Thursday, July 31, 2008

Birthday Present Part 1


Yesterday was my birthday and I received rather large box from my father. I have been waiting for this box for a couple of months now... He had been cleaning out parts of the house since mother passed and found a box of things related to me... Mother kept everything..... Everything! Tonight's post is dedicated to the day of my birth.
My hospital photo, the little pamphlets the nurses gave mom and dad when they arrived explaining the etiquette of having a baby, moms admission bracelet etc... There was form filled out with feeding instructions as if I was store bought! Some prescriptions which lead me to believe that I was a little colicy, apparently spiking the milk with a lil OJ was the ticket to calm the loudest kid!

Most interesting for me was the envelope filled with locks of whitish blond hair taken shortly after I was born. Genetic samples of the original me!

Over the next few days I will dive deeper into the box and pull out the most interesting pieces of my first few years. The experience has made me a little melancholy, mother put in such an effort to remind me of who I was, its truly a gift from her!

Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Laughing In Toronto!


Got a chance on Friday to attend part of the Just for Laughs Festival! Here are a few snaps from the show at Massey Hall


Jason Alexander... Very funny! Don't know why I was surprised by that but he was!

Robert Klien

Kevin Hart

Final bows including Robert Schimmel, Gerry Dee, Jeff Ross and Wendy Liebman.
It was a great evening for everyone...

Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman.

You Need To Go!



One's hometown never changes, its with you for life. Detroit will be my home town no matter where I am at. When Detroit goes through the good times (Like the Wings recent winning of the Stanley Cup) My heart is there.

More often the news is not good and can sometimes be down right awful as was the case at the end of this past week. Kwame Kilpatrick's slow arrogant meltdown found new lows with his assault on a Wayne County Sheriffs Deputy. The following are excerpts from the Free Press:

What's that old saying about when push comes to shove? Well, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has just pushed things too damn far. Enough already. It's over. It's got to be.

Kilpatrick has lost it. His mental fitness must be called into question. He should have been thrown in jail for shoving a sheriff's deputy, and he sure as hell should not be telling anybody else what to do these days.

If he won't resign, the mayor ought to offer a public apology -- for whatever that's worth -- and explain to the city's children that police officers have a job to do and must be treated with respect. Then he should take a leave of absence at least until his preliminary hearing on felony charges in September. Let him stay in the Manoogian. It'd be a small price to pay to keep him away from the levers of power.

For 3 1/2 hours Friday, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick didn't know whether he would go home or to jail.

Accused of manhandling a Wayne County sheriff's deputy, spewing profanities and racially charged remarks, the mayor spent much of the morning with his hands clasped in his lap, rubbing his brow or shaking his head, before finally learning his freedom would be curtailed but not ended.

"I have locked up defendants for approaching and saying things to witnesses for a lot less, let alone touching them," Giles said.

"Irrational" is how 36th District Court Judge Ronald Giles described Kilpatrick's assault on a deputy who was trying Thursday afternoon to serve court papers on a friend of the mayor. Good for Giles to finally take real charge of the mayor's criminal case Friday, after weeks of swaying in the hot air from Kilpatrick's defense team. The judge set a thug-like cash bond for the mayor, subjected him to random drug tests, and generally dressed Kilpatrick down for incredibly bad behavior. In short, he treated the mayor like the criminal defendant he is. About time.

During his testimony, Wayne County Sheriff's Deputy White said he was trying to serve a subpoena on another city official when he saw a Ferguson Enterprises truck he suspected was driven by Bobby Ferguson, one of the mayor's friends, outside a home on LaSalle. Deputy White testified he had a warrant for Ferguson, who is a witness in the Kilpatrick case, and didn't know the house belonged to Kilpatrick's sister, Ayanna, who is married to Ferguson's cousin.

What comes next can easily be compared to a bad Jerry Springer episode.

After getting out of his vehicle with his partner, White said he saw one of the mayor's police bodyguards, identified himself and was permitted to approach the front door.

White said he met a man who identified himself as a relative of Ferguson, then said he heard shouting from inside.

"Don't tell those f-- anything. ... Get the f-- out of here," White testified he heard. Then he testified: "At that point Kilpatrick comes storming out through the door, gets behind me, grabs me with both of his hands behind me and throws me into Investigator Kinney," referring to his partner, retired Detroit police homicide Sgt. JoAnn Kinney, who is now working for the prosecutor as an investigator.

At that point in White's testimony, Kilpatrick turned, wide-eyed, toward one of his police bodyguards sitting in the front row of the courtroom. The police officer, who later said he did not witness the incident, shook his head.

White continued.

"Get the f-- out of here," he quoted the mayor as saying. "Leave my f-- family alone. Get off my f-- porch."

White testified he was not confrontational and left the scene rather than respond to the mayor's laying hands on him. Kinney testified the same later.

The pair also testified that Kilpatrick injected race into the confrontation.

"It happened so fast," Kinney testified in quiet tones. "I was like, I couldn't believe this was happening."

Referring to Kilpatrick as "Mr. Mayor," she said Kilpatrick shouted: "You, a black woman, being with a man last name White, you should be ashamed of yourself and ... why are you a part of this?"

Added to the already insurmountable trouble Kilpatrick is in over the texting scandal, the additional text messages that are to be released next week showing that he has had multiple affairs with other women and the scandals that kicked it all off in his first term, one has to wonder why would this man, the Mayor believe he should continue in his position. Detroit does not need a blacker eye Kwayme... The auto industry, the layoffs, the piss poor economy Detroit does not need any more, your an embarrassment to the whole world so please, please step down!

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Batman: The Dark Knight

Went and saw Batman: The Dark Knight today... In IMAX no less and I have to say its one of the best movies of the year... something I have said more than once this year... Hmm maybe Hollywood is finally putting it together! Anyways... I remembered I had taken some pics of the tumbler (aka: the Batmobile) So here is a little nerd hats off to Batman!



Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Hershell

Working this weekend to finish Hershell's portfolio... Was surfing through some images from last summer that I hadn't processed.. I really liked these... hope you do too!




Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

AfroFest 2008 Toronto!











Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

England Revisited...

Todays post is a reexamination of my trip to England in 2000. At the time I was using a film camera and would shoot images of certain places with multiple images... With my recent experiments in using the compositor in Photoshop i thought it would be a great opportunity to put together some images in a way I had not thought possible when I originally shot them. Each of images is made from 2-6 images. Enjoy!

Lord Nelson's Column in the middle of Trafalgar Square

The view from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich

The Bath Abbey shot from the floor of the Roman baths

Big Ben of coarse!

Simply called the monument, this column was built in 1667 to commemorate the great London fire of 1666

The Tower of London

Piccadilly Circus


Two Different views of Stonehenge on the plains of Salisbury built in 3100 BC

Here are some other non composited images from that trip...


Tower Bridge

Galleria

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey


Buckingham Plalace

Me at the Piccadilly Circus Tube
Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Friday, July 04, 2008

The Liberty Tree


In 1646 Griffith Bowan, one of my distant relatives planted a elm tree in Boston. Today that spot is marked at the corner of Essex and Washington as the place where that tree once stood, until it was cut down in 1775 by the British Tories.... The tree of coarse was the Liberty Tree.

The Liberty Tree (1646–1775) was a famous elm tree that stood in Boston, near Boston Common, in the days before the American Revolution. The tree was a rallying point for the growing resistance to the rule of England over the American colonies. In the years that followed, almost every American town had its own Liberty Tree—a living symbol of popular support for individual liberty and resistance to tyranny.

In 1765 the British government imposed a Stamp Act on the American colonies. It required all legal documents, permits, commercial contracts, newspapers, pamphlets, and playing cards in the American colonies to carry a tax stamp. Because the Act applied to papers, newspapers, advertisements, and other publications and legal documents, it was viewed by the colonists as a means of censorship, or a "knowledge tax," on the rights of the colonists to write and read freely.

The summer of 1765 in Boston was marked by militant citizens demonstrating against the Stamp Act. On August 14, 1765, a group of men calling themselves the Sons of Liberty gathered in Boston under a large elm tree at the corner of Essex Street and Orange Street near Hanover Square to protest the hated Stamp Act. The Sons of Liberty concluded their protest by hanging two tax collectors in effigy from the tree. From that day forward, the tree became known as the "Liberty Tree." The tree was often decorated with banners and lanterns. Assemblies were regularly held to express views and vent emotions. A flagstaff or pole was raised within the Tree's branches and when an ensign (usually yellow) was raised, the Sons of Liberty were to meet.

When the news of the Liberty Tree spread throughout the colonies, local patriots in each of the 13 colonies formed a Sons of Liberty group and identified a large tree to be used as a meeting place. In those times, holding an unauthorized assembly was dangerous business that carried threats of imprisonment or death. The casual appearance of a group chatting beneath a tree was much safer.

The sons of liberty were made up of prominent leaders included Paul Revere, Thomas Young, Joseph Warren, Alexander McDougall, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, Isaac Sears, John Lamb, James Otis, Marinus Willett, John Adams, and his cousin, Samuel Adams, who was a leader of the New England resistance. Silas Downer, a so-called "Forgotten Patriot", spoke as a Sons of Liberty member at one of the famed Liberty Trees in 1766. Members were drawn from across class distinctions, although these borders were less well-defined in colonial America. In order to do this, the Sons of Liberty relied on large public demonstrations to expand their base. They learned early on that controlling such crowds was problematical, although they shrived to control "the possible violence of extra-legal gatherings." While the organization professed its loyalty to both local and British established government, possible military action as a defensive measure was always part of their considerations. Throughout the Stamp Act Crisis, the Sons of Liberty professed continued loyalty to the King because they maintained a "fundamental confidence" in the expectation that Parliament would do the right thing and repeal the tax.

When it was apparent that the British would not do the right thing John Adams then the president of the Town Council raise three companies of 40 men each... These 120 Minute Men included another relative, Jacob Nash who answered the Lexington Alarm on April 19th 1775, a prelude to the revolution. John Adams was one of the primary framers of the Declaration of Independence and went on to become the Second President of the United States after George Washington.

On this and every July 4th I like to think upon what it must have been like to be involved in the beginnings of my country, and I am proud that I had relatives who participated in the those heady times.



Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Happy 4th Of July!



Today's photo credit: Unknown but damn good!
Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Andre Summer 08
















Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.