Loud and unpleasant

Before I even started this class, I knew I was probably going to be challenged.  The girl who made the booking had already proven herself to be aggressive and dictatorial.  I had no personal experience with her, but the person who took the booking - a local agency - told me that her usual terms had simply been ignored.

It's her company policy to ask for a deposit in order to secure a booking, then ask for the payment to be settled in advance.  I have a slightly different policy for my own private bookings, but I completely get the logic for this one.  Well, the girl who booked me simply dictated her own terms and completely refused to compromise on them.

I've encountered people like her before.  She has money, and she feels that this gives her license to behave rudely, to overturn anything that doesn't suit her and to make any demands she feels entitled to.

There were two classes being held on this day, so Alison and I agreed that I'd take the smaller one - with the potentially difficult girls - while Alison would take the larger one and run it with Qba.  I took the basement room and she took the upper room.

The demands started almost immediately and I didn't personally witness all of them.  My class was scheduled to start first, so Alison helped me to prepare and helped welcome the girls, but two of them cornered her and aggressively demanded that she refund them the cost of a drink.  They had wandered up to the other room - the one that Qba was using - had bumped into a screen and had, as a result, spilled said drink.  Alison managed to get the bar staff to agree to provide a replacement, but that was already a sour note.

When the girls arrived into the basement, one of them took one look at the room and immediately voiced her approval and enthusiasm at the same time in that Neddy kind of "look-at-me" way that only  truly obnoxious people can do.  She hit this ear-splitting whoop that genuinely had me wincing with pain - and she sustained that note for at least ten seconds.  It's not even like I was naked at the time, so she wasn't responding to anything like that.  She just wanted to announce her arrival in the room.

Now, normally when the girls first arrive, there's a bit of enthusiasm and they're pretty animated.  That's fairly standard and it's all cool.  They soon settle down.  Not this lot, though.  They talked over each other, shouted at each other, had loud conversations with each other - all the time.  The hubbub that usually settles down fairly quickly, was continuous and sustained.  Repeatedly I found girls looking at me expectantly for direction, but I couldn't talk because someone else was already talking - loudly and animatedly - to someone else.  I'd catch that person's attention and let it be known that I had something to say, but as soon as she'd calm down, someone else would immediately fill the silence up with more pointless jabbering.  I was genuinely starting to get irritated.

They weren't all rude, though.  It's just that the polite ones were also the quiet ones.  One of them looked embarrassed at her friends, caught my eye and shrugged.  She told me I needed to be more aggressive.

So I agreed.  I raised my voice - just louder than the loudest one in the room at that point - and said "Quiet!"  And I drew out the last syllable until I had everybody's attention.  And then, as if I hadn't had to resort to something so dramatic, I calmly introduced and described the "Make A Giant Man" pose.

When it was all done and I got a chance to talk to Alison, I asked how her class went.  She told me that she had a great bunch of girls - quieter, friendly, more polite and really appreciative of what the event.  She said they genuinely seemed to enjoy themselves.  Which was a huge relief, because her class was twice as big as mine, so if they'd all been as loud as my girls, they'd have been intolerable.

I knew my girls were going to be trouble even before I started.  Which is why I chose that group - despite it being the smaller one.  I wanted to be able to handle it personally.

But - with the exception of a couple who seemed to wish they were anywhere else - they were genuinely the rudest, most obnoxious and most difficult crowd I've ever had to handle.

Giant, hairy muppet nipples

This was Kira's second class, and her first one in The Standard.  I left her directions, because she had to meet me there, but she had no trouble finding the place.  My directions are very clear.  It must be one of my few talents.

The place was looking particularly cool, today.  Candles were set out and everything - barring some minor rearranging of tables - was pretty much taken care of for me.  And the two heaters were already turned on, so even if I hadn't figured them out yet, I still had warmth.

I set the laptop up so that it was playing my slideshow video.  And towards the end of the class, it occurred to me that it had a couple of extra uses that I hadn't anticipated.  First of all, I could turn to it and use it to illustrate some of the challenges I had in mind.  While I was describing the "Make A Giant Man" challenge to the girls, I turned to the laptop and waited just a few seconds for one of the relevant pictures to cycle through on the slideshow - and when it did, there was a chorus of "aahs" as they all got it.  A picture is worth a thousand words.

The second unanticipated use was with timing.  I had three versions of the slideshow stored on my drive - all with different soundtracks.  The first one featured a track called East Hastings by a band called Godspeed You Black Emperor.  That was specifically chosen, because the length of the track roughly corresponded to the length of the slideshow, but it was much too sombre for the tone I wanted to set.  The second - with some tweaks to the slideshow running times - featured four tracks.  You're so cool by Hans Zimmer, The Staunton lick by Lemon Jelly, Heroic weather conditions of the Universe by Alexandre Desplat and Jesus walks by Kanye West.  The third was just a lower resolution version of the the second.

The slideshow music was very carefully chosen for different presentations, but during an art class, the video is more of a background option, so the music isn't important at all.  So I cued up all three versions of the slideshow, turned down the volume on them and played my hen night playlist, instead.  That's 15  hours worth of carefully chosen songs, played at random.

So, I strayed from the subject.  The timing of the three slideshows let me know when the class was running down.  The time just flew past with this particular group, so when I glanced at the screen and saw it was blank, I realised that the slideshows had cycled through their routine and at least 45 minutes had passed by since the girls had arrived and I'd been introduced.  A helpful quirk of the running times and a good method of quickly gauging how long a class has left to run. 

 

The girls from today's class were all Welsh - and they were very loud.  A fun group who were definitely ready to have a laugh.  While I was waiting to be introduced, I could hear one of them in particular.  In less then five minutes, she must have said "Oh, my God" about a dozen times.

Later - just for a laugh - I told her I was going to subtract a single point from her score, every time she said it again.  And since she'd just said it a second earlier, I started off by subtracting a point immediately.  She pointed out that she had children and if I did something like that to one of them - punished them for something before they even realised it was a punishable offence - there would have been major tantrums.  It didn't matter.  It was just a random, arbitrary reason to subtract points and I was hoping to see a steady decline in her score from that moment on.  Sadly, she didn't say it at all after that.

It's hard to say what my favourite challenge was, for this class.  I know the first one was a nightmare, because it was one of those where I had to keep my arm in the air for a while.  The second one produced some fun pictures, though.  Particularly one, where I looked like a sort of corpse with a vicious injury in my neck - like someone had smacked me with a cricket bat or something.

After that, though, I posed with the bride - and one of those pictures was really cool, too.  She was wearing horns on her head, and so she was drawn like a sort of happily smiling little devil or demon.  It was a really cool picture and had a lot of personality to it.  It easily won that particular drawing challenge.  

The final drawing challenge was the hardest one to pick a winner for, though.  Two pictures stood out and I struggled to decide which one was my favourite.  I went for the face in the end, but it was a very close thing.

It was the "Make A Giant Man" challenge, so the girls were focusing in on different body parts, and one of them had drawn my nipples.  Apparently she couldn't find any pink chalk, so she used a combination of orange and green, instead.  The result - giant, hairy muppet nipples.  Or something that looked like novelty earmuffs.  Or the creepiest eyes you've ever seen looming out of the darkness.

After that, I passed round the ego-stroking book, handed out some business cards and tidied up.  As Kira and I left, we saw everybody sitting at one of the tables in the main bar, so we walked over to say "goodbye" to them all.  One of the girls spotted my "comedy trousers" on the top of my bag and asked if they could have them for a souvenir, and I was tempted to hand them over - but then, I wouldn't have had them for the start of the next class.  I politely declined.

Mary and Max

I've got to feel sorry for Alison, sometimes.  She gets upstaged most of the time - despite being the person that keeps the momentum going and despite being the person that keeps the classes running smoothly, while I'm posing.  And she's the photographer, so she almost never gets into any of the pictures.

She also gets to hear my most regular jokes.  Which means, she hears the same ones over and over again.  Just before I wheech off the breeks (a good, Scottish turn of phrase) I always make the same gag about it being "cold in here" and I ask the girls to not hold that against me, when they get the big reveal.  It had an additional ring of truth on this occasion though.

Recently, the Edinburgh weather has turned downright chilly.  And today, in The Standard, it was exceptionally cold.  So that gag didn't even have the same comedy value.  It was a good temperature for the girls - and, in fact, for anyone who was fully dressed. But for the naked man, who had been hiding outside between the doors, waiting for a cue to enter the room.  In bare feet on a tiled floor.  This time, there was a genuine worry that there might be a bit of shrinkage going on.  Thankfully, however, I come from Aberdeen.  I'm used to chilly temperatures.

Once the class started and I was in the main room, it got a lot better.  I was able to move around more and warm up easier.  Alison commented that on the previous weekend, she and Qba had been provided with heaters.  And it was only later, when I was packing everything up and getting ready to leave, that I realised that I had been provided with heaters as well.  I had seen them, but hadn't recognised them as such.  I'd thought they were dehumidifiers or something fancy like that.

Incidentally, this group of girls were the same group that Alison and Qba had expected the previous week.  The agency had not warned me that they had changed the date of their booking, so while Kira and I had been doing a job in Glasgow, Qba and Alison had been waiting for them in Edinburgh.

  

Not all of my poses were easy, this week.  The worst was the one that was suggested during the "Model/Co-ordinator" challenge.  That's the one where we pick two volunteers, then get one girl to join me as the other model and the other girl to set us both up in a pose.  This time, the model was asked to bend over a chair, while I was asked to raise my hand like I was spanking her.  That's fine for a laugh, but having to keep that arm in the air for five minutes wasn't easy.

After a few minutes, Alison asked me if I was struggling.  I definitely was.  When I'd started, my arm was above my head, but within a few minutes, it had dipped to just about level with my ear.  I was definitely glad when that pose concluded.

During the "Make A Giant Man" challenge, it's always interesting to see what people come up with.  It's even interesting to see all the different ways they can interpret the rules of that particular challenge, which is one of the reasons I like to keep them fairly vague to start with.  This time, one of the girls drew my penis with a lot of loving care and attention to detail, so it was irresistible - she had to come up and pose with me, while she held it strategically.

The Giant Man was pretty cool, too.  Much more successful than a lot of previous Giant Men, in fact.  And I loved the fact that his head made him look a bit like a character from an animated film I had seen recently.  Max was one of the two central characters in a film called Mary and Max.  I used that as an opportunity to recommend the film to the girls, before the class ended.  I can't remember if I warned them that it would make them cry, though.

Sadly, Alison had to hurry off after the class ended, so no chance of us getting together for a coffee or a drink so we could relax and enjoy the mood that these events usually leave us with.  But we're going to see the new James Bond film in a little while, anyway.  So we can catch up on things at that point.

Monkey man

This class marked a new experiment - and one that I hope to develop in the future.

The Tiki Bar has been getting more popular, lately.  So much so, in fact, that I got a 'phone call from them a couple of weeks before the class, asking me if I could move it to a different time.  An earlier time, when they were less busy and could justify shutting the bar down while I put on the class.  I wasn't able to do that, though, so next time I was in Glasgow I visited the bar and spoke to the managers.

They were really cool about it all and told me that since the booking had been accepted (albeit accidentally - by a trainee barman, I think) then it would be honoured.  But 3PM on a Saturday afternoon was a time when people were starting to use the downstairs bar.  I really like that venue, though, and want to keep using it, so I was starting to think more creatively.  I suggested I set up as normal in the corner of the room and they just put up a couple of signs to warn their patrons of what to anticipate if they enter that bar - and then leave it up to them whether they were prepared to share it with me.

I was really surprised when they went for it.  When Kira and I arrived on Saturday afternoon, there was a sign on the door that mentioned a "Life drawing class".  I pointed out to Kira that it didn't specify that it was going to be a male model, so we wondered if male patrons might turn up, hoping to see a naked woman.  If so, they would be disappointed.

This was Kira's first class, by the way.  I might be using her again in future classes, so remember her name.

At first, we had the bar to ourselves, and it took no time getting everything set up.  And since we had the same barman as last time, he already knew the score and was more than happy to be there.  I suggested we take the warning signs down briefly, just before the girls arrived, then put them up again once everybody was present, and he was cool with that.  There was always the risk that someone might arrive early, or see a different sign in a different part of the bar, but we just had to run with that.  It was a delicate balancing act between warning the public of the nudity and spoiling the surprise for the girls.

I took up the same hiding place as last time at this venue, but hid my clothes in a better location this time.  Last time, they had been discovered by one of the girls - which had almost led to the surprise being sprung prematurely, but I had managed to get away with it.

I had another class in Edinburgh on that day - one scheduled to start at 2PM, so an hour earlier than this one.  I had Qba and Alison ready to cover that class, in The Standard.  Then, at 2:15PM, I got a text from Alison telling me that nobody had turned up for it.  About ten minutes before my own class was due to start, I had a brief 'phone conversation with her, and she said that both she and Qba were happy to stick around until 3:15PM in case the girls had got the time wrong, then do the class.

By then I'd gone through all my notes and clarified the time, date and venue - made sure that all were correct and that I hadn't messed up on anything.  So I told her that I'd leave the decision to her, and if the girls did turn up, then I'd make sure she and Qba got some extra money for the extra effort they'd gone to.  We've had late arrivals in the past - sometimes very late - and that always bewilders me.  The girls pay a lot of money for these classes, so I can't imagine why they'd be late and potentially lose part of the booking.

Anyway, my group arrived on time.  And almost all of the girls already knew what was going on - only the bride had been kept in the dark.  So when Kira introduced me and I stepped out of the cupboard, she was the only one shocked.

My favourite picture of the day was one where my face was very distinctly... monkeyish.  Yeah, that's not a word, but it doesn't matter.  The face really looked a bit like a monkey's.  It even made me think of the old Monkey Magic TV series.  I really wished I could have cued up the theme song when I announced it was the winner.  Either that or Monkey Man, by Toots and the Maytals.  I don't usually have such musical cues going on in my head during a class, so this must have been a special moment.

One girl fell victim to the scoring system almost immediately.  She asked for a rubber and I docked a point for "obvious and predictable innuendo".  She said she didn't mean it, so I docked another point for naiveté.  There were two more protests and two more points docked - so she jumped to minus four points very quickly.

Somehow, in the next couple of poses, she managed to lose three more points and at one point I admitted that I could have docked even more, but I was starting to feel like a bit of a bully by that stage.  I also admitted that this wasn't always enough to deter me.  Then I thought of the average episode of QI and tried to remember the name of the contestant who routinely gave incorrect answers to the questions, but she made the comparison herself, before I could get it - the name was Alan Davies.  I told her that I'd been struggling to remember his name, and she asked if that meant she was going to lose even more points, but instead I wiped out all her minus points and brought her back to zero.

Early on in the class, I set out the prizes.  A selection of three cards made up from pictures that Alison had taken just prior to an earlier class - so greetings cards that feature me sprawled out on some bean bags in The Fiddler's Elbow.  Someone asked if they were of me.  I told them that I'm a massive egotist.  Of course the pictures are of me.  

Ultimately, the bride won the prize.  It was the Monkey picture that clinched it for her.  But she was already entitled to claim one of the cards - just for being the bride.  So Kira and I shamelessly - and openly - tried to fix the competition by coming up with an off-the-cuff extra stage to it.  Actually, Kira came up with it and tried to explain it to me, but I couldn't follow her logic, so I got her to explain it to the girls instead.  I still didn't really follow it... or I did at the time, but can't remember it right now... so I'll just skip to the end and say that it didn't work.  The bride still ended up with the most points.  So we nominated a runner-up to get the second card.

The second winning picture was a penis close-up.  Nominated by Kira and half the class, I believe.  It was definitely a cool picture, but my own favourite was still the Monkey Man one.

Before I left, I spoke to the Manageress of the Tiki Bar and broached the subject of a monthly class held there.  If I can get two such classes on a monthly basis - one in Edinburgh and one in Glasgow - then they might turn out to be fairly popular events.  It works for Doctor Sketchy, after all.

On Monday morning, I called the agency to find out what happened to the other class.  They had changed their booking to the following weekend - the 27th - and I hadn't been given the updated information.  Which means I have another class coming up.  Nice.

Flexibility

This class was exceptionally chaotic.  Rowdier and livelier, even than usual.  Still a lot of fun, but I'm definitely glad I put in the preparation in advance.  When it was first booked, the plan was for 25 people attending, so I arranged to use The Fiddler's Elbow as a venue, since it has a larger space than The Standard.  It meant we could spread out more and set the class up into two groups.

I recruited another model so that there was one for each group.  Qba - a man I had met earlier this year in the Sapphire Rooms - was perfect for the job.  He practices yoga and is able to incorporate that into his poses.  And he has a very striking look that's perfect for the job.  A small beard and moustache that make him look a bit like Guy Fawkes, and he starts out with a top hat.  Makes for a great entrance.

I also involved two other people.  Qba's girlfriend (her name is Pixie - she's someone else I met in the Sapphire Rooms) so she could see a class running, and possibly work as a tutor in the future.  And Maria, so she move back and forth, taking pictures.  As usual, I had Alison taking pictures as well, but I knew she was going to be very busy with organising all the other details, so it made sense to take a little bit of the pressure off her.

I had a brief discussion with Alison at one point.  I thought that perhaps I could take up one space, while Qba took the other space - and the girls could drift back and forth between the two groups as they liked.  But she thought that it would make more sense if the groups stayed relatively consistent, while the two models switched spaces halfway through, instead.  It made sense - best to keep the format as simple as possible.  Otherwise, there would have been just too much going on and the whole thing would have been in danger of getting out of hand.

At one point - just as I was getting ready to take up my second pose - some of the girls in my group looked over towards Qba's group, saw him standing on my head and were instantly very impressed.  I was immediately asked if I could do that as well.  No.  They were disappointed and the next question was a challenge - what could I do?  That one definitely put me on the spot, and I suddenly felt like I was letting myself down a bit, by comparison.  So I lay down on the couch and stuck my left leg over the back of it, to demonstrate that I was capable of a bit of flexibility, myself.  They didn't show it, but I'm confident that the girls were very impressed by this.

One of the things that always amazes me - and makes the classes so interesting - is seeing how someone will interpret a pose.  The pictures can be exactly right, but create a very, very different atmosphere.  In the last drawing challenge of the day, I posed with one of the girls.  She sat in a chair and I put my foot up on it, then leaned forward and put my hands on her shoulders.  Nothing more dramatic than anything I've done a hundred times already.  But one of the pictures - the one that won that competition - looked pretty scary.  My body and the girl's head.  I'm not going to describe it any further - just take a look at the pictures below, and you'll see for yourself.

When the girl who drew that picture stepped forward to pose for photographs with me, someone suggested that we reprise the pose.  So we did that, and then we tried to enact the kind of pose that could have created a picture like that.

I nearly forgot to bring out my feedback book this time.  By the time I remembered it, it was to late - the girls had already gathered their stuff together and were preparing to leave, so I didn't want to add to the confusion by suddenly digging out the book and chalk, then getting them some volunteers to sit down again and start scrawling comments onto the book.  So, instead, I let it go.  The girls left, Qba and I got dressed, and all of us - Alison, Pixie, Qba, Maria and I - had a brief conversation and I told everybody that I would be happy to hire all of them again, if more opportunities came up.  In fact, I already have Qba and Pixie in mind for a class coming up in October.

As I left, I saw the girls sitting in the bar, so I dug out the book and took it over to them.  I got my class souvenir, after all.  One of the girls told me that some of her friends are going on a hen night in Edinburgh within the next couple of weeks and promised to pass my card on to them.  I think the chances of them hiring me are slim - not really enough notice.  But it would be good if I got some extra work out of it.