Don't Go Anywhere

I pulled out the big kitten eyes yesterday and suggested a tie-em-up. Angelique had an outfit on that just said to me that she should get grabbed and tied up. It wasn't like it was a vampy outfit or anything; she just looks hot in anything and it made me want to do an impromptu clips. Imagine my surprise when she told me that the big, pleading eyes worked and I should try it more often. After shooting the clip I plan on just that. It wasn't long before she was tied up on camera, had a vibrator jammed against her most protected areas and was hogtied to struggle, drool and, well, do things that vibrators help make happen. I'll have it up on the store soon.

A big thing off of my list was getting an iPod clips store up. It only has five of my best-selling clips so far, but I'll let you know that they look wonderful on my iPhone. It's great to have portable, um, entertainment! I plan on updating this store just as regularly as my regular store! I also want to thank everyone who has visited my regular C4S store and most importantly purchased clips. This has been my best month so far, and I'm encouraged enough to continue putting up content :)

I managed to shoot a custom with Angelique and will go into the editing phase soon. I keep mentioning customs, but this was one that was really fun to shoot. Nothing against anyone, but the communication aspect of shooting customs is the most difficult aspect. The customer always has a very real image in mind and my translating that image properly is a challenge. This last custom was a case of me and another person thinking in the same way ... we communicate visually and through storyboards I was able to nail it. I'm sure he'll be overwhelmed with the results. I'll put up a sneak peek of it as I get time to work on things.

Last but not least, my top-selling slip is still Angelique Kitos in Hogtie From Hell. Others are coming close, but she reigns supreme as the overall clip champion and the champion in total sales!

Left Elbow, Meet Right Elbow

The first time I saw somebody's elbows together behind their back I couldn't fathom how it was even physically possible. I grew up in a small town. Hell, we didn't even have a gymnastics squad ... sure, some of the cheerleaders could do splits but there was nothing like this in the routines. These were the innocent years before I knew about forward and backward facing shoulders, double-jointed gals and overall flexibility.

As I became exposed to more bondage material though it became obvious that it was possible and that it looked shit hot. The majority of your hand mobility comes from the shoulders and the elbows. When you weld them together that equals a whole lot of helplessness. The first time I ever got elbows to touch on a gal was with Julie Simone about 12 years ago. I looked so young she actually joked about wanting to see my ID. She said she needed some tight stuff for possible work in California, so the floodgates had opened. Over the next two days we shot and her elbows were welded every which way: strappado, hogtie, chair ties and even taped wrist to elbow. That sold me on the concept, and it's been a staple from then on.

Angelique introduced me to Kerri Taylor a while back and I've loved shooting with her ever since. Tough as nails, her elbows weld without any issue and she can hold it for a long time. That makes for great video. As you can see I seldom miss an opportunity to get into the shot and inspect my handy work. In the clip this screen shot was taken from she struggled so hard that the chair did a complete 360 and moved all the way across the room ... but those elbows stayed glued the entire time. Check out Kerri Taylor in Chesty and Chair-tied to see for yourself ;)

In other areas, last night I managed to get an iPod store up on C4S featuring five of my best sellers. All of them are on my iPhone and the quality is incredible! Check them out at Ted Michaels Damsels - iPod ... or don't,

The Miracle of Modern Medicine

Where would we be without modern medicine. Yes, there is compelling data that life expectancy has not gone up because of medicine but more likely to improved access to quality food and living conditions. However I do like that my sinus infections go away faster and I have something for aches and pains other than just alcohol.

Regardless, modern medicine has brought the bondage word countless advances. I thought nothing could get better than co-flex with all it's stretchy, self adhering goodness, but then those medical folks had to invent a tape that adheres like glue but doesn't rip off your skin. Even better it doesn't stick to hair. Now all my captives get a full head wrap at least once with tape all the way around. Take poor the poor girl here for example. The ballgag was bad enough but then we add several layers of tape around her head. First, the gag is going nowhere. Second, saliva leakage equals zero ... try choking on that while sitting on a hitachi magic wand. Finally, it's like rubber. It stretches and then squeezes even more than co-flex. And so medical profession, I salute you. Oh, and lest I forget the poor gal gagged to the max and having multiple orgasms is the talented Randy Moore in Taught Bondage and Bad Vibrations.

I like drool

I'm sort of fascinated by how things change when it comes to fetish tastes. The term I use is that your tastes will "graduate." I say that because my experience is that people's likes start at some base and then evolve; they tend expand and intensify. What do I mean? I used to like simple bondage that promoted a certain innocence and that graduated into ultra-strict bondage as I realized that it's not really being tied up if the girl gets loose. I'd have people wiggle around, they'd get loose and I'd think, "damn I'm a really bad villain, let's fix that." I felt a little guilty at first, but I started to enjoy the intricacy with rope work that strict bondage allowed. Where am I going? Well, I used to not like drool until at some point my tastes graduated. What could be more helpless than a damsel in ultra-strict restraint, her jaws straining with a huge ballgag and so helpless she can't even stop from drooling all over herself.

With that in mind I give you Wenona in Weld Her to That Chair and letting loose some strands of drool that would have made it to the floor if the chair and her crotch hadn't gotten in the way. Wenona is a gal in total control of her body. She is tanned, toned and can kick your ass. About 200 feet of ultra-cinched rope and a fat ballgag though, and she had zero control ... a helpless lass able to do little more than wiggle ... and yes, drool all over herself!

And now I'm back to getting a custom script out for a look-see, working on samples and as always editing clips!

Tomiko in Tight Trouble

When you have so much backlog of material, the process of coming up a new clips to put up can be an interesting process. Do I put up something from this year or do I dig into the archives and go back eight years? Do I want on-screen tying, abduction fantasy or just a really tight position with fervent struggling? Sometimes though it is just random.

I was tweeting yesterday and it was suggested I might want to follow Tomiko. I knew I had footage of her from last year, but I couldn't remember all the details. After reviewing it I felt like a fool for not having put it up already. Tomiko is a great model and a superb actress, and the clip had it all; there was tight restraint, forced stripping, groping, on-screen gagging, on-screen tying and a ton of struggling. It's difficult to get so many elements into a clip sometimes. Either I forget something or the model gets tired or there is an equipment issue. This shoot though we got it all, so I'm putting it up today.

As for other news, the super-heroine custom is still on for this week, Angelique had the coolest idea for a shoot I've heard in a long time (you'll have to wait, I'm not giving it away) and I'll be putting together not one but two DVD videos with all footage shot in smoking hi-res HDV. As for DVDs, I have a story I've wanted to shoot for a while and I'm going to work on Angelique to help me out with it when time allows.

Finally, what a difference a day makes. Two days ago I was doing back flips because I got a web site up and going. Yesterday I was crest-fallen because a couple serious issues with the site popped up, that I did not think could be resoled; however yesterday a solution presented itself, and I am happy with how things are working now. That doesn't mean I'm done though, not by a long shot. Everything is a work in progress!

Still champion ...

Today has been a cluster of odds-n-ends. After being sick for 3 days with some sort of crud, I've still been muddling through on a dozen projects at once, all high priority. I got the site up and live only to discover that the way it was being handled sucked big and hard and needs to be reworked. I have a work-around and have my fingers crossed it goes into place before the site actually gets crawled ... otherwise the search engines will see two duplicate sites and I'll look like a spammer (and I hate spammers).

I did manage to finish the pole tie rig or more specifically the mechanism to attach it without marring the walls. That baby is gonna get some use! I also took some pics of it for the custom requester along with the outfit he'd like to see. I dropped the ball on contacting him about things this weekend, so I hope he'll still want to proceed. I'll shoot it one way or another, either for him or for a video and some C4s ... I'm hoping it's for the customer though. I hate when things fall through because I get away from my checklist.

As usual I did some stats checking and my #1 clip from week one of the store and every week following is still Angelique in Hogtie from Hell. I don't see how anything is going to dethrone it because it sells once a day.

www.tedmichaelsdamsels.com is LIVE!

My website just went live. You can visit it at www.tedmichaelsdamsels.com and check it out. For the moment it is primarily a vehicle to show screen shots from recent clips, but I will add photo samples and perhaps paysite capability down the road to showcase the billions of photos I've taken (I've shot for over 12 years).

I'll warn you, it requires JavaScript as it is geared towards presentation and not compatibility. As time warrants I will work on an HTML only version, but for now it remains a portfolio.

Let me know what you think!

Suckin' hind wind

If you're not from my part of the country the title probably doesn't mean much too you. If you are then you know it means being way behind in the race, the race today being my task list. I've gotten a lot done but nothing from my primary list. I guess I should be happy finding a spun aluminum pole with no wobble for the post-tie rig and coming up with a no-marring fastening system that relies about 3 bucks in hardware. I had hoped to be working on some RM versions of clips based on a request from a frequent customer (why RM I don't know, the quality is such bleh). The customer is always right thought, so he'll get his wish.

I'm also way behind for my clips for today, but I did get some work done on my first video release. I don't have a name, but it focuses on 3 gals with ample breasts, so don't be surprised if it has "Busty" somewhere in the title. The first gal will be Kerri Taylor who I work with often and appears multiple times on my clip store. Her work on Chesty and Chairtied is the update today which will also appear in all it's 1080p, hi-res glory on the first video over at C4S when it's ready. I'm thinking of adding a bosomy blond and the wonderful JJ Plush as well. Time will tell!

Before that though it's back to the pole tie rig for the custom shoot where Angelique Kitos will appear as a plucky and yet unlucky heroine that gets caught snooping, tightly tied to a vertical pole and made to suffer the indignation of a big vibrator welded to her sensitive areas. After that, I'll work on some classic material of Maria Shadoes being abducted, man-handled, put in one hell of a hogtie and then hung from a hotel door like a side of beef in a meat locker.

Chop saws and powerdrills

Custom videos get done on weekends around these parts. Since yesterday was date night (Barbecue following Paranormal Activity 2) that makes Sunday get 'er done day. Angelique is dealing with mutant activity in Fallout while I'm prepping for a super-heroine request that came our way.

I've already ordered the missing materials for the outfit but still need to hit the party store for a harlequin mask. Earlier I had the fun of bringing out the miter saw and the drill press to put together a post rig. Now I don't know about most of you but I like to keep my home, well, a home. As such I don't bolt poles into the floor for the sake of cinching damsels up to them. That requires making rigs. The new place has the perfect door way that only required making a brace for the top of the door jamb, a brace for the bottom and a pole to go between them. The sawdust flew, the whir of the drill driver echoed in the garage and 20 minutes later we have a post for a tasty pole tie that is rock-solid and damages nothing in the house. Even better I got to use some old two-by-fours that came on a shipping pallet for our treadmill ... I hate wasting good wood (pun intended) and was glad to get the entire rig done for free!

With permission from the requester I'll put up some peeks at how things went later. Until then I'll put up something from a clip that went up last night. It stars the wonderful Kendra James. It's notable in that it is the very first clip I ever shot of her and that it contains more dialog from myself than any clip I've ever done. I'm the strong, silent type when it comes to "bad guys" but it was necessary to be a loud-mouth to make this clip work. All the rigging was done on-screen which is always a bit tighter than when it's done before the camera rolls, and Kendra had to deal with a gag consisting of a large ball, duct tape, a gauze head wrap and then electrical tape over that. Again, those in-the-moment gags tend to end up with a full stretch on the gauze, so she really had to deal with some discomfort. Notable as well for the longest title I've ever used, Kendra James in I Can't Get Away If You Tie Me Up Tight! is available now.

I love coffee

I woke up today feeling like I got hit in the face with a sledge hammer. I guess the change in weather has finally caught up with my sinuses. And that's why I love coffee. I'm not even finished with the first cup, and I already feel almost normal. I don't know how that works, but I'm not arguing.

Sitting over the steaming cup of miracle elixir, I'm doing my usual list of odds and ends. I had fun with some yahoo group posting. Knowing HTML is fun because you can always post messages that have links, pictures and formatting. It's all about the presentation. I put in an update from my last shoot with JJ Plush at her Yahoo group. I loved her blurb about me, "This guy doesn't fool around." It goes on the wall of quotes, with gems like "Nice guy, ties REALLY tight!" and "I'm glad I took my muscle relaxer."

Then I meandered on over to Stacie Snow's group to check things out. She was nice enough to put up a link for me and comment on the recent clip of her that went into my store. I always get a kick out of her group because she hates spammers more than I do ... and I hate spammers. I fully support her use of a tomahawk in solving the problem. The clips is from a series that I call "Hogtie from Hell" because it is basically just that, a hogtie that pushes people to their physical and mental limits. The "hell" challenges are all about the 3-minutes of video after the model is spent. I don't know why people agree to it, but I'm glad they do.

Oh, and the image of that hogtie agony is called Stacie Snow in Hogtied and Hurting available at my C4S Store.

JJ Plush ... truly born to be bound

I wanted to work with JJ Plush for 2 years and snagged just one hour with her at Fetishcon in 2009. We got along great and our styles fit like a glove. That made it easy to book basically an entire day of trades and paid shoots. We did some incredible work, her sporting the 3" ballgag I made for her the entire time.

If you don't like drool stay away from the stuff we shot. She's great with drool and that gag makes for a lot of mess leaking out of her mouth. The first set we shot I wanted to be a standard tie. Well, standard for me being a 3" ballgag, elbows welded together and arms crushed to torso at the chest and waist. I took the number of photos I wanted and almost jokingly asked if she'd be willing to shoot some video. A fervent nod and 20 minutes later we had a full 15 minutes of mauling, struggling, drooling, breast bondage and a jacked hogtie all done on camera.

I have a lot more from that day, and I'm working to get her here for a multi-day shoot in November. If you chat with her or visit her yahoo club tell her she needs to do it ... that gal needs to be roped up and although I am biased I do it the right way. The video is called JJ Plush in Breast Bound and Bundled.

I woke up way too early today, so I got to work way too early. Before the coffee kicks in my brain is best suited to repetitive and mundane tasks which is great for redoing all the links on a dozen html pages. That didn't quite wake me up enough to make some needed JavaScript fixes though and that puts me into the photo/screenshot sorting zone.

With a ton to go through, it's more of a task than you'd think to pick the ones you feel are best suited to speak of the essence of a clip. I know, I know ... poor me having to go through all that footage of totally helpless women.

I had this cool moment the other day when I needed to record voice-overs for a super-heroine video I'm editing. I usually just record audio onto a tape with the camcorder to make sure the audio levels match the original footage. I pulled out what I thought was a blank tape that really had footage on it. I mean, footage of clover clamps and a duct tape hogtie with full nylon encasement. How the hell do you lose track of something like that? That baby went up onto C4S fast.

Here's my favorite part of the video. It is impossible to recognize the girl because of the full nylon encasement and duct tape everywhere, but that's the beautiful Angelique Kitos. Why would anyone take somebody that smoking and totally hide every part of her like that? I know it seems crazy, but the result was incredible. I mean the video of it is hot but to be there and see it in person ... well, now I am the lucky one. I'm even luckier that she still lets me tie her up after putting her through that! All the sweaty action is in Angelique in Mummified and Vibrated.

Revisiting the clip I have a feeling that I'll be digging out the box marked "Pantyhose/Stockings" a bit more often in upcoming shoots.

Damn search weightings

I was all geared up to make my website live today. I mean it has a lot of things to tweak, but the functionality is solid, all the links work and it's compliant with the major browsers. What could be wrong?

Well, like a tech-head idiot I decided to read some lengthy documentation and then some articles about search weighting in Google and other major browsers. Wow! Great stuff. Of course then I realized that I was doing almost everything the wrong way to rank highly in searches. Okay, not everything. I'm smart enough to fill in my alt tags and such but holy cripes was I missing out on some major things.

The solution of course is to re-tool everything before the web-crawlers start hitting the pages. I can't have a page up that gets crawled and indexes all wrong,

The good news is that all the major issue have been resolved and now it's a matter of linking everything back up that no longer connects. It took the better part of the day and delayed a clip update, but I'm back on track. To console myself I made a new site logo ... I'm pleased with it!

It's about time

It's been a long time since I've had a blog of any kind. Oddly the reason isn't because I have nothing to say but because I generally can't shut up. I mean, ask anyone who's ever worked with me before. I'm sure they wish I was the one gagged at certain points. Well, tough nuts because I'm giving it a shot again :)

There's been a lot going on over the past months. I finally decided to get a clips4sale store up to distribute the, oh, at least a decade of clips I've shot. It is steamrolling a bit because I didn't expect it to actually generate sales, and yet it is doing just that. I started with my latest content which means I have a mix of DV, HDV and wide-format HDV. Do I mix it all together? Do I have multiple stores? Well, I have to have multiple stores at some point for all the iPod, iPhone, iPad, iDunno devices out there.

On top of that I dusted off my web-design skills to put up a homepage again. I'm not the average person that wants to put up a pay site. Noooooooooo, I have to have a "portal." I don't really know why that's in quotes but in my head there's a little self-sarcasm when I think it. Although I will have a pay site at some point soon, I wanted to start with a way to show up hi-res screen captures from the videos I've been working on. Rather than just put up a bunch of thumbnails I had to (as with everything) be creative with it. Hey, I'm a Sagittarius. It's what we do. I'm happy with the results so far, and I hope that folks find it a usual way to see some caps from the clips. Oh, and the answer is yes, I will be putting up photo samples there as well sometime after things go live.