Bren Ryder

If you’ve watched “Seinfeld”, then you can probably hear the above title in the same way that I can hear it in my head. It’s like when George Costanza’s dad would yell, “Serenity Now!” The context doesn’t really match up but I just think it’s funny.

Even though I’m still in my 30s I’ve been thinking about retirement a lot over the last few years. A lot of people do. Most people do because they’re working and planning for it. Once, I was doing some work (the window cleaning job) in a government tax office and one of the employees had a countdown sign that said, “276 months to retirement”. Yikes! Seeing that made me feel sad to think about pining for a time so far away that may or may not even happen. You know, because of that whole possibility of dying at any moment thing.

The way I like to think about retirement is…Retirement Now!

I don’t feel comfortable with the concept of doing something that I would rather not be doing in the future. Besides, artists never retire. I imagine retirement as being simply living life as per normal: cleaning, eating, recreational activities, creative work, and this and that. As Kurt Vonnegut said, “we are here on Earth to fart around.” So why wait? Why not retire right now.

I have a new job and I run a business so it might be hard to imagine how I could live a retired lifestyle, but I do. It’s a lifestyle where everyday counts and I never look to the future and hope it comes faster or hope it will one day be better. That’s basically retirement isn’t it?

Alright, so it’s my goal to live my life like I’m retired. My new job is part of that strategy. When I was looking for a job to supplement my income and potentially provide employment for decades to come I was doing a lot of thinking about what I could do that I would be satisfied doing until I died – if I had to. I thought about various trades, I considered work trends. I wanted freedom to move from full-time to part-time and vice-versa whenever necessary. I wanted physical activity but nothing harmful over the longterm. I didn’t want to get up early in the morning and I wanted it as quiet and stressfree as possible. Money was less of a concern. As long as it paid my bills it qualified.

Then, voila, my dream job materialized: night guard at a nursing home. And now I have retired. I get my biweekly retirement income. Five days a week I have 4 hours per day of enforced walks around the facility. I interact with people occasionally and deal with security issues as they come up. But, mostly it’s quiet. I have three hours of downtime in the middle of my shift to do things like write this blog, catch up on my creative work or simply contemplate ways to enjoy my retirement more. When I’m not “working” I run a small but popular porn website, create personal film projects for fun, go sailing, go on dates, and my favourite, eat breakfast in various restaurants – yes, it’s true, I really am an old man at heart.

Also, as it turns out, mornings are beautiful. It’s nice being up to experience the sunrise and watching everyone else get their day going as I am winding mine down. This isn’t a lifestyle for everyone but I love it. Now all I have to do is keep enjoying going for walks, keep creating art, continue sailing the seas and remain open to even better ways to enjoy retirement. Retirement Now!!

I’m a bit of a personal development junky. Always have been. I used to read Anthony Robbins books when I was in high school and personal finance books like The Wealthy Barber in my early twenties. Since then, I’ve purchased and checked out of the library a ton of reading material on self improvement. The result of this kind of obsessive research hasn’t actually materialized a measurable level of success. At least none that society conventionally views as successful. But, my whole life, no matter what’s going on for me, I’ve always been happy. I think that comes from the striving to be better. Only, for me, ”better” is “happier”.

Recently, I came up with a few key factors in my ongoing happiness quest. Over the years I’ve made categories like body, health, creativity, money, career, love, etc. My current strategy is to have positive affirmations of what is (or maybe what I want if it’s not currently an “is”). Here they are:

I love what I do.

I do what I love.

I am healthy and strong.

I have a beautiful home.

I have enough money.

I am blessed with abundant love.

Basically, I figure that as long as all of these things are true – or, I believe them to be true – then I’m happy. End of story. So, I gear all my tasks and goals towards maintaining this reality.

Which leads me to the point of this article. Due to the fact that my porn business wasn’t bringing in enough money to cover the expenses of running the business and paying my own personal expenses, I decided to get a job. Once I made this choice I created the two affirmations: (1) I love what I do. (Job) (2) I do what I love (Creative – Biz). It’s not easy to love what you do when what you do interferes with doing what you love, but I wrote these phrases down because I want it to be true. There’s really no point in doing anything if you can’t somehow find joy in it. And from my perspective that joy comes from within.

Initally, I considered keeping my “day” job a secret and continuing running the biz as per usual. I was worried that by telling people it’d affect my own pride in the work I do and potentially inflict doubt on myself about being a competent business owner. But, screw that! My work is all about erradicating shame. There is no shame in fucking on camera and posting it for the world to see. And, there is no shame in doing a basic job to make ends meet. And, oh my god, does it ever feel good to make those ends meet. Actually, you know what? I like my little “day” job. So far, so good. I like the routine. I like getting out of the house/office. I like the regular paycheque. And gosh darn it, I love what I do. (More on what that is exactly, coming soon.)

This month has been all about the homemade submissions. We introduced Dino Dyke and Squirt Gunn, a hot couple that filmed their scene themselves. I love these kinds of videos because it’s just them. There are no other people in the room. It’s just them and the cameras.

Coming up this week we have another couple who filmed themselves in a similar manner. Alone with the camera in their bedroom. It’s so fucking sexy. Maybe it’s just because I’m such a voyeur, but I love the bedroom sex between couples. I feel like we’ve all been given a very special invitation: an invitation into their sex-life.

My name is Bren Ryder, and I make erotic films. So, I’m going to San Francisco!

Most of the films that I make are better known as “scenes” on my website: GoodDykePorn.com. Occasionally, there’s an opportunity to make something new and beautiful from the many incredible scenes that typically act as weekly updates in our members area.

“Horsey” was just such an opportunity. The full scene version is called “Frisky Fantasy”, a scene which uses fantasy and play in sex as a sexual expression in and of itself. “Horsey” is the poetic short film version of this pervy horse-like encounter which looks more deeply into the value of play in the bedroom. I’m grateful to have created this piece with Amber Dawn. And that this awesome film festival has included it in their program.

The film will be playing in the short film competition. So, if you’re in the area I’d love your support. It’s my first trip to San Francisco and I have a feeling I’m going to have an amazing time.

We’re already halfway through January but I feel like I’m just getting started on 2011. So before I get too far into this new year, I’d like to take a look back at 2010.

*Watching Canada's Women's Hockey team win gold.*

Twenty-ten was a big year for Vancouver, BC. We held the Winter Olympics in February which had been an issue of controversy to say the least. Like a lot of queers, many of my friends are smart social activists and they strongly opposed the Olympics being held here (for many good reasons, excessive spending being one of them). Personally, I decided to embrace and enjoy it. And it was so much fun. I totally got into the sports and the events and I loved all the visitors from all over the world.

Business-wise, the year was a slow start for me. Looking at this blog I didn’t even have much of anything to say for the first 6 months. I think I was feeling fairly discouraged. I hated my day job, business wasn’t improving (financially) and I was having some challenges with creating content and having the money to keep things going. I lost my inspiration. But then I found an amazing business coach, Kona, who I’d been trying to connect with for forever. Step by step she helped me get back on track.  And then, I was recognized with two awards by the Naked Truth Adult Entertainment Awards. Inspiration returned.

Over the summer, Charlie Spats joined the Good Dyke Porn Team as a crew member, Porn Intern and eager on-screen participant (finally actualized in January 2011).
I starred in our first soft-core porn scene which featured kissing and roving hands but no sex. Gratefully, this scene was really well received by the public. In August, I screened a 4 min. artistic adaptation of “Frisky Fantasy” from GoodDykePorn.com called “Horsey” at The Vancouver Queer Film Festival which also screened at The Berlin Porn Film Festival in October.
I closed out my summer with the best move to date: I quit my day job! Woohoo! (and so far, so good, but this year will require some big moves to maintain this status).

As fall and winter approached, things kept getting better and better. I gave a workshop on butches in porn at Butch Voices in Portland, OR. That same weekend I had the honour of starring in a scene with Sophia St. James for Good Dyke Porn™. So hot!
With the help of Shanna Katz as a contributing director, Good Dyke Porn now has a few more well-known queer porn stars. Besides Sophia St. James, we now feature James Darling (with Deluxx Dash), Courtney Trouble (with Jolene Parton), and Tina Horn (with James Darling). More hot queer porn stars coming in 2011 – so to speak.

My favourite media mention this year had to be in Curve Magazine. I was in their 20th Anniversary Edition and their first annual Lesbian Awards. I was awarded the prestigious designation of “Sex Culture Curator  – Newcomer”. So amazing, especially considering my who I was up against – so to speak.

Finally, right before my typical December hibernation, Charlie Spats and I launched a queer porn news, review, and opinion blog called GoodQueerPorn.com. So much awesome queer porn is emerging now that we felt the need for a place to tie it all together. Not just as a resource for what’s out there, but also as a place to see what’s happening right now as the pace of the growth of this genre hits high-speed.

Overall, 2010 was an amazing year. I’m still riding high on the momentum and I already have fantastic events to report for the 2011 year end review. Big things are going to happen for me this year. I can feel it. Somehow, every year since the day I was born has been better than the year before. I look forward to this enduring pattern of joy in my life.

Happy New Year!

I am so excited for this weekend. I’m doing finishing touches on my presentation and sorting out final details for my upcoming porn shoot. It’s going to be a busy whirlwind of a weekend. I’ll be doing a lot this weekend and sleeping isn’t going to be one of them.

The Portland, Oregan regional conference of Butch Voices is on this Saturday, October 2, 2010.

This event extravaganza is a spin off from last year’s national convergence of everything butch at the first Butch Voices conference in Oakland, CA. There have already been regional conferences this year in Texas, New York and coming up in LA.

Me and a van full of butches from Vancouver, Canada, are going to drive down to Portland on Friday afternoon. At that point we’ll all scatter to our individual accommodations and get ready for the big day, conference day. I’ll be staying with Sophia St. James so I’ll be meeting her at her party, “Love Hurts” (it sure does, doesn’t it, but in that good way…not doubt there’ll be a lot of good hurting going on at this party).

Saturday is going to be a full day: 8am registration and workshops from morning ’til mine. My workshop is at 3pm and is entitled Good Butch Porn: Butch Representation in Porn. I’ll be showing butches getting nasty from my own footage of Good Dyke Porn™, offering my own perspectives and observations and inviting others to speak up, as well. I’ve never put on a workshop before, but I figure as long as I’m showing hot butches fucking then I really can’t go wrong.

I’m looking forward to meeting a few online friends and acquaintances. Fresh from the New York  Butch Voices conference Sinclair Sexsmith of Sugarbutch fame will be giving a workshop on writing first thing in the morning, called, “Telling Our Stories”.

Everyone is the expert of their own life. Everyone knows themselves, their stories, their triumphs, their heartaches, better than anyone else. We all come from somewhere. We all have had struggles, heartaches, successes, breakthroughs, knockdowns, sideswipes, joy, that have brought us from the people we used to be to the person that we are today, and we butches have our own unique and similar stories. The rewards of starting to tell these stories, to write them down, to have others witness our stories, can be massive.

Later, Kyle Jones will be giving a workshop on gender identity. Sounds like a great workshop and I look forward to meeting Kyle, as well.

When it comes to our own identity, each of us is simultaneously an expert and a student. The goal of the genderqueer workshop is to allow participants to share their own experiences in gender identity exploration and gain insight from the experiences of others.

And a handful of others, as well. This is just the tip of the butch iceberg. Oh the butchness abounds. I look forward to every one of the workshops that I’ll be able to attend. But, I know I’m going to be nervous about giving mine. I’ll try not to fret about it too much and just enjoy each moment of butch bonding and masculine celebrating that’s going to go on all day long.

Another friend of mine is going to be showcasing their work at the Butch Buffet. There will be a lot of talent there, so follow the link to see for yourself. Worth noting is the film “Butch Tits” by Jen Crothers. Jen will be road tripping with me and I’ve seen the film and it’s fantastic. I’m especially partial to butch tits just because I have a couple of my own that I hold near to my heart. And the film is really well done and a perfect celebration of female masculinity.

So, after the hot sex party, long day of bromance, wild celebration of all things butch and then perhaps a party or two, first thing Sunday morning I go to work. I shoot a scene with Sophia St. James before hitting the road back home. Sophia was planning on driving up to Vancouver during Pride to stay with me, celebrate and shoot a scene. That didn’t work out because of a flat time and now I get to be in her town and her home and we’re going to set the stage for our production once again. I haven’t met her yet, but we’ve emailed and talked on the phone and skyped once. Plus, I’ve heard great things from friends who know her. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a really great connection. I’m really looking forward to “working” with her. Of course, I’ll be nervous as hell as I always am when it comes to shooting a scene, never mind being in a scene. It’s going to be great.

Follow me on Twitter for all the latest updates.

Or, if you don’t do Twitter, then be my fan on Facebook and “Like” Bren Ryder. All my updates will be posted on that page, as well (not my profile though, so become a fan, my friends).

I like to play with the blog convention of titling articles starting with “How To” or “10 Ways To”. It’s a trick to entice people to read your article because the Internet is for information and clearly those kinds of articles will contain very useful information. If your familiar with this blog then you’ll know that I occasionally use this convention as a way of telling my own stories. Not as trick on you, necessarily, but a trick for my own writing brain. Somehow this all seems that much easier to write when I pretend I’m passing on some kind of wisdom. Whereas, in reality, I’m simply exploring the question…”How Does One Win At Quitting?”

The quitting that I’m referring to is my day job as a window cleaner. I’ve written a few articles in the past regarding my constant struggle with working the damn day job to make ends meet. Once again, I was faced with a situation that wasn’t working for me and I made the choice to move on, step away, take the leap…right off the cliff into the world of full-time self-employment. I’ve got a few oddly placed unsure nets below me and I’m barely hanging on but I am hanging on. As my determination grows, so does the strength of my grip. Alright, that’s enough of the metaphors.

So, how am I going to win at quitting?

At this point, I pretty much think of success in terms of paying my rent and eating on a regular basis, while continuing to cover all my business expenses. I think I’m about halfway to achieving my goal. This means I need to get creative with my budgeting – both business and personal – and get some help on the side. One way I’m “getting creative” is to use porn as currency whenever possible. Tapping into the brilliance of bartering, I’ve been able to enjoy the amazing work of friends’ published books and live shows. I’ve traded porn for haircuts, home-cooked meals, drinks, and pretty much anything and everything I can think of.

Memberships and DVD’s aren’t the only things I trade. I will clean your windows, help you with your website, videotape a film or event, tutor you on Final Cut Pro, cat-sit, dog walk, promote your work, help you move heavy objects and, well, what do you need…let’s talk. I’ve got a few leads on some essential living supplies and services and I’m always on the look out for deals, free stuff and trades. Sometimes the $10 or $20 that I would normally spend without a second thought could keep me fed for a week. If you have stuff you want to give away or you want to help in some way, here’s my wish list (which includes my survival list – surviving is clearly a wish of mine, but why stop there).

So, surviving is one way to “win at quitting”, but the most important reason for quitting is to have the time and the focus to put in the work to make my business profitable. My biggest challenge with succeeding right now is sticking to my self-discipline. I’m the kind of person who loves to do nothing all day. It’s not fulfilling necessarily, but, for some reason I feel compelled to wile away my time like nobody’s business. Even though I hear everybody struggles with procrastination, I find myself to be quite an anomaly among my friends and lovers. I suspect that’s because I’m naturally drawn to qualities that I don’t personally possess, like drivenness, competitiveness and raw passion. Hey, there’s a possible trade: you show me how to be more driven and I’ll show you how to do less.

Unfortunately, these qualities don’t rub off quite that easily. I’m just taking it one step at a time, one task at a time, one day at a time. I’m cutting back on Facebook time, limiting my tv watching and scheduling a comfortable amount of free time so I don’t completely lose myself in my own endeavour to improve myself.

Succeeding is important to me. Living my life the way I want to is important to me. I refuse to let go.

Currently, I run my porn business in my spare time and I work a day job to pay my bills. It’s an easy, moderately physical job doing window cleaning. I’ve been doing this “shitty job” off and on for about 12 years. I have phases of hating it and phases of loving it. It’s good to get out of the house, to move my body and listen to music on my ipod and work with an immediate return on time invested. But, of course, it’s not really what I want to do with my time and the managers in this industry tend to use control tactics for methods of management, which drives me crazy. I don’t play games in any of my relationships, so why would I tolerate it for work?

Lately, I’ve been trying to work out how I can do both and enjoy both and make money and take time off. There has been some progress in this direction, but more setbacks than anything else.

Then, a wonderful thing happened. I started to hate my job again. I can’t stand it. I don’t want to spend my time doing that shit. It takes away from the much more important work of creating dyke porn, promoting it to the world, and engaging in the porn community as an advocate for ethical and positive sexual representation in porn.

I can’t quit my job out right just yet (though, I wish I could). Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of porn submissions and local people who want to shoot scenes and I need to use the little money that’s coming in for them. But, I’m motivated. I’m motivated by hate. Grrrrr. I hate my job. Ha ha. I don’t hate anything, actually. But, I’m going to pretend that I’m letting this job plant hatred in my heart. Hatred for the godforsaken evil of the fucking day job.

The last time I hated my job I began an experiment in thinking that I had more time in my day than I actually did – just as a mental hokus pokus sort of thing (more flakiness of which I’d be happy to reveal to you, in time). Then I got fired. It was awesome! The best thing that could have happened. And I managed to work the biz for almost a year. Although, I’m still paying back my ex-girlfriend for her support. It’s time for that to happen again, sort of. Here’s what’s going to happen: this crawl towards financial sustainability is going to turn into a walk, then a run, then I’m going cross over to a truly independent producer of fucking good dyke porn. Independent of studios and corporate producers, but more importantly, independent of day job managers that validate their existance by controlling me and my time.

People frequently ask me how they can help to contribute to the success of this business. I’m still trying to figure out ways you can do that for free, but, the best way is to buy a membership. If I have money to pay my bills then I have time to make porn and pay people for their bravery. One of my favourite things about being an entrepreneur is how my work gets money into the hands of queer women around the world. From nothing, comes creative works of sexual expression, and from multiple contributions comes lump sum payments direct to the performer for that work. A beautiful porn economy. Help me to make my dream come true, buy a membership.

This video might be true for me sooner than later (I hope):

December is suddenly upon us and we’re zipping through it like nobody’s business. That’s how it feels to me. Last month I set the intention to participate in the NaNoWriMo – National November Writing Month – and write everyday for a month. It didn’t quite work out. I got behind and lost interest pretty quickly. I’m a Gemini so it’s hard for me to stick to anything for very long. But, I don’t feel bad about it. It was my first attempt. Perhaps next year I’ll stick with it a bit longer.

My intention for writing during the month of November was to create a Dyke Porn Manifesto. It is my one goal for 2009 and I was going to spend the month producing a lot of words and then take December to edit it all into a comprehensible manifesto. Since that didn’t happen, I’m going to alter the plan a little bit so I can still achieve my one goal for 2009. Next week I’m going to spend one full day writing out everything that’s in my head that says all I need to say about the Dyke Porn Manifesto at this time. I have one day to get it all out in writing. Then, when I take my Christmas holidays I’ll be spending a week in the middle of the prairies during the frigid winter with my parents. So, at that time I’ll put the words together in a concise article that will be available for viewing on the blog. That’s my new intention.

Intentions are funny. Whatever you intend is always something that you really want because to intend for it is to place a strong desire on making it happen. But, at the same time, for the magic of intention to really work we need to be unconcerned about the ultimate outcome: unattached. This is not to say that I don’t care about achieving the outcome of my intention but if it doesn’t come into fruition then I am comfortable with that as a potential outcome.

Perhaps that is what is meant by being unattached. It is simply being open to all potential outcomes. One potential outcome is getting every wish and desire granted. It is possible so I have to remain open to that. The absence of the ideal outcome is also a possibility and I need to be open and accepting of that possibility, as well.

I could intend to win the lottery. But, I have to be willing to do what it takes for that to happen. I would have to buy a lottery ticket regularly and allow, for the rest of my life, to either win the lottery or not. All outcomes need to be allowed to exist. Personally, I don’t actually want to win the lottery. It doesn’t appeal to me at all, so I don’t buy lottery tickets or think about wanting to win.

These days I’m thinking about a future where I write for my full-time income. By accepting that I may never achieve this I am making room for the existence of all possibilities including my most desired outcome. So, like buying a lottery ticket everyday, I simply begin to do what’s necessary to write for a living. I write. If you are reading this then you know that I’m already getting started in achieving this outcome.

But, when will my intention be realized? How long should I keep trying, keep intending? That depends on how badly I want it. I think the length of time it takes to achieve my most desired outcome is going to be  paradoxically linked to my ability to be unattached to the outcome coupled with the intensity of my desire to achieve it.

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Writing is a relatively new venture for me. I’ve written papers in University and I’ve been keeping a journal for many years. But, eventually I’d like to turn writing into another art form that I can use to share my perspective of the world with anyone who’s interested in reading it. I’m not exactly sure how it’s all going to come about. For now, I’m content to continue to develop writing skills, see what’s important to me, figure out what my perspective is and write in my blog. The problem is that I feel really self-conscious about it. I’m shy. I joke about my shyness to my friends because I’m a porn star to a certain degree – to the degree that I take off my clothes and fuck on camera for the purpose of making porn. But, I’m shy.

I don’t post blog articles on here as often as I’d like to but when I do it’s usually about how I feel about things or what I’m up to. Currently, I have two categories for my blog articles, “Me” and “The Work”. Most of the time it’s about both of those things. Because why would I be writing about me if I wasn’t writing about the work I’m doing and how could I write about the work I’m doing without writing about myself.

My intention for this blog has always been to share my life with you. I figure it might be interesting to see the mundane goings-on of a dyke pornographer. Everything I do is at my computer, in my apartment and occasionally in fun and interesting places with sexy porn friends. As a voyeur, I know that I would find this kind of thing interesting to follow.

But, then the damn self-conscious editor gets into my head: “boring, who would want to read that, think of something interesting, stop being so lazy and do something with your life, that’s not even a sentence, etc”.

When I do porn I don’t think about the people around the world that will be looking at my naked body, I think about creating something new and important. I fuck like no one is watching. I know that people will appreciate what we’re doing and that turns me on.

Here I am exposing my thoughts and my life to you through writing. What will you think of me? What difference does it make, really? I’m not ashamed of my pussy and I should not be ashamed of my thoughts and their written form. You might not want to see me dance when I think no one’s looking, but here you can see me blog like no one is reading.