gets his hand chopped off in Return of the Jedi and finger bangs his sister Princess Leah with the prosthetic.) He’s so excited he power boosts it up and a gigantic glowing blue dildo dominates the movie screen. Some lonely woman in the front row drops her popcorn and those creepy hooded dudes lurking in the background of the desert scene run for the hills. Soon C3PO is talking shit in 1000+ different languages just to keep you on your toes and R2D2 is laughing all the way to the bedroom because he only beeps and can’t really spit game, but he’s way cuter so the chick robots just wanna bang the nuts and bolts out of him. That’s kind of throwing an ironic wrench in the proverbial gears so I’ll digress. I got bored and started groping my estranged girlfriend at the time, but the music creeped her out and soon Darth Vadar lurked onto the scene messing up any chance I had of getting laid.
He’s wearing black sunglasses so he has no clue Luke Skywalker has a fake motherfucking hand programmed with Windows 95 and Quicken Tax Refund and is about to go cyborg on his ass. Soon there are these gigantic robotic dogs trudging through the snow with one pissed off Abominable wingman…or was that in the 2nd movie? Who gives a shit, what’s important is that they ran out of Milk Bones for Large Dogs so some asshole in a flying Honda Civic hatchback gets a rubber band and trips them up to fall on their faces because god knows without doggie treats someone is about to go postal in the middle of an Arctic wasteland 27 light years away from the nearest school nurse. Fuck!
Rating: 8/10