Post IMsL Update

So it has been about 3 weeks since the Inverted Eye vended at IMsL and I honestly needed at least a week and a half to catch up on sleeping after such an intense four days of work and play! My merchandise was a hit and I got a lot of great feedback from the attendees, most of whom said that they had never seen anything like what I had to sell at any conference they had gone to before.

Many people visited my booth and I met some really wonderful people in the process of vending and socializing. It probably didn't hurt that I also had such wonderful helpers and delicious eye candy at the table such as Jukie Sunshine from the Diamond Daggers and Leo from ButchBoi.



I enjoyed meeting my fellow vendors and genuinely appreciated the conversations I had with the sweet and gosh darn foxy Jacq, the owner of the sex toy store Sugar in Baltimore and my vending neighbors Zifra and Daemon from BunnyFlogger. (ps, I still NEED to feel the thud from the Double Bunny Flogger!) It was great to briefly catch up with Mike from the Twisted Bear and fun to chat with Ms. Martha from Ms. Martha's Corset Shoppe (I do hope your sweetie enjoys being tormented by the antique branding iron you bought from me!)

Sales were great and a few were quite memorable. For example, the lovely Mistress Shae bought one of my favorite items, a hand painted fraternity paddle and although it was difficult to see it go, I was very glad to see that it was going to a good home!



Boi Blu who co-produces the Desire Conference in Palm Springs also bought one of my most cherished finds, a chain link pot scrubber that feels wonderful and is also oh-so-functional!


I was also proud that adorable bootblack Mo, who is a leather family with Ms. Cat & Ajax who put on the fabulous Eclipse! women and trans party at the Citadel purchased my adorable pink shoe shine box. (And I do look forward to the shine you promised me soon Mo!)

Finally, I was also honored to meet Mistress Cyan, who puts on the amazing DomCon conference in Los Angeles in May. She invited me to vend at the conference, so I may be coming down to L.A. in early May!

Inverted Eye at IMsL March 19 - 22 in SF at 1500 Van Ness!

I am tremendously proud that I will be attending IMsL (International Ms Leather) as a vendor for my new business, the Inverted Eye, a vintage store offering subtly kinky items and discreet fetish antiques.

My merchandise includes medical/quack medicine, barber, equestrian/pony play, mommy/daddy, baby, teacher, librarian, schoolboy/girl, sailor, cowboy, circus and burlesque objects of art, ephemera and tools of the trade from the 1900's to 1970's.

Additionally, I will be offering a 10% discount to all IMsL attendees.

IMsL is being held at the Holiday Inn at 1500 Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco.

Please make sure to come downstairs to the vending area to say hello and check out some of the unique treasures that make up only a fraction of what I have for sale at Inverted Eye!

Looking forward to meeting everyone this weekend!

Alix

Inverted Eye Attends the Eclipse Play Party at the Citadel on Saturday January 31st

I am excited to let everyone know that the Inverted Eye will be at the Citadel with my amazing collection for sale from 8 to 10pm at the Eclipse Women & Trans Play Party on Saturday, January 31st.

So if you've been wondering what unique Valentine’s Day gift you could possibly find for your favorite sweetheart, Mistress, Daddy, or spouse, or for that special teacher, sailor, barber, burlesque dancer or equestrian-lover in your life, look no further!

Choose from intriguing Medical, Barber, Equestrian, Domestic, Juvenile, Scholastic, Uniform, Kitsch, Vaudeville & XXX categories to find that perfect treasure that will express your admiration and appreciation.

For more information, take a peak at http://www.InvertedEye.com

Amazing Traffic to the Site & My First Sales!

I just wanted to post a quick note and report that since the launch of the online store last week I've had about 1000 unique visitors check out the website and, I am proud to announce that I made my first few sales shortly thereafter! Who knew that there would be an overwhelming desire for butter paddles? And even after it sold, I had a few customers email me so they could confirm that it was in fact gone. Hmmm, perhaps I need to take a trip to the South or Amish country?

Inverted Eye Online Store Launched Today!

I am thrilled to announce that the Inverted Eye online store launched today, just in time for the holiday season!

Nothing says “you are remarkable” better than a subtly kinky vintage item or discreet fetish antique from the Inverted Eye.

While I opened the store with over 225 items of carefully hand picked inventory, I will be adding an additional 200 extraordinary pieces over the next few weeks, so please check back frequently.

Also, be sure not to miss the movie on the Home Page that stars fourteen incredibly sexy models who are dressed thematically to correspond to the areas of merchandise I am selling.

Finally, as I am committed to making the experience as compelling and user-friendly as possible, I welcome all feedback.

Inventory, Inventory Everywhere and Not A Place to Stand!

I can't believe it has been 6 weeks since I posted, as I have been busy as a bee preparing for the launch of the InvertedEye.com e-commerce site launch! My house looks like an antique store exploded in it, as I am taking all of the product photographs myself and my kitchen is now doubling as my photo studio. I am doing all I can in order to keep the momentum going, as the InvertedEye.com website is getting about thirty hits a day and I want to show everyone the fabulous items I have for sale just as soon as possible! Check back November 21st for the Shopping Page to debut!

In addition to taking product photographs, I spent the last two weekends having my dear friend Amelia Paradise (of the Diamond Daggers) shoot fourteen amazing models who were dressed in outfits that correspond to areas of merchandise that I will be selling on my site. I am taking the best images and making a small Flash movie to place on the Home Page. Here are just a handful of examples of the hotness that will soon be live:

Burlesque

Service Oriented

Student

Parental

Kitsch

In addition focusing on the online site, I have started in inquire about various retail spaces I’ve seen vacant on Valencia Street, so I can open the store front as soon as possible. I did find one space I am seriously pursuing on Valencia Street, so please keep your fingers and toes and everything else you can crossed! I would love to be open in time for the Holiday Season. Seriously though, I want the Inverted Eye to be a business that is deeply rooted in the community and therefore it requires a physical location. For me, I feel that much of the joy of selling these objects is to be able share with a customer where I found it, who owned it before me, what is used for - you know, the journey it traveled before it came to land on the shelves of the Inverted Eye...

InvertedEye.com Launched!!!

I am happy to announce that the InvertedEye.com website launched over the weekend, in conjunction with the first public appearances I made over Folsom Street Fair weekend. The online store will be up in a few weeks, but please go ahead and visit the website today!

Also, you can see some visuals of my debut at the Perverse Cabaret, thanks to the oh-so-talented and equally-as-foxy Violet Blue, at www.flickr.com/photos/violetblue/sets/72157607590875111/

Finally, I was extremely fortunate to have been sketched by artist extraordinaire, Suzanne Forbes, so please enjoy the amazing drawing she did of me!

The Inverted Eye is Co-Sponsoring the Perverse Cabaret on Saturday September 27th in San Francisco!

I am happy to announce that this is the first event the Inverted Eye is sponsoring and it should be an amazing evening of fabulous entertainment! Please come by and see my beautiful display of the most amazing and unique pieces I will be showing off from my collection! XOX Alix
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Diamond Dagger's PERVERSE CABARET provides the perfect mixed environment for flirtation, entertainment, fun, and sexy frolic for all of the Bay Area’s queer and slyly twisted folk.

The PERVERSE CABARET will feature a complete environment, designed to engage all the senses, including:

*Living Mannequins from Hayes Valley’s Dark Garden Unique Corsetry
*A human-table from the Castro’s Hot-Cookie
*A naughty antiquities display from The Inverted Eye, a forthcoming vintage store offering subtly kinky items and discreet fetish antiques

This titillating cabaret showcases flashy burlesque flesh, delicious Queen and King Drag, cabaret singers, performance art, dj dancing, digital projection and installation art. The mixed line-up and fabulous participants are thoughtfully brought together to ensure all of the bay area’s queer women, men, and friends feel welcomed to indulge in a great show before heading off to Folsom Street Fair’s steamy streets on Sunday.

Diamond Daggers and Amelia Mae Paradise feature the Bay Area's most flamboyant creatures, with all body shapes, colors, genders, and ages resplendent and shining.

Day 5

We woke up at four AM to the sound of rooster's cock-a-doodle-doo'ing, as we had parked our van and slept about three hundred feet away from a chicken farm. After lying half awake for five hours, we arose and checked out the vendors at the campground. My sole purchase was a fried egg salt and pepper shaker set and then we hit the road, once again determined to cover some serious ground, on this, the last day of the sale. Pretty early on, Christine announced that she was only going to be eating ice cream for the majority of the day, which she accomplished with three healthy servings.

The main event of the day took place at a dilapidated house we stopped at in Southern Kentucky. Christine overheard some guys talking about how "California was a gang-banging state" and so we were a little nervous about the people there. The owner of the house actually turned out to be someone who used to live in Guerneville and Mendocino. He asked me if I knew a interracial lesbian couple who he had lost touched with ten years ago and the name of the people did actually seem oddly familiar. We joked with who we thought was his son that great weed grew in Mendocino and hinted about wanting to get high. It turned out that the "son" was actually a recovering addict that had been taken in by the owner of the house. The owner also told us that he actually wanted to adopt this person and informed us that it was legal to adopt adults in Kentucky. Who knew?

There was nothing much to buy at any of the places we passed and furthermore, I was getting a bit loopy from seeing so many tractor parts and old tools. We had a nutritious PB&J lunch at the bottom of Wolf Creek Dam and wondered out loud if we could swim in the water or if we would be swept away by a hidden powerful current that wasn't visible. After some deliberation, we, armed with Hot Tamales and blue Slurpees, decided to drive back to Nashville a night early, to get back to some semblance of civilization. Once back in Nashville, we pretty much immediately decided we needed to go get a drink at a bar. Allison took us to a favorite watering hole and we met her friends and watched the Olympics on big screen TVs. Her friends told us a great way for women only (?) to get rid of hiccups, which is to suddenly kiss your female friend. After her friend described her kisses to be gifts from God, I contemplated faking a hiccup fit to see if she could deliver the promised goods. But, I am a gentlemen after all and therefore refrained. Maybe a bit of the South rubbed off on me after all?

Day 4

We both checked the windows before we went to sleep but our cumulative exhaustion prevented us from seeing that one of the windows was open about four inches. Shivering with the beginning stages of hypothermia, we only discovered our error at around five AM. After a few hours of non-icy rest, we woke up and started our quest to explore the left side of the freeway near Jamestown.

We headed directly to the field where we had left off the day before and made a beeline to a gentleman selling a bull blinder. (www.stearns-museum.org/bhtc/media/catalog_pics/bullblinder.jpg) I wanted to have Christine try it on so I could determine whether or not it could be used as a costume or as a "mask" of sorts for other types of play. She tried it on but the fit was not ideal and so I passed on it. Instead however I did purchase two small boy (?) dolls that appear to have breasts and a branding iron with the letters "M", "R" and "W"; both were oddly intriguing and quelled my inverted desire for a cool purchase.

Moving on, we came upon a father and son duo who had a lot of jars still filled with pills and a sinister looking West German retractable baton. The boy said he found the baton while playing in a field and I wondered how one could just come across an item like this...

The next booth over we met a talkative old gentleman who had a bunch of interesting items. While we shopped he told us about how he married his high school sweetheart and that they had been together for forty-nine years. He remarked that his marriage had lasted so long due to the fact that he had "her and him" in the relationship , meaning his lady and the Lord. I bought, among other things from him, a vintage enema bulb.

The day's shopping proved to be fruitful and a lady even recognized my Eagles of Death Metal shirt and commented on how she had just seen them in Alabama. Christine bought some delicious cookies from an Amish child and a weird man may have (in Christine's opinion) thought we stole a Boy Scout mess kit from him.

After 8 hours of shopping we headed out and stopped at the place where a sign that I had seen on Flickr weeks before was hanging. It said Country Plowboy and had a picture of a red headed boy working the field with a mule. I loved this sign for the double entendre. When I wondered if it was crazy to ask if it was for sale, Christine looked at me and said, "You KNOW you're not leaving here without it right?" The owner of the sign, named Elroy Coop as it turned out, was surprised by my offer and I don't think really understood why I would want his farm equipment sign. He was happy to tell me all about how he'd had it painted to resemble himself as a young farmhand. When I told him I had seen the picture online, he said, "The Internet? I can't even turn that thing on!" Once we settled on a price, we unhooked the sign from the post it was on and hauled the fairly heavy six ft. by four ft. sign into the van. I got his cousin's email address and promised to send him a picture of the sign once I got it home to San Francisco.

We then had high high hopes of finally leaving the Jamestown area after three days and set off with the intention to drive to Kentucky to sleep for the night. We got about five miles outside of Jamestown and saw a campground with vendors that we immediately pulled into. The woman who ran the place was about eighty-five and was nice as pie. She tried for about five minutes to show us that her mangy mutt could do a trick, called the "belly up". The dog was not having it and did not turn over for a tummy rub - not once. During this time her ninety year old husband showed up and decided to share with us how the dog would only poo in high grass... all the while the woman kept repeating "belly up, belly up, belly up."

Day 3

We woke up in the morning after a restful night's sleep at the Pickett State Park campground. We got back on the road, determined to shop at the sales on the opposite side of the highway from the day before.

The first sale we stopped at had a few neat items, but they were very overpriced. One item worth mentioning was a kid's go-cart from the 50's that was called a "scat car". I wanted to buy it for the obvious reasons, but at $125, I passed after much deliberation. I also considered getting a school water fountain, but it was quite heavy but I wasn't sure that anyone else would like it as much as I did and I didn't know if anyone would really want to connect a water fountain inside their house/dungeon... Would they?

Back on the road, cruising along at the blistering speed of ten miles per hour, I spotted a child's school desk and so we pulled over. To our surprise, a Hulk Hogan looking man with a long white mustache and a shirt unbuttoned to his navel was the vendor and he gave me the desk for super cheap.

We moved on and parked the van back at another big encampment, that had hundred's of amazing vendors. We took some deep breaths and again settled in to the fact that we were probably going to be here for the rest of the day. Alabama and Kentucky were now clearly now not going to happen, as in three days we had only managed to cover about twenty five miles in total.

On a porch of a rickety old house, I discovered a box of all purpose black rubber gloves used for chemical spill cleanups. They seem apropos wear for Folsom Street. We also found resin hands used to test the strength of latex gloves on an assembly line, which I think also could be of amusing interest and as the woman vendor demonstrated, were remarkably indestructible.

Christine called me over to take a look at a bizarre potty training toilet and we ended up talking to the vendor for a while while I gathered a handful of items including a early 20's men's portable shaving kit box and medieval torture looking chain mail pot scrubber. I also came across a box of cheesy cocktail napkins with Playboy cartoons on them. I then asked the man if he had any more risque items and he said he did have something, but it was so dirty that he would not allow us to look at it in full view of the public. As he went into his RV to fetch the item, our minds raced... WHAT could this item be?!? He came back a few minutes later, with a cigar lit. Oh my, this was going to be good! He told us to go behind the RV and look at the item standing between the RV and the van and handed us a, gasp, nudist calendar from the 60's! This was the tamest thing we could have imagined, as the pictures were of women and men playing volleyball, horseback riding and barbecuing - ooh la la! We politely returned the contraband and left, chuckling to ourselves. If this was the dirtiest thing he owned, perhaps he should come visit us in San Francisco? I guess it is all a matter of someone's perspective, right?

Day 2

So I woke up in the Bean Pot campground and it was my birthday. We headed out and drove down south about twentyfive miles and and picked up where we left off the day before. We found a huge encampment with about two hundred vendors and immediately felt overwhelmed, realizing that this alone could take us the better part of the day to explore.

The day began promisingly. I happened upon a father daughter team selling primarily tools (one, if not the most prevalent goods for sale on the route) and I found a pile of locks with the word "Buster" emblazoned on them. Score. I bought ten. I proceeded and came across a very forward thinking General Custer looking man in a wheelchair, who was a very knowledgeable and personable man who knew in detail everything about his inventory. After talking to him for a while, I felt comfortable enough to ask him if he had any risque items. He showed me postcards with pin-ups on them and then a bunch of Vargas prints. While showing me these items, he kept cracking jokes about how the ladies were his old high school sweethearts and his ex-wives... As we were leaving he also launched into anti-Bush diatribe and excitedly voiced his desire to put firecrackers up Dick Cheney's ass. He vehemently said that he thought Bush and Cheney should be charged for war crimes. Hurrah. My kinda man.

Christine then called me over to look at a bouncy metal rocking horse from the 50's. I liked the look of it immediately, especially because it had pretty brown moving eyeballs. In fact, for the rest of the trip, the horse's gaze followed us as we were driving. Every time we looked back at it, it was pensively looking at us with a kind of sideways sweet and loopy curious gaze. After I gave the man the money for the horse he said apologetically, "I'm sorry I thought you was a boy" to which I responded, "Don't worry, it's OK, I'm a little bit o' both, sir."

Back in another field, we saw a old very heavy medical exam floor length light that was being sold by a Lynyrd Skynyrd looking dude. He bummed us a cigarette and while we smoked together, he told me he got a lot of stuff from the local university laboratory and mentioned he had a buddy who could possibly hook me up with items in the future. I gave him my card and told him to email me. This light turned out to be the heaviest thing we bought and the most awkward to drive with in the van. Hopefully, it will prove to be a worthwhile purchase.

One of the oddest people we met later that afternnon, was a man who was straight out of Deliverance. He was standing amid piles of rusty farm equipment and when I tried to negotiate a lower price for some horse tack, he could barely utter a complete sentence and kept talking about his "boss?" who controlled the firm prices. Regardless of the items I wanted to buy, I couldn't help but wonder how this person could function and survive in the world with such a limited ability to simply communicate. It made me sad.

After six hours of shopping at a couple of these massive carnival-like tented encampments, we had progressed a grand total of about one mile (!) along the route. Our hopes of driving four hundred miles and making it to either Kentucky and/or Alabama slowly dwindled, when we realized how dense the shopping was in the area we chose to start in.

After a nice lady with clear green eyes (who I thought sounded like Dolly Parton) told us about a campground in Pickett State Park, we drove there to secure a spot before nightfall. As it was my birthday, we went out to find a place to celebrate, only to find that the town was completely desolate and the only thing open was WalMart and McDonald's. We choose McDonald's and had a festive meal, ordering hamburgers, fries, sodas and a side salad and an apple pie and a milkshake. Pure decadence, eh?

Longest Yard Sale Day 1

We are in Crossville, Tennessee at the Bean Pot campground. We are lying on a mattress in our cargo van listening intermittently to music on the computer. The deafening cacophony of cicadas almost overpowers the music playing; it is so loud we chose not to pitch the tent among the trees because of the crazy noise! I just ate my first southern barbecue at Lefty's (four and a half star rating on a Google search thanks to Christine's trusty Sidekick- a wireless godsend.) a dinner of pulled pork, chicken, beans and coleslaw. It was delicious! We shared a blackberry cobbler, which the waitress tried to prematurely take away, sending us into an embarrassingly loud panic. I bought some BBQ sauce to take home to share with my foodie friends and to remember the experience by.

We got to Highway 127 at 6 pm- too late to really explore any of the sales for the day, except for one cluster of six vendors. The first man we encountered was a leathery-skinned gentleman with his arm in a sling and a language barrier possibly the result of the electric blue beverage in his mug.(Hypnotiq?) He wanted $50 for a horse tricycle, $50 for doctor's a scale, $100 for a dental cabinet, $100 for a baby buggy, $2 for each Playboy magazine (from '68 and'69) $1 for risque/50's pinup matchbooks, and $5 for a book called She Loved A Sailor- all ridiculously high prices. I think he MAY have been in a blackout, as his negotiation process was somewhat unorthodox- each time I made an offer, the numbers he quoted me changed and became higher not lower! It came to light after 15 minutes of bargaining that he was WASTED as the prices fluctuated each time asked with no rhyme or reason... I got the buggy for 40 dollars, then moved on, not feeling the love... Nor good bargain hunting juju.

We then found a vendor by the road who in contrast was super lovely- a mother and daughter selling primarily Victorian clothing and jewelry. They sold me some bloomers, a heart locket, a corset, a hat and a cheetah needlepoint. I told them I was looking for risque or "naughty" items. I toned down my description of the store but they got the gist. The daughter told me to email her as she was a collector of etiquette books and had many more pairs of bloomers at home. They ran an online business, and they asked me where my store was. When I answered that currently it was "only in my head," it was interesting to hear the mother say that she knew what I meant, that for years her store was "only in her head" too. Meeting them after the first crazy dude restored my faith in the yard sale and made me regain my excitement for the trip.

As midnight approaches, the last day of my 37th year, I realize I just bought the first five items for my store, the first $64 of inventory for the Inverted Eye. With my first few purchased treasures safely in my possession, the journey begins...