"My aim this year is to produce better films, more creative and more artistic than I did last year" – Kendo 

Six o’clock this morning I woke up and wrote this thinking of my dad.

 

 

I wanted to say I love you, but I could not say the words

I wanted to say I love you, but I knew you’d think it  absurd

I wanted to say I love you, when you held me in your arms so tight

I wanted to say I love you, when in the  distance I saw a light

I wanted to say I love you, when the world was all a blur

I wanted to say I love you, when at that moment I did not care

I wanted to say I love you, even though those things weren’t said

I wanted to say I love you, when you taught us hide them in your head

I wanted to say I love you, when towering over me that night you were so tall

I wanted to say I love you, when every day and night I felt so small

I wanted to say I love you, that night when you were there

For in the morning I could not say I love you, dad, as you were gone for evermore

 

I was in bed most of yesterday with a viral chest infection I caught from my son and I felt that poem just needed to get out so I picked up my iPad which is kept next to the bed and I started typing. As I have said and written before I felt as a young lad I was brought up quite strictly, no violence or abuse just strictly. My earliest memories were of having a kiss planted firmly on my forehead which changed quickly into a hand shake a few years to come. Now I am sure that there will be many people over the years who read this and think to themselves lucky lad he escaped the violence and abuse. From a young age we were taught that was my brother and I, to be seen and not heard. As I got older I recognised a feeling of fear that came over me as  my dads key was placed in the front door and the door slowly opened.

How many children just kick their shoes off without untying the laces? My dad would tie the laces into tiny knots around ten to twenty knots per shoe and  we would have to untie them before we could use them again. If we had no homework we would have an hours reading and writing that my dad would then check and if there were spelling mistakes we would have to check every single word. If our bedrooms were left a little untidy my dad would go into our bedroom and pull everything out of our cupboards, everything, and leave it in a big pile on the bedroom floor.

I remember having three paper rounds as a young boy and working in a sweet shop too numbering all the papers for the other paper rounds. I used to get up really early, sometimes at four thirty. I remember once, when I was out on my paper round standing under a big tree one morning as the rain was falling all around me, this big tree sheltered me from that cold winters morning, my bright yellow two piece waterproofs kept me dry. A street light lit the rain as it fell to the ground and the branches of the tree glowed a warm orange as the cold all around me tried to creep in, but that big old tree kept me safe.

Anyway I know my dad loved me even though I never remember him saying it, but is that a sin? I might of been rebellious but then who isn’t growing up? Maybe the way my dad was brought up, I know his father worked for the church, a vicar I think, maybe my dad being in the army had something to do with his little ways or maybe it was because he was only seventeen when he met my mum and maybe he was just too young.

What did my dad teach me? Don’t be afraid of words like I love you, sure don’t just throw them around to strangers or for no reason what so ever. No but if you truly mean them tell that person, young or old, male or female, don’t hold them inside for the day as I did when they will be locked away forever.

I promise next week I’ll talk about some porn, but maybe this week, feeling a bit ill made me think of things locked away just under the surface. Have a great week

Kendo out x

 

I must say that I have really enjoyed writing this blog so far, and I have felt it to be quite an easy and theaputic thing to do. By now you should have a deeper insight into who is Kendo, who is Kendo the Porn Director, who is Kendo the person. The question now I suppose is where do I go from here?

Well let’s face it you are reading this blog and this blog is about a Porn Director, so in all fairness I kind of think you have an idea where it will go, or maybe you don’t, lets see.

Do I see what I do as porn or do I see it as something else, maybe something like ART! Well the answer to that is quite simple. I believe it doesn’t matter how I see what I do rather how you see what I do. But then again thats not really true is it. We are both as important as each other, the way I see it and the way you see it, both equal, interesting. If I was to tell you that I saw what I was doing as a mixture of art and adult, would you believe me? If I was to tell you that I was not that interested in the actual fucking side of things and rather the beauty of two people coming together as one, would you think I was talking a load of old rubbish or would I be talking the truth? Interestingly, I am actually thinking on that for a few seconds as I hope you will, please don’t scan read my words, they are not written to be scanned, rather understood. If you have ever watched any of my behind the scenes interviews you will see that what I do I take very serioously, BUT I do like to have a laugh and have a relaxed atmosphere on set, come on can you actually really truely imagine the stress that the male model might be going through before I or any other so called Director sayd those imortal words, ACTION? Well do you? Take away the soft focused edges, the magical mystical blurring, the beautiful music track, the slick edit and what do you have? PORN I love this Industry.

I started college a year and a half ago because I had so much free time on my hands I was not really achieving anything with my time well my free time. Now that sounds a little bad so let me explain. Sure I work a lot with with my editors but there’s only so much time they need me sitting next to them, asking them questions pushing their creative buttons extracting something deep within them that 95% of other Directors don’t even know exists or don’t care exists. It was Lisa who said to me about going back to college and it was never to start a five year BA course in Fine Art. She suggested I go back to college in my free time and do some screen printing. I had done a summer course with a great guy called Clive Vosper, a brilliant artist five years before and, I loved it. Anyway Lisa said go and do some screen printing but the problem was they were not running any courses at the time, but they were advertising a BA course in Print making, so I thought that sounds good to me not knowing just how much work would be entailed.

At the interview I had to take in mainly work related photographs, yes the work photographs that I am talking about were porn work photographs, Nothing too explicit, but what’s explicit to an art teacher and what’s explicit to a Porn Director might be two different things all together, might they not? So I had the interview and there and then they offered me a place on the BA Fine Art course, I asked about the printing course but was told “Sorry that course is not running anymore” erm “But you could do some printing on the fine art course if you’d like” OK they sold it to me and I was to start that September.

When I started the course I found I was in a group of eleven women, no men, all over Forty something and all coming from totally different backgrounds. Luckily having fifteen years experience with taking my own clothes off in front of screaming mental women, directing porn films gave me a perfect grounding with dealing with eleven women.

They are a great bunch of ladies like I said all from different backgrounds but a great bunch. We have had a couple of ladies drop out since the course started but we are now in our flow, producing some pretty cool work, even setting up a website that will being going live, to be launched later this year and even having our first exhibition in June of this very same year.

Since starting the art course I have always wanted and believed that my work in the Porn Industry and my art work would cross over and connect with one another. I have thought that my work would be the vehicle to focus my art. I have been working with different ideas for this and now I have a strong visual idea and focus on how this will happen. Since you are reading this blog and I hope enjoying the words I am writing then you will be privy to see how this will emerge and unfold, together in unity, a beautiful balance. I have always known from the start that it will happen, just not knowing how it will happen, but I promise you it will. This is true self belief, knowing.

So I spend two days a week, Wednesday and Thursday all day at college. I start my day on a Wednesday doing my early morning chores, I get up for 6:45 then I go to the gym with my wife Lisa at the for eightish until around nine, nine thirty. I then go to college until about four, I go home have some food see the boys and Lisa then I go and train at my martial arts in the evening until nine. Thursday I go to college until  four then I do a creative writing lesson after college until about five, so pretty full on and I also have to fit in going over the guys work, what they have been editing on those days. It is busy but balance is good. I am not wasting my time away, how many of us just sit in front of the TV and think somebody is going to knock on the front door and change our lives, come on wake up get out there and go and meet the world head on, take what you want but take it the right way. If you don’t have drive, desire, self belief then get it and get it not, read books like, Lifes Golden Ticket, Bounce, Buisness Stripped Bare, The one minute manager, Children are from Heaven, and my favourite Think and Grow Rich. That’s why at the weekend I don’t do any work, well try not to and try and just chill out with my beautiful wife and our beautiful boys.

So see you soon, well next week,  Kendo out x