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Springsteen & the E-Street Band doin’ Lonesome Day outside the planetarium at the Rose Center in New York City during the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards.

Dasm… I miss her so much…

Gert Willems and I are hosting the 5th edition PhotoVaganza: a meet-and-greet for models, photographers, makeup artists and stylists. We’ll be hosting this event at CC De Schrijnwerkerij in Geel on Saturday, March 20. It starts at 10:00H.

If you’re 16 or older and have an interest in model photography, you are welcome to join us. You can meet old friends, new contacts, maybe do a little shoot, and we have pizza!

More info at PhotoVaganza.org or our Facebook event page (in Dutch only).

“The advantage of brains over beauty?
I will never make it as a slut in this world!”
myself

I have this ringing in my ears for more than 3 years. Maybe even more than 5 years. The kinda thing you have after goin’ to a concert: a high pitch tone and the sensation of slight pressure on your ears. Now, I’m not the kinda of guy that believes that ignorance is bliss, so I thought it was about time to see a doctor about this.

I didn’t have high hopes. My ears had to endure a lot of loud noise over the years: way too many concerts, many hours in large computer rooms, etc. I’ve done some reading on the matter and I am afraid that my hearing suffered permanent damage from all of that noise. I was even expecting my hearing to be less than average.

Much to my surprise, the hearing test showed that my hearing is just fine. That was sort of a relief. But even though I hear the test tones just fine, the ringing was often 10 times louder than the test tones. The bad news is that the doctor confirmed my fears: the ringing is probably due to damage to my inner ear and it is never gonna go away. There is no medication that will solve the problem. The ringing can be suppressed with anti-depressive medication.

Conclusion: my hearing is OK, the problem resides between my ears. I guess that makes me a little insane, or doesn’t it?

As I was flipping through the channels tonight, I stumbled on a scene from a police series: a whole classroom was pickin’ on 1 person until he was just desperate enough to do horrible stuff. In an instant, my mind blanked, I completely froze and had flashbacks of a school trip to Italy in my last year of high school. I got reminded of that horrible feeling I had every time I got on the bus and the whole bus started calling me names and chanting the same song over and over again. And everyone joined: people who didn’t know me, some hadn’t even ever engaged in a conversation with me, but even some of my friends. And I guess no one ever cared that bullying really hurts.

I wonder why people do this. Even today, I wonder why some people called me their friend back then, but never bothered to defend me. But I guess that in this dog-eat-dog world, it is safer to join the masses. What is everyone so afraid off? That someone might actually like for all that you are if you show yourself just the way you are?

I had another shoot with my colleagues of Apertura today. Michael got us into an abandoned pool for this month’s shoot. Quite a unique location.

I teamed up with fellow photographers Glenn and Alain, and models Kameniko and Jasmine for this shoot. Once we dropped down to the bottom of the pool, we didn’t wanna get get out. It was way to much fun to be at the bottom of the pool. Here’s a couple of shots from today.

Thanks to Babs and Jessie for the makeup, and to Kamineko and Jasmine for bein’ our models for the day.

Let me start the new year with a confession to my parents. Maybe it will help me come to terms with my past and make some sense of my future. I have had a lot of time to think about stuff the last couple of week. Actually, I had the motive and the opportunity.

Dear Mom and Dad, remember that report card in 3^rd grade of high school that I said I lost? Well, I didn’t loose it. I hid it from you. I was terrified to show you that report card because I believed you would think my results were not good enough.

I knew of course that my story would not stick and that eventually the school would replace my so-called lost report card. Which they did, soon enough, of course. And I would have to face you to have it signed.

But I’m sure that this is not really a big confession. I’m sure you knew this all along.

But did you also know that I was flabbergasted when you told me that that report card was not so bad after all? Did you know I was terrified every single time I had to have a report card signed? Do you know that I even today, I wonder on a daily basis, whether I am good enough to live up to people’s expectations?

Well… No more… I think… I know what I am worth: despite my many flaws, I am not all bad. But it sure nice to hear someone say that to me from time to time.

Don’t we all want to receive a pat on the back and a compliment every once in a while?

“Don’t let someone become a priority in your life, when you are just an option in their life”
Mark Twain, American Autor